Posts Tagged ‘Swings’
Scary Moment
If I haven’t already ranted enough about how long the grass had grown at home while we were up north for ten days over the Independence Day holiday, let me add one last exclamation point. After I completed a second round of mowing, there were still enough leftover grass clippings to rake into windrows for making yard bales.
While I was playing around in that small plot above the barn, I heard some knocking on one of the horse’s feed buckets. We try to bring the buckets in after the horses have finished their grain, but I had left one out because there was a portion uneaten, and Mia was showing interest in it. If we leave the buckets indefinitely, the horses have a history of messing with them, and the metal handles get all bent out of shape.
After three knocks, I decided I better retrieve that last bucket before it gets wrecked. To my surprise, when I stepped through the door to the overhang, I saw it was Swings who was knocking the bucket in the spot where Mix usually eats, and she was standing with one foot in it.
Thankfully, she appeared totally calm with the situation, but at the same time, in a somewhat precarious position. Concerned that things could quickly take a turn for the worse, I bent down to assist her in getting out of this predicament. I reached through the fence boards and grabbed the sides of the bucket with each hand to hold it down, hoping she would then simply lift her foot out.
It didn’t work that way. I couldn’t tell if she didn’t want to pull it out or couldn’t pull it out. I got the impression her hoof might be wedged in the bottom, but it wasn’t clear since I couldn’t tell if she was pulling up or pushing down. The bucket was moving around and eventually pinned my gloved hand against the fence board hard enough that I began to bellow at the pain as Swings appeared to try standing on the hanging bucket with all her weight.
It was a scary moment. In my increasing panic, I tried to determine what was going to give. The bucket needed to be lifted upward to come out of the latch on the strap it was hanging from. I had no way to cut the strap in that instant. The metal handle looked like it was bending a bit, but the heavy plastic bucket wasn’t looking near its breaking point. It pretty much depended on what Swings was going to do next.
Luckily, she still seemed totally calm about the mess we were in, even with my screaming. Somehow, she shifted just enough that I was able to get my hand free, and it seemed undamaged. The residual tenderness of the bruise didn’t show up until later. Just as mysteriously, the two of us did something that allowed me to finally pull the bucket down while she moved to get her hoof out.
I don’t know how she got her foot in there in the first place, and if it was intended or not, but it occurred to me that she might have been unable to lift it high enough again to get it out. I’m still not clear about whether it was wedged in or if it was just her not taking the weight off that kept it stuck.
Thank goodness for the happy ending. I was home alone at the time, so that heightened my distress during the peak drama. And hooray for the other three horses remaining chill throughout it all. Once Swings had all four feet back on the ground and I was standing there holding the mildly reshaped bucket, it was as if they were all thinking, “What was all the fuss about?”
Nothing to see here. Carry on with your normal healthy horse routines. I’m going to go back to raking up grass clippings.
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Camera Progress
The testing phase of adding a WiFi surveillance camera to view the horses was completed successfully yesterday. Julian figured out that I needed to get a newer version of the camera software that would recognize the serial number of our new camera. After we installed that fix, the rest of the process went pretty smoothly.
With a cable strung out of a cracked open window in the den and the repeater lying on the roof, we set the camera on a step ladder by the paddock fence.
Swings appeared to supervise the strange activity of us setting up boards teetering in the ladder and stringing extension cords for power.
It worked! Julian selected a camera with pan and tilt features so we will be able to adjust the view to monitor the waterer and portion of both fields as well as the hay shed and driveway. He also used his coding skills to demonstrate a potential option that Cyndie exclaimed would keep her endlessly watching from the comfort of our bed.
We’ll be able to watch the horses on our televisions. The sound of snorting horses reverberated through our subwoofer to our great delight. It’s almost like being there!
Now if we could feed and clean up after them remotely, we could stay in bed all day! Oh, except we also have a dog.
Never mind.
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Swings Escapes
In a moment of brutal reality that revealed the hazards of a lapse in attention, I failed on two counts while tending to the horses after their evening feeding last night. I stepped through the gates to pick up empty feed pans without closing multiple doors behind me. Then, I allowed my panicky reaction to overcome my attempts to calmly coax Swings back inside.
Sure, they look calm now, but just a few minutes before taking that picture, there was a lot of running, snorting, and neighing going on.
I noticed Swings start moving just as I was about to step back through the gates with an empty pan in my hands. I reached for the gate to keep her on the correct side of it but she moved uncharacteristically faster than I could react. Things then quickly went from bad to worse.
My response of, “No, no, no, no…” didn’t help much as I meant to implore her to stop but just as much was voicing my thoughts of really not wanting this to be happening. I was alone with them, as Cyndie had taken Delilah and a wheelbarrow to clean up after having pruned some raspberry bushes. The two big sliding doors of the barn were wide open.
I knew that if Swings stepped through the little half door I had not closed she would be able to choose whatever destination she wanted. Without hesitation, as I fumbled unsuccessfully from behind her to try altering her progress, she knocked over a fan to walk into the barn. As I feared, she then continued right outside through the big doors.
Instead of remaining calm and encouraging her to stay put, I simultaneously scrambled around to reach a lead rope, yell for Cyndie, try to type a text to Cyndie, whistle for Cyndie’s attention, and plead with Swings to stay put. I didn’t want my whistle to startle the horses, so it was barely effective at drawing Cyndie’s attention.
The other three horses in the paddock were getting riled up over Swings being on the outside and Swings kept changing her mind about where she wanted to go. It was beginning to feel rather like an episode of Keystone Cops. Horses running to and fro and me flailing around with a phone and a lead rope trying to position myself where I could steer Swings back toward the barn.
Luckily, Cyndie did pick up on my yells and attempts to [sort of] whistle for her attention and came to help. Swings decided to trot around the back of the barn. At least this took her farther into our property instead of the front side where she had an easy path over the hill and off our property.
Swings headed out of sight around the bend beyond the chicken coop but returned before we had a chance to head after her. She started up the trail past the compost piles but came back from that, too. I steered her away from going around the barn again and Cyndie prepared the closest gate back into the paddock, getting shocked by the electric fence in her haste.
Meanwhile, the horses in the paddock continued to freak out over the whole scene. By this point, Swings seemed ready to rejoin them and it just took the right circling around for her to arrive at the gate Cyndie was holding open.
Just like that, the whole adventure was over, and everyone returned to grazing. Shortly after, Mix came up to me at the gates under the overhang and I noticed her breathing still hadn’t settled all the way down to normal. I felt like she was commiserating with me over the drama we had just experienced.
I latched all the gates and securely closed the barn doors, freshly retrained about prudent management of access points at ALL times.
Lesson re-learned. Thanks for that, Swings.
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Precious Moment
There wasn’t anything particularly special about my taking on the afternoon chores after work yesterday, other than it is usually Cyndie who fills that role on days I commute to the far side of the Twin Cities. She was on adventures of her own in the Cities yesterday, so I changed clothes when I got home and took Delilah out for a walk.
The rain shower I had driven through to get home had moved on but it had soaked things enough that the trees were subsequently dripping almost as fast as drops fall from a rain cloud.
Delilah veered off the trail in pursuit of some enticing scent. I had no intention of following her and stood my ground until she figured it out and retraced her steps back to me. She is so funny in the way her face communicates that she understands the drill and quickly resumes her position on the trail ahead of me, as if to demonstrate doing so was her plan all along.
When we came around to the barn, she marched inside to the spot we always hook her leash to and waited patiently while I tended to the horses.
They were all calm and quiet, and a little wet from the rain. After I dumped manure on the compost pile and came back to collect their empty feed pans, Swings approached me at the fence. I offered some scratches and a little loving attention.
She soaked it up and stayed engaged with me for an extended session.
The longer she lingered, the more I wanted to love her up with scratches and massage.
It became difficult to tell who was doing the loving and who was on the receiving end. The warmth was definitely flowing in both directions.
It was a truly precious equine moment.
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Swings Photographed
I didn’t set out to capture portraits of all the horses the other day. Moments after capturing the image of Mix that I posted yesterday, I turned to find Swings uphill from where I was standing. I had to change my position a couple of times to remove my shadow from the frame. The result provided a shadow of Swings that, for me, makes up for the other aspects of the shot I don’t like so much.
The background robs some of the definition her outlines deserve but I’m not discarding the image just because of that.
I like the way her shadow stands up against the wall behind her.
I like how the shadow appears to have its own personality.
I like how the outline of the head of the shadow is better defined than her actual head.
I like how Swings’ physical features and coloring come through looking totally defiant of her actual age.
Swings’ full Thoroughbred racing name is “Gate Swinger.” She was born in Kentucky and started racing as a two-year-old. Over her four years of running she earned $116,812. Swings is currently 26-years-old. That is approximately 75-and-a-half in human years. She is the oldest of the four now living with us.
When the horses arrived at Wintervale last April, one of the things we noticed about Swings was anxiety that led her to pace back and forth along a short distance of the paddock fence, from the barn overhang to the gate through which they arrived. At one point, I tried walking with her from outside the fence. She gave me a look like I was weird, but kept pacing.
I changed my tactic and switched to walking opposite her direction, back and forth so we passed each other in the middle. It caused her to give up for a while, but then she soon returned to pacing. I saw the other horses occasionally interrupt her pacing, as if to break the spell she was under.
After a few days her anxiety and that habit of pacing seemed to dissipate. Now she seems like the calmest of the four of them. As the eldest mare, she could easily take the role of herd leader because she presents herself as the most regal, but she doesn’t show a need to hold that complete dominance over all the others.
In fact, the order of hierarchy among the herd is a little complex. Swings will take over Mix’s feed pan in a gesture of dominance and Mix holds command over both Light and Mia, but Light is able to move Swings off her pan without any fuss.
The average life expectancy of Thoroughbreds is 25-28. Swings looks so good and has settled into such a zen-like calmness now that we will be very surprised if she doesn’t thrive well beyond the average range.
I will have plenty of opportunities to capture a picture of her that properly reveals how gorgeous all her features really are.
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Relative Something 