Posts Tagged ‘grooming horses’
Cyndie Leaves
It’s not the first time this has happened and it won’t be the last. One minute she was here, the next minute she was gone. Cyndie has flown to Florida to spend a little time with her mom and our daughter where the water isn’t frozen.
Before she left, Cyndie took advantage of one of our pleasant afternoons to visit the horses and seized on an opportunity to untangle some of the “fairy knots” in Mix’s mane.
Mix almost stayed put long enough for her to get them fully separated. Combing out the rest of the mane with some conditioner will have to wait for another day. I look forward to a time when Cyndie has regained her full mobility and can return to bringing her precious energy to the horses in the paddocks every day again.
Hopefully, a little sunshine and exercise in the swimming pool will do wonders for the rehabilitation of her ankle.
Her scenery has definitely changed. One might even describe that as an improvement. (Individual opinions will vary.)
I am holding down the ranch on my own in her absence, which isn’t all that different from the previous four months of her restricted ambulatory abilities. The main thing that changes is my diet becomes a lot less fancy. She did make a point of baking a fresh batch of cookies before she left, so the management of my self-control and willpower won’t be getting a break.
Full disclosure: The primary incentive for managing my consumption of cookies is not for health reasons. I need to pace myself so they will last until Cyndie’s return.
.
.
Self Braided
Two of our four horses have a habit of repeatedly getting their manes tangled into braided snarls. Since none of the four have shown interest in standing still to receive grooming, I have done nothing to interrupt the development of the tangles Mix and Mia have been developing for the last four months.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
They seem to bother me more than they do the horses. I asked the folks of “This Old Horse” if they thought the horses minded having those tangles. In their impression, the answer was basically, “No.” That triggered my decision to just leave their manes alone.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I’m thinking the fix, if and when it might happen, may involve scissors more than a brush or comb. I also believe it will be a two-person project so that one person (John) can occupy the horse’s attention while the other (Cyndie) does the detangling. Most likely, treats will be offered as part of the process.
The only downside I see of combing out their manes for Mix and Mia is that it won’t last. They have proven their natural talent for self-braiding often enough for us to know the tangles will likely continue to reappear. The prevention for that will come when those two decide they like having their manes combed out. As soon as that happens, we will be happy to groom them regularly and often.
It’s up to them. They are the ones who will show us whether the tangles bother them or not.
I wonder if the only reason Swings and Light don’t develop tangles in their manes is because they don’t like their manes getting messed up.
As the old saying goes, if it hurts when you do “something” then stop doing it.
Based on that, I have no problem accepting that Mix and Mia don’t care about the tangles at all.
.
.
Not Deep
If there is any consolation to be found in the mud we are currently enduring in the paddocks, it’s the fact that it isn’t very deep. Now, I’m not sure how much of that is a result of the underlying frost that has yet to thaw or the base of limestone screenings we’ve established over the years.
It is an entirely slippery, sloppy mess to move around on, but at least it doesn’t swallow my boots like deep mud does. I keep wanting to simply pack it down smooth but it doesn’t really pack. It just squishes out from under our boots or the horses’ hooves and leaves a new impression.
You can see my frequent back and forth path while returning to the wheelbarrow to dump scoops of what is now mud-poop. I’m collecting a mix that seems about 60% mud and 40% manure lately. It was actually easier to scrape the winter’s worth of mushy droppings off the mostly frozen ground than it is trying to scoop daily fresh poop this week.
Yesterday afternoon, Cyndie offered the horses a little grooming while they ate feed from the pans. Light accepted a little attention but didn’t last long before she decided she’d had enough.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
They seem to prefer their muddy coats for the time being.
Think about it. If Cyndie did succeed in brushing any of them head to toe, you know what they would do? Walk out, lay down, and roll around as soon as she finished.
It’s what they do.
.
.
Tidying Up
With temperatures climbing into the 40s yesterday, Cyndie and I saw an opportunity to do a little tidying up around the property. After the most recent bouts of quasi-winter rain-sleet-snow precipitation, an annoying icy, glazed mass of packed snow had become the surface of our driveway.
I took out an ice scraper and pushed away at the soft, wet edges of the ice pack in front of the house. The portion that will come up without resistance is visibly obvious. I focused on that, picking the low-hanging fruit. After working the edges and then pushing the crumble of snow and ice to the side with my shovel, I looked back to see there was already a whole new measure of visibly obvious portions that begged attention.
How could I not keep going? After three times around, I had the whole upper platform of our driveway clean to the pavement. The melt was happening at an amazing rate.
Cyndie was down with the horses, planning to give each of them some individual attention and grooming. That was my next stop, thinking I could hang out with them and clean up manure while she brushed them out. Even though there was a cloud cover painting the day with a hue of gray, the air was absolutely calm, allowing the warm temperature to feel perfectly comfortable without getting hot.
Legacy’s tail has always grown long, but Cyndie noticed it had reached a point where he was stepping on it, so she decided to give it a trim.
After scooping fresh manure from under the overhang, I fanned out a little further around the paddock and picked up some of the newly exposed piles emerging from the melting snow. Like the last couple of winters, we have been dumping much of the season’s worth of manure right inside the paddock.
Since much of the manure is frozen by the time we get around to scooping it up, there isn’t much in the way of composting that goes on in the pile, so it just keeps getting bigger and bigger with every passing day.
Continuing with the theme of tidying up, I decided to try giving the giant mass a little more shape by cleaning up around the edges. I was surprised to discover over the last few winter seasons that despite the dark color of the pile, if it starts out frozen, if left alone, the center can stay frozen well into May or June.
We placed this pile at a spot that we would like to fill in effort to reduce the amount of slope, but it becomes a long slow process to move from an ugly pile of manure to an unnoticeable natural ground cover nicely filling a low spot.
All part of the ongoing process of running a neat and tidy ranch operation, regardless what the weather presents.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Relative Something 