Sometimes, things just happen

Manny has been thoroughly enjoying his new home. He even made friends with the two bossy Arabian mares and they allowed him to eat with them. He greets his human at the gate every day and follows her around the pasture in play. Just yesterday they were out playing together in the cold and mud, but neither one would have had it any other way. Manny is loved.


Early this morning, Manny's legs folded beneath him for the last time.


He hadn't gone off his feed, he wasn't sluggish and didn't seem sick. Doc had just checked him out in his new home a few weeks ago. There were no injuries and no cause for concern. There wasn't any sign in the mud that he had struggled to rise.


I think Manny's heart had just had enough. Megan is heartbroken and I can't blame her at all. But I hope she realizes that she gave Manny what he needed in his final days... a kind and gentle human all his own.

Spring in December

After weeks of frigid cold, rain, and snow, today was the perfect day to fly a kite. It was 70 degrees and sunny, with a warm breeze blowing from the South. It would have been an incredible day for a ride. Or to finally finish the chicken coop. Or to work on several of the million or so other projects that we have going on in the great outdoors.

Of course I was on-call for work. Do you even need to ask?

But all was not lost! I dragged phone and laptop out onto the porch, threw caution to the wind, and went out to the garden. On December 27th. What was I thinking???

I was thinking that those four bales of straw we bought two months ago weren't going to spread themselves out. I was thinking the perennial herbs weren't going to prune themselves. And with all of the seed catalogs that have been pouring in lately, I was simply in the mood to get dirt under my nails.

#567 on the list of things that I suck at: guesstimating how many bales of straw it will take to put the garden to bed for the winter. Four bales weren't nearly enough -- I need at least five more.

Before I spread out the straw I cut back the herbs. The hyssop and catnip were still not only green, but actually growing. How dare they. Once I cut back the catnip it wasn't long before Woogie took up residence in the bed to roll about in the catnip and purr contentedly in the sun.

At least while I was working in the garden I got to do some horse-watching. After the main herd finished up their morning hay, they all took turns napping in the sun. At first Hunter tried to do the macho thing and stand guard while Meghan and Jewel slept...

but eventually the warmth of the sun was too much even for him and chivalry died right then and there.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! I cleaned house (finally!) and Glenn butchered a few more of the roosters. I think I've said before that we do things a little backwards around here, right? :)

A Jake Update

I simply don't know how to say this. So I'm going to come right out with it and you guys can do with it what you wish.

When April took Jake to the vet on Friday the vet at first thought that the distended belly was from worms. When the vet couldn't find any evidence of worms in the stool, he took an x-ray.

Rocks. Stones. Gravel.

Jake had been eating whatever he could find to ease the hunger pains in his belly. Whatever he could find to just survive. It seems the only thing his chain allowed him to reach was the gravel in the driveway.

When April told me, I was stunned. Shocked. I sat in disbelief for hours. The vet says that the gravel will pass in the coming weeks and Jake will be okay. That didn't stop me from entertaining myself by coming up with all sorts of ways to punish, torture, and starve the scum sucking idiots that did this to him.

I still can't look at one of my dogs and not think of Jake. And tear up just a little.

Saving Jake

Jake is a dog. He's a black lab something or other that lived on a chain in a yard in Wyoming. Jake had no shelter, little food or water, and no attention. His owners didn't love him. They didn't want him. But they kept him anyway and fed him when they felt like it.

April is a friend and coworker of mine and her parents live down the road from Jake. On Christmas Eve, April drove over to inquire about the dog. Did they want him? Could she have him? His owners were too lazy to try to find a home for him on their own, or even take him to the pound. But when opportunity knocked and they were able to get rid of their "problem" without having to put forth any effort of their own, they jumped at the chance. April drove back to her parent's place with a very happy and mud caked Jake in the back seat.

Jake, after some grooming to remove all the dried mud. Note the distended belly, atrophied muscles, and visible back and hip bones.

April has been feeding Jake tiny amounts of food and water every couple of hours. The first time he ate he turned around and threw it back up. The poor guy just wasn't used to getting food. He had to go out half a dozen times during the first night because his intestines and bladder were still unused to having anything to process.

Yesterday, April let him off the leash to see what he'd do. Jake ran. And ran. And then ran some more. Imagine being free to run for the first time in years! But the best part... the absolute best thing ever, was that he came back to April. Isn't it amazing, that only after 12 hours he already knew where his new home was? He didn't go back to the chain and yard that he'd known for years, he went back to April. The human that had shown compassion, love, and more importantly, fed him.

After only a day and a half he's turned into a ravenous and energetic dog, happy to be alive and loved for the first time in years. And he'd really really really like to play with Ralphie the cat, but Ralphie has other ideas. Like hiding. For the rest of his nine lives.

Jake goes to the vet today to get checked out and wormed. Once he's healthy again April will be looking for a new home for him. As much as April would love to keep him, she lives in a townhouse and Jake deserves the room to run. And run. And then run some more.

Battered and bruised

Is there a doctor in the house?


Can you get tennis elbow from hammering? I must have hammered hundreds of nails over the weekend, in all positions and from all angles possible. It was like Twister with tools. I did learn one very valuable lesson -- I'm not ambidextrous when it comes to hammering. Not unless you call it talent that I can hit the nail 1 out of 5 times with my left hand. And I have bruises all over my arms with no clue how they got there. And my right elbow aches. And I think I'm done whining.


We finally got a roof on the new run-in shed. It's a temporary roof, but it will keep the bachelors dry until we can bring in more plywood and tin. We also got the truck very stuck in the mud while hauling the rafter materials. And I am being incredibly generous in the use of the term "we", seeing as how I wasn't even in the truck at the time and was yelling for Glenn to stop before he got past the point of no return. Not only did he reach that point, but kept on going. Poor Bertha truck now has one less tail light and a huge dent in bed on the driver's side. Cattle Baron had to come over yesterday with his tractor to pull Bertha out of the hole Glenn had put her in. Now I'm really glad I didn't get too vicious over the cows in my yard.


We also built three more standing stalls in the big barn yesterday. Now Gentry, Willow, and Meghan have a place to eat where they can't beat up on anyone else once they're done. This leaves Mandy (who goes home tonight now that everything is frozen and we can get to the trailer), Hunter, Jewel, and Radar out loose with their own buckets. Three more standing stalls and I won't even have to tie up the brat pack while they eat and life will be good. Or at least feeding the herd will be easier.


Anastasia came over this weekend to show Glenn how to butcher a chicken and to show me how to "disassemble" the chicken. I'm honestly curious as to how Glenn did the deed, but really too much of a wimp to ask. I can live without the details. Really.


And what was I doing yesterday evening as the wind was whipping through our hollow at 40mph with the temperature in the teens? I was in the garden. Clipping spinach and collards. Then I canned the greens (7 quarts, thankyouverymuch). Have I mentioned I don't even eat canned greens??


It's extremely cold today and I've had to break the ice in the troughs twice already. With another hammer. Cause I seem to have a thing for hammers lately. All the critters are cuddled up in the living room around the kerosene heater. I really wish we had a toilet in the living room because the bathroom feels like -30 right now. And I have to pee. But that's another story. Heidi and Cody are sharing the dog bed, Brie is under my feet (of course), Zeus is taking up his usual spot right in front of the door, and Thor, well... Thor is just Thor.

Delight's Reigning Gentry

Meet the latest addition. His name is Gentry and he's a 7 year old registered Tennessee Walking Horse. Gentry sold for a good deal of money last year, but has since come up lame in his right front, but usually only when going downhill. The owner had tried to donate him or give him away, but no one wanted him. He had an appointment to be euthanized this morning, which is something that upset his previous owner enough to call me. So he came here instead.




I swear he was clean and shiny when he got off the trailer. He didn't drop and roll in the mud for at least five minutes.

Gentry is a very sweet guy who loves the ladies. Meghan, Jewel and Willow were the first to greet him and he trotted off into the sunset with them. Later when I went up to feed I found him hanging out with Hunter, Kita, and Sadie. After dinner he shared his hay pile with Mandy and Hunter. The owner said he was an alpha in the herd, but I guess one look from Semi can wither even the most macho of men and make them want to hang out with harmless dwarves.

Due to his lameness, Gentry will be taking at least a few months off with massages whenever I can find the time, and maybe some chiropractic care for good measure. The owner had a vet examine him, but they couldn't find anything specific that would cause him to be unsound. He didn't start going lame until he had gone to the trainer this past summer, so I'm hoping it's just something that will get better with some downtime and homeopathic care.

Breakfast at the OK Corral

It's been raining for the past two days. This morning we woke up to a winter wonderland, complete with snow, icicles, and about a gabillion tons of mud. Everywhere. But if you don't let the mud bog you down, it's kinda purdy.







Now that we have four standing stalls and two box stalls, feeding has become a lot easier -- no more tying up the whole herd! Indy and Dolly go in the box stalls to eat unmolested. Junior, Semi, Kita, and Sadie go in the standing stalls. The Brat Pack get tied up with their own buckets in the left section of the barn where they can't beat up on anyone else. Eventually, we'll have four more standing stalls over there. It's just a matter of finding the time since there's already a nice stack of wood in the barn just waiting to be used. Meghan, Jewel, Radar, Hunter, Mandy, and Willow are the easiest keepers and also the lowest on the herd totem pole. They all get the same amount of feed and eat it in just about the same amount of time, so I just spread their buckets out and let them have at it.



Once everyone is done eating their grain, they follow me down to the small barn for their morning hay. The big herd gets five square bales twice a day and I like to spread it out over a huge area and have at least 10 more piles than I have horses. This way there is plenty of small piles of hay and no one gets beat up over it.





Mandy heads back home as soon as we can free the trailer from it's mire of mud. The fence at Hunter's new home will hopefully be finished soon so that he can move on as well. But I'm going to miss the little guy! This will bring us back down to 13 horses in the big herd plus the three bachelors in the back. Woohoo!






Since Manny left Radar has buddied right up with Indy and now the two are inseparable. It's nice to finally see Indy have a friend.






Dear old Dolly. It's really not too cold out today, the troughs aren't even iced over, but I keep blankets on Indy and Dolly if it's below 45. Dolly has also developed cataracts. Doc says it could take anywhere from six months to two years for her to go totally blind. She is also acting like she's losing her hearing. Every morning I have to go searching for her because she's waaaaay in the back pasture by herself instead of with the rest of the herd hanging out close to the barn. I can call and call and call, but she typically doesn't pick up her head and react to my presence until I'm within 50 feet or so. Then she gives me a nicker and follows me back to the barn for breakfast. Poor old girl. She's really put some hooks into my heart recently and it's going to be tough to say goodbye when the time comes.








I sometimes have to remind myself that Junior is also getting up there in age. He'll be 23 or 24 in March, I can't remember exactly. I'll have to dig out his registration papers one of these days and take a look.






I do know that Semi is one year older than Junior, but she's in much better physical shape. The queen of the herd may outlast us all just for spite.






The token Maverick picture. What horse post of mine would complete without Maverick? I think he's going through a bit of a growth spurt, what do you think? Grow, Mavvy, GROW!!

Hunting for Hunter

A day or so ago, Ree over at Pioneer Woman said she "longed for boring". I hope when she finds boring she'll share her secret to success. I'd even settle for a little dullness around here.


When I went up to feed the main herd this morning my headcount came back one shy of a full herd. Where was Hunter? Why wasn't he up Mandy's butt as he's been since she got here this past weekend? There was food to be had, where was the food face? Sometimes the horses go into the back pasture and if there's any wind at all they can't hear me call if they're on the other side of the hill. So Thor and I walked to the top of the hill, expecting to find Hunter on the other side grazing. We did find three deer, which Thor decided to chase in hopes of catching breakfast. He's an eternal optimist.


I walked back to the house, let work know that I'd be MIA for a bit, then grabbed a halter and went out with Thor to search for the Hunter pony. I don't even want to tell you about all of the horrible things that kept going through my mind, especially as I heard gunfire come from the 1000 acre place behind ours. But somehow, I knew I'd find him safe and sound, maybe just a little battered and bruised from some misadventure.


Before I go further, I should explain the layout of our property for those that have never been here. Our 40 acres is shaped mostly like a long rectangle. The bachelor pad starts behind the house and stretches back to about 4 acres of woods that border the 1000 acre neighbor. Running from road, past the house, and along side the bachelor pad are the other two pastures where the rest of the herd roams. It's a good little hike to get from the house to the far reaches of what I call the top pasture (the highest elevation on the place).


My original plan had been to walk up the hill of death and start my search at the barn and work my way back. If I had done that, I would have never found the little guy. Instead, I started in the bachelor pad and worked my way back to the mid-way point where there's a gate going into the top pasture. As I turned to trudge up the hill to the gate, I spotted something white in the woods behind the bachelor's pasture. It looked a lot like Hunter butt. I called and heard a very faint whinny in response.


But why was he standing in one place and not at least turning around to see me? Why was he even in the woods in the first place? As I got closer I kept looking for injuries, blood, swelling, anything that might tell me why he was just standing there and not coming to me as usual. I crawled through the fence and made my way through the briers to get to him. Other than a couple of scratches on his legs there was nothing wrong with him. He gave me a happy little nicker as I put his halter on, then gently made his way between briers to follow me out to the gate. Once we got to the barn he ate his breakfast then meandered his way down to the hay where the rest of the herd was busy munching.


I think I forgot to mention that it's been pouring down rain all morning.


I should give up hoping for dull.

There goes the neighborhood

I'm feeling rather irritated at the moment. Why? Because the cows are back again. Cattle baron came and led them away Sunday night, but they were back yesterday morning. Cattle Baron's younger sister came over with her dogs and traipsed around my yard this morning trying to push said cattle back home... again. This set my dogs into a protective frenzy while I was on the phone with a client. Five barking dogs trying to get through the window to kill the interlopers can be quite loud. Eventually, the cattle left, only to return an hour later. Apparently, no one around here knows how to repair their crappy barbed wire fence. And it's not that the Cattle Baron doesn't feed his cattle. He feeds them plenty. In fact, they have about 30 old, moldy, smelly hay rolls sitting in their driveway. The cattle march right past those rolls to get to our grass.



When the cows were here on Saturday the very hefty bull decided to break into our little shed where we keep hay for the bachelors. Not only did he eat all the hay and poop all over the building, but he put a rather large hole in the top floor of the two-story shed. Now, there is a heifer with a leg stuck in this hole.






And please note the mud in front of the shed. That was grass a couple of days ago.







And lest you think I'm being unfair to the Cattle Baron, let me show you a pic of this little heifer. She can barely walk because her feet are so long and curling up at the ends like elf shoes. Cattle Baron says she's been like that since birth and its a defect. I agree. But he's the defect. And the way he cares for his animals is defective. I tried to get a better pic of her feet, but Thor thought I was getting too close for comfort and caused her to shuffle away on her knees.




I called Cattle Baron's little sister today and told her to get her brother over here to get these cattle out of my yard and shed, and to keep them home this time. I tried to be nice because I really don't want to make enemies of people that I will have to live next to for the rest of my life. But enough is enough.


We learned something about our own crappy barbed wire the other day as we were walking down the road to go get the horse trailer. We have two spots where a tree has fallen and taken down the fence. But you know what?? Not ONCE have our horses escaped. NOT ONCE. Gee, I wonder if it's because we actually FEED them??

It's never dull around here

Today was going to be hectic, busy, and hectic. Did I mention hectic? First we had a 9AM appt at the lumberyard to pick up 1000 feet of rough cut wood. Then we needed to unload the lumber in the barn, hitch up the trailer, then run over to pick up Mandy from Anastasia's for the parade. I really wanted to have a lot of pretty parade pictures to show you. Pictures of Quest all dolled up in red and gold with battery operated lights in his mane and a big Horse Haven Holler sign hanging on his butt. And he was really looking forward to it as well. Honest.

By the time we got back to our place with Mandy it had been snowing for about 30 minutes and the roads were just starting to whiten, but it had been a dry snow and the roads were still fine. We threw out some more hay for the herd and loaded Hunter in with Mandy, then I headed to town going the opposite direction we had just come from. I left Glenn at home to take a shower and break the ice on the troughs. Anastasia and friends were meeting me to start work cleaning and decorating the first two horses while I went back to get two more.

About a mile from our house is the infamous S curve where many hay bales have been previously lost. The S curve is downhill when headed to town and fairly steep. I put the truck into first gear and crawled down the hill at 5mph. On the left side of the road is a steep bank down, and on the right side is a deep ditch then a steep bank up. The trailer started to fishtail dangerously behind me and every time I tried to apply more brake it would go further to the right side. Another sharp curve was coming up and my speed was picking up. It was at this point that I began to worry. Seriously worry.

I shouldn't have worried. The trailer saved me by sliding into the ditch and slamming against the right bank. Oh yay. I heard a horse body bang against the side the trailer, but I had no time to think about it because I really had to get the trailer upright and out of the ditch before it took the truck with it. I gave the truck a little gas and it pulled the trailer back on to all four wheels and out into the road. Somehow I managed to slow the truck down to a snails pace and made it to the bottom of the hill without any more incident.

I turned around in a driveway, then got out to check on the horses. Mandy was fine and diving into her hay and Hunter was unscathed, but trembling. I suspect his little body was the one that slammed against the side of the trailer. There was no way I was risking anyone else for the parade, so I headed home only to find that Bertha Truck was NOT going to get that trailer up that S curve hill. Once again the trailer fishtailed behind me and Bertha struggled to gain some ground and find purchase on the icy pavement. We made it as far as the pull-off halfway up the hill. I parked the truck and trailer off the road, got the horses unloaded, hopped on Mandy bareback and ponied Hunter all the way home.

Both horses were wonderful! Mandy spooked at a large snow-covered pile of weeds and as she was sidepassing past it and giving it the evil eye, Hunter was trying to get to it to see if it was edible. Mandy blew and snorted several times and acted like there were monsters in the woods, but Hunter just kept going in his deadheaded way like there was nothing in the world that would bother him. I just love that little guy.

Once I got home Glenn and I walked back to the truck, but I told him there was no way he was getting that trailer home today. He got it 100 yards or so. When the truck wheels started spinning forward and the trailer was sliding backwards we both had a serious pucker moment and I wasn't even in the truck. I'm a big wimp, so had told him I'd follow him on foot and he could wait for me at the top. He did manage to get the trailer backed up to the pull-off again where we unhitched it and left it. We may be able to bring it home by Spring, but with what the weathermen are calling for, it isn't likely.

We had to turn around and go back into town because all that was left in the horse troughs was ice. We passed numerous vehicles stuck in ditches and heard from one of the adopters that there were 2-3 car pile ups everywhere. We eventually made it home, never going over 25mph and getting a lot of use out of Bertha's 4x4 low range. As we were pulling in the drive, there was a truck that had just pulled out of our drive. It stopped and backed up to us. It was Anastasia and her brother and his family. They had come over to make sure we were OK and to help out with the horses if necessary. They had already found the hay and fed the herd a few bales of hay.

They had also removed the 21 head of cattle that had been in our yard stomping through my gardens since yesterday morning. The cattle "barons" next door hadn't bothered to come and get them yet, of course. The neighbors that own the cattle are cousins to Drunken Neighbor on the other side of us. Are you picking up on a theme here? Anastasia's brother and his kids chased the cattle out of yard, across the street, and back into their own pasture. Then they fixed the friggin fence! They are coming back tomorrow to help us stack all the lumber we got today and build a couple of stalls in the big barn.

I just love that family.

Laci did make it to watch the parade and we heard from her mother that it lasted about 10 minutes. The kids were disappointed, but mostly just happy that their horses were safe. So am I!