The Worst Part of Having Pets

I had a rough day a few days ago when I walked into the garage and found one of my beloved barn cats badly hurt and bleeding. In hysterics I called my vet, then my mother to see if she could take my kids while I dealt with Winnie, and my husband who was less than sympathetic, reminding me that we had plenty of other cats.

But the fact is that we only had one Winnie. Just two days before she'd come strutting across the yard with the biggest mouse I'd ever seen. From the time she was born and our Aussie, Sadie, crawled in the box with the kittens, pretending they were hers, Winnie just loved her. You never saw Sadie outside without Winnie glued to her side, rubbing all over her. She rubbed all over everyone, loved to be in your lap, to be petted, even let my two year old daughter carry her around. Just because she was 'just' a barn cat didn't mean she wasn't special.

Well, I took her to the vet and we figured that she must have been struck by a car, her pelvis and both back legs were broken. She had enough injuries that we knew it would just be torture on her to try to save her and so I stayed with her as the vet put her down. I cried alot that day and spent alot of time back home hugging my other cats.

I would have let it rest at that probably, but as I picked my kids up that day, my mom suggested that I use my blog to vent a little bit. I'm not the only person in the world to loose a pet, after all. She was right ofcourse. I know that these things happen when you have animals, but that doesn't make it any more bearable. But by getting my thoughts out there I do feel better, like I have some closure, I just hope I don't have to use my blog for this purpose again for a long, long time.

Wanted: Mowers. Must Run On Grass

The horse borrowing business has cropped up almost over night in my neck of the woods. Even very un-horsey people are stringing up temporary fences and frantically searching for horses to borrow. Or goats, llamas, sheep, or cows will do to.

As I've mentioned in my past blogs, we've had an exhorbitant amount of rain recently here in eastern Idaho. It has begun, though, to let up and the result is abundant greenery. The grass is growing like crazy and the fields and countrysides that are normally short and turning brown by mid-June are knee-high, thick and green, and going to seed.

As for the horses this can be good and bad. We have a ten-acre pasture that houses at the moment one of my paints and several of my in-laws' thoroughbreds. Last year two to three acres of it was a dust patch where hardly even a weed could grow. Now the grass is so tall and thick our Australian shepard completely disapears when she ventures into the pasture and the seven horses haven't even made a dent.

Now grazing like this can be a godsend for the growing yearlings and the pregnant mares that need the nutrients, and their developing bodies are thriving on the abundance. However, other horses, including my Tickles, have just grown fat, which can be very dangerous, even deadly, for horses; so she and another obese mare have been cut off from pasture grass. They are confined on about a half acre behind the house forlornely munching their dry hay and trying to look miserable.

Meanwhile our friends and neighbors are constantly shuffling horses around. Anyone with a little land needs grazers and anyone with horses, cattle, goats,etc... are in high demand for people to 'borrow' thier animals to take care of all the grass.

It's a good time to be a horse. But an awful time to be a horse with a slow metabolism, at least according to Tickles.

Stick To the Old Ways If It Kills You

Yesterday I glanced out my front window and saw a couple of neighbor kids no older than six or seven riding down the road on thier horses, one of which had a young foal in tow darting along between the two big horses. Even in this laid back country community, I was a little shocked that this was allowed unsupervised. I can't imagine letting my children ride in such an unsafe manner no matter how good their riding skill at that age.

Of course there were no helmets, in this part of the country helmets are not considered appropriate, these two had on cowboy hats. But my main concern was the mare and foal, no matter how well broke she may be usually, mares can be unpredictable when they are distracted by their baby. We always make sure our foals are halter-broke within the first week, and if their mothers are to be ridden,(ours rarely are) the babies must know how to pony (that's be lead by the person riding the other horse). I could just picture that baby dart into the path of a car or truck and the mare freak out. What would those kids do?

I know in rural parts of the country, like eastern Idaho, it is a matter of pride to maintain the western way of life, the old ways of doing things. But isn't it just plain stupid to allow dangerous situations to occur just because grandpa did it that way back before helmets were invented? And cars( if there were cars at all) went slower on what were dirt roads then, and people just didn't know any better because there had never been any studies done to show how potentially harmful these things could be.

Words like 'quaint' and 'down-home' are all well and good but nowadays people should know better and use some common sense and better judgement. That's my opinion anyway and I guess I'll stick with it. Lord knows around here opinions don't change too quick.

Boarding is the Horse-Person's Boardroom

A while ago I went to visit a gal who bought a horse from us last year and has since become a friend. I drop the barn where she boards whenever I'm in the area to deliver a carrot to her stall and catch up on my need for horse-talk with like minded people. I boarded for years before I brought my guys home and I must say that one thing I miss is interaction with other horse- people.

There is just something about the atmosphere at a public barn. Everyone is wrapped up with their seperate horse issues, disciplines, schedules, but there is always common ground to be found. Always someone who would appreciate hearing about how Tickles somehow managed to get a clump of hay in the middle of her back and performed the most amazing horsey acrobatics trying to reach it. There's usually someone to chat with as you're cleaning stalls or grooming, and riding buddies aren't hard to come by either.

Don't get me wrong. I love having my kids right here in the backyard and there are too many hastles involved with boarding for me to do it again unless I had to. Aside from the high cost of board, feed, and travel to and from the barn, I no longer have to worry about my tools and tack wandering off, my horses being fed things that are not in their diet, and countless other annoyances. I hated having them so far away, I love walking out the back door to visit with them any time I want.

But I do enjoy briefly re-immersing myself in the busy barn enviornment from time to time. I admire the two big indoor arenas and wash stalls. I laugh over a few funny horse moments and share some gossip, I make the proper comments over the horses recently put on the market "He's so pretty...sweet personality...such a shame she doesn't have time for him anymore..." yada yada. It's as important I think for horse-people to have bonding time with each other as it is with their horses. So consider it therapy, not necessarily aroma therapy, but whatever floats your boat.