Tag Archives: horses

Never Riding Alone

Posted on by Standard 3

One of my sisters once asked me, “What do you do out there on the farm alone every day?”  I responded, “Are you kidding?  I’m never alone!  My animals are constantly around me.”  While it’s true that I don’t often have human companionship during my days at the farm, I know there are many who will concur that animal companionship is often equally, and sometimes even more, rewarding. 

As I’ve often told my husband (always with a grin on my face), “My animals do what I tell them.”

And so, I found this quote by Jane Smiley particularly appropriate for this blog:

“I learned why ‘out riding alone’ is an oxymoron:  An equestrian is never alone, is always sensing the other being, the mysterious but also understandable living being that is the horse.”

One of my friends asked me quite recently, “Do you ride every day?”  It’s not the first time I’ve been asked that.  My standard response is always, “I wish.”

The truth is, I don’t ride very often at all.  The reason for that is because I ride solely for pleasure.  I don’t have beef cattle to move to another pasture or dairy cattle to bring to the barn, so I ride only when the weather is gorgeous and my other work is finished. 

Do you have any idea how rare that combination is?

Now that doesn’t mean I don’t spend time with my horses, because I do.  In fact, I can only ride one at a time but I can spend time on the ground with all three of them, so the argument could be made that I actually spend more time with them by not riding.

But I miss riding.  I miss the perspective that one gets while sitting on a horse’s back.  I find it extraordinary that a creature as powerful and athletic as a horse will allow a creature as puny and feeble as a human to sit on his back – the same back that a cougar would leap upon in search of its next meal.

So, I did a little soul-searching recently and asked myself, “What is it, exactly, that keeps me from riding more?”

I think I figured it out.  Too much of it seems like work.  And believe me when I tell you, I have quite enough work at the farm.  But in order to take a long ride off the farm, I must first work BJ in the round pen to get the “skittish” out of him, then I groom him, and then I saddle him just right.  When I get back from our ride – both of us worn out – not only do I need to groom him again, but I also need to groom BB and Zip who managed to work themselves into a frothy frenzy during our absence.

The entire process takes hours, and it is far too easy to convince myself that “I don’t have time for this.”  And so, another day goes by when I don’t ride.

During my soul-searching, I reflected on my days growing up on our family farm when I rode often, but sometimes only for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time because many of those rides were without a saddle.  It was all so simple and quick.  Why couldn’t I do that again?    

I came to a decision.  I was going to teach BJ to let me ride bareback.

I used to ride BB bareback often, but now that she has arthritic front knees, I can no longer ride her at all.  During BJ’s training years I didn’t feel confident riding him without a saddle, but now that he is ten, he has settled down considerably.  I decided to give it a go.

I’ve mentioned before that BJ is a huge horse.  And I am not a huge person.  Was there some risk of injury?  Possibly.  But here’s the thing.  Did you know that the horse has the largest eyes of any land mammal?  They’re eyes that look right into the human soul.  If they see kindness and goodness, that’s what the horse will give back.  If I didn’t trust BJ, how on earth could I ask him to trust me?

I put on his bridle and led him next to the corral rails.  I told him “Whoa”, then climbed up on the rails high enough so that I could slide onto his back.  Standing on the rail with my left foot, I swung my right foot across his back and rested it there to gauge his response.  He didn’t move.  Gathering my courage, I said, “Here we go” and slid my entire body onto his back.  He jerked his head up, but didn’t take a step.  I could tell he was thinking, “Well, this is different!”

Several times during our ride around the corral, he tossed his head and snorted, but I scolded him and he immediately settled down.  To dismount, I brought him to a stop, swung my right leg across his body, and slid down to the ground.  But he is so tall that it stung my feet when I hit the ground.  So, I again took him to the rail, mounted him and rode around a bit, but I dismounted by bringing him back to the rail and climbing down the same way I got on.

I’ve been riding BJ bareback for several weeks now, often just ten or fifteen minutes at a time.  I get the sense that BJ understands the fragility and precariousness of my position on his back.  His gait is easy and steady. And when I mount or dismount, he stands perfectly still and doesn’t squeeze me against the rail. 

He takes care of me.  Because I’m not riding alone.

(I describe the scariest ride of my life in the August chapter of my second book, Another Year on the Family Farm.)

Next Week: Hibernation

Mystery Solved

Posted on by Standard 1

I lost my eyeglasses.  And then I found them.  But the story behind my lost and found eyeglasses is a bit more complex than that, and I think you will find it as mysterious as I did.

On Friday afternoon, September 13, Danny and I left our farm for a vacation with my two sisters and their husbands.  We call it our Sister Trip, and I wrote about it in an earlier blog.  Anyway, that Friday morning was a busy one for me.  Even though my nephew cares for our farm and animals while we are away, there are still some things that I do in preparation for a long absence.

Flies were still a bit of an issue near the barn at that time, so I typically sprayed my horses’ legs to give them some relief.  I always remove my eyeglasses when I do that, because the spray is oily and difficult to remove from my lenses. 

So, what do I do with my glasses while I spray?  Well, it depends.  Sometimes, if I am wearing a pair of pants with a large enough pocket, I will slip them in there.  If the horses are near the feeder, I will set the glasses on the tray of the feeder.  Or sometimes, I will set them on top of our stack of hay bales near where I store the spray.  Or, in anticipation of spraying later, I sometimes leave them in my tack room.

Bottom line is, they could be almost anywhere.  The problem, if you want to call it that, is that my eyesight is really not that bad.  In fact, from a distance of about one foot to twelve feet, I see the same with or without them.  So, I often don’t even realize that I don’t have them on unless I am looking far into the distance.

That morning I was distracted.  I had a million and one things to get done before we left on vacation and I was trying to multi-task.  So, after my barn chores were completed, which included spraying my horses, I walked our dogs to give them a bit of exercise before we left the farm.  I was checking emails on my phone while I walked.  I do not need my glasses for that. 

I did not realize that my glasses were not on my face until I was returning from my walk with the dogs.  I checked my pocket.  Not there.  They’re at the barn, I thought.  The first place I checked was the feeder tray.  I remember being surprised that they were not there.  I checked the hay bales.  Not there.  The tack room.  Not there.  Okay, now I had to think a bit.  Was I sure I even wore them out of the house that morning?  I walked back to the house and checked my bathroom countertop.  Not there.

By this time, I was feeling a bit frazzled.  We were leaving on vacation in a few hours!  I didn’t have time for this!  Not to mention that I had planned to take that pair of glasses with me.  I had an extra pair, but still…

I returned to the barn.  I began to look in places that I was sure they would not be, but I was starting to feel desperate.  The trash can.  The workbench.  I stuck my hand between the hay bales in case they had fallen in a crack.  Nothing.  Finally, I had to give up my search so that I could shower and finish packing.

As we drove away from the farm, I told Danny about my lost eyeglasses.  Did you check there?  And there?  And there?  He asked.  My answer was always yes.  But then I thought about my walk.  What if I had them in my pocket and they somehow dropped out as I walked?  I called my nephew and he promised to retrace my steps, and look once more around the barn for me.  He texted me later that day.  He had found nothing.

For the next month, I puzzled on my glasses.  You see, I do not lose things.  In fact, I pride myself on my still-razor-sharp memory and attention to details.  I do not lose things!

After supper on Wednesday, October 16, Danny said he wanted to finish weed-eating around our corral fence.  The horses eat the grass inside the corral and I mow on the outside, but there is a thin line of tall grass and weeds that grows directly underneath.  He planned to clean this up before fall.

He came back into the house with a single lens from a pair of eyeglasses.  I held it up to my eye and looked through it.  There was absolutely no doubt that it was a lens from my missing eyeglasses.  Danny said he heard the weedeater string hit something and then he noticed the glare from the lens.

But where was the rest of it?

While Danny continued with his trimming, I searched along the corral fence where he said he found the lens.  I found half of the frame, then the other lens, and finally the other half of the frame.  None of it was salvageable.

But the mystery had been solved.  I knew immediately why my glasses were where they were.  I hadn’t dropped them.  And they hadn’t slipped out of my pocket.

It had to be BJ.  Remember BJ, my hat-stealer?  Well now, I will add glasses-stealer to that moniker.

In the words of the TV detective Monk, “Here’s what happened.”

I took my glasses off to spray the horses and set them on the feeder tray.  Distracted, I forgot about them until my return from my walk.  By that time, it was too late.  My curious BJ had discovered my glasses, picked them up in his mouth and carried them with him as he exited the corral with the other horses on his way to the pasture. 

You know how horses walk single file along a fence?  We have such a horse path right next to our corral fence.  Right next to where the glasses were found.

BJ dropped them on his way out of the corral.  There is absolutely no other way they could have gotten where they were.  Hidden by the tall weeds, they were not discovered until Danny trimmed those weeds.  Whether BJ broke them with his teeth, or whether Danny broke them with his trimmer I’ll never know.  But there is no doubt in my mind how they got there.

The good news is that my lenses were still under warranty so they were replaced at no charge.  And although the original frames were no longer available, I was able to find another pair that fit my new lenses.

You know those crazy insurance commercials on TV describing outlandish situations that actually happened?  I wonder how many lenses our insurance company has needed to replace because of glasses-stealing horses.

Who knew that horses considered eyeglasses such a fashion statement?

(If you want to read a similar story about something our dogs once did, check out the September chapter of my third book, The Return to the Family Farm.)

Next Week: “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore”

Searching for Zip

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I introduced my horse, Zip, in my second blog, It’s Springtime on the Farm!  In it, I stated that instead of a robin, my first sign of spring was a bucketful of Zip’s hair from his shedding coat.  Other than that, I haven’t really talked much about Zip.  In today’s blog, I plan to remedy that.

I purchased BB as a yearling in 2003, and BJ was born on our farm in 2009, but Zip was already seven years old when I purchased him in 2006.  At that time, I was already riding BB, and I was looking for a trained horse that could be ridden by someone of moderate riding ability as a companion to me and BB on our trail rides.  I found Zip in another county through an ad in our local newspaper.  I was immediately impressed by his looks, his pedigree, and his training.  He had actually gone through two phases of training – once to ride, and then to show.  He had a calm demeanor and was very respectful.  We took him home the first day we met him.

I did, however, wonder why, after paying for additional training to show him, did the original owners decide to sell him?  I soon found out.thumbnail_IMG_0627

Zip, as it turned out, was lazy.

Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing in a horse.  It depends on how you want to use him.  A lazy horse can make an awesome kid horse.  You certainly don’t want to put a youngster on a high-strung, energetic horse that constantly wants to run.  Zip is not that.  In fact, as Zip has aged, he has become even more mellow, as impossible as that sounds.  He is now virtually bomb-proof.  When the first shotgun blast pierces the air at dawn on the opening day of pheasant season, BB and BJ will startle and charge out of the corral, snorting and bucking, tails flying.  Meanwhile, Zip, munching on hay at the feeder, will lift his head, stop chewing for a few seconds as he rotates his ears to hear better, then decide all is well and go back to eating.

The little kids in my family are appropriately cautious around BB and BJ, but as one of my great-nieces affectionately proclaimed, “I love Zip! He is fun to play with.”thumbnail_IMG_0619

Personally, Zip is not my favorite mount.  While lazy horses are great for little kids, they can be a source of irritation and frustration for a more experienced rider.  For example, Zip is a grass-snatcher, not an uncommon trait for a lazy horse.  On a trail ride, Zip will stop every few steps to snatch a few blades of grass, a tantalizing weed, or a low-hanging leaf.  He will then munch while he’s walking, then snatch again.

When I discovered this annoying habit shortly after Zip’s purchase, I was determined to break him of grass-snatching.  I consulted various training manuals and discovered that horses, like dogs, are highly intelligent and very trainable.  With an intellectual capability comparable to that of a two-year-old human, they have the ability to make cause-and-effect associations if the “effect” occurs within two seconds of the “cause”.

The training manual suggested that the rider allow the lazy horse to snatch at will (the cause) but then immediately (within two seconds) make the horse work by running tight circles (the effect).  Eventually, the horse will make the connection (if I snatch a bite, I will have to work) and will hopefully decide on his own that the bite of grass is not worth the extra work it causes.

Early one Saturday morning, I took Zip for a ride.  I was prepared.  I knew the key to training would be immediate and consistent response.  (This is also true for human two-year-olds, by the way.)  He snatched, I made him work.  He snatched, I made him work.  Over and over and over.  I was beginning to get discouraged, until…

I deliberately rode him past a freshly-cut round bale of sorghum.  Zip stretched his neck and opened his mouth to grab a bite…then closed his mouth and continued walking right past the bale.

I smiled, patted him on the neck and said, “Good job, Buddy.  Let’s go home now.”  I looked at my watch.  It had taken exactly two hours.

He tested me once or twice on later rides, but after the same run-tight-circles response from me, he hasn’t tested me in years.  I’ve noticed he still tries to snatch grass with other riders however.thumbnail_IMG_0503

I’ve told you all this as a prelude to an incident that occurred a couple of weeks ago.  You need to understand all three of my horses’ personalities in order to fully appreciate what happened that night.

It was a beautiful, star-studded fall night, and as Danny and I were changing into our pajamas, I opened our bedroom windows to let in the crisp, fresh night air.

Danny heard it first.  “Is that the horses?” he asked.  I listened.  I too, could hear them neighing.  Their calls were high-pitched and frequent.  Distress calls.  I turned on our central yard light and could faintly see the outlines of horses running along the fence in the pasture.  I grabbed some shoes and went outside in my pajamas to get a closer look.

I called back towards the house, “It’s BB and BJ!  Danny, I don’t see Zip!”  He then grabbed some shoes also, and came outside by me.  We listened, but could not hear Zip answer back.

Zip is our oldest horse.  It is not unheard of that an aging horse will, with no prior warning, die of a heart attack.  That was my fear that night as we began our search for Zip.

Danny ran to get the tractor so he could use the lights to search the pasture.  I ran to get our Ranger out of the garage.  He was already driving his tractor along the pasture fence as I passed him in our Ranger.  I motioned for him to join me in the Ranger.  It was much more maneuverable, and I could shine a searchlight out the side window while he drove.  We could cover more ground more quickly together in the Ranger.  Danny left the tractor running, with the lights on, near the fence by our house.

We didn’t talk much as we drove, each of us thinking our own thoughts.  Mine were fearful, but also puzzling.  Our three horses were constantly together.  If Zip were injured or dead, I couldn’t believe that the other two would knowingly leave him.  When I saw them racing around, calling to Zip, it appeared that they also had no clue where he was.  How could that be?

As we drove around that night, we checked every gate.  Dead or alive, Zip was somewhere in that pasture.  Of that we were certain.

“I saw something move!” Danny exclaimed.  He had seen the shadow of what appeared to be a large animal move in front of the brightly shining tractor lights.  We quickly drove back towards the house and barn.

“There’s Zip!” I told Danny.  Sure enough, all three horses were now contentedly grazing side by side near the barn as if nothing whatsoever had just occurred to disrupt the calm of a star-studded autumn evening.

I puzzled on it for days.  How had the horses gotten separated?  And why did Zip not answer the other horses’ calls to him?

It was my farrier, several days later, who gave me the most reasonable explanation.  “Here’s what probably happened,” Barrie said.  “BB and BJ are slowly grazing their way to the barn to get a drink of water.  They think Zip is right behind them.  When they get to the barn and don’t see him, they get freaked out.”

Even though horses have excellent night vision, Zip could have easily been out of sight behind one of the rolling hills in our pasture.  But that still didn’t explain why Zip didn’t answer their calls.  And then it occurred to me – Zip is lazy.

He was probably grazing his way to the barn when he first heard his high-strung friends calling to him.  Another high-strung horse would have answered immediately.  But Zip’s response was, “Yeah, yeah.  I’m coming.  But first, just one more bite…”  I’m sure he eventually answered, but by that time we couldn’t hear it over the sound of the engines.

Even though it was filled with anxiety and fear, the pajama-clad, nighttime search for Zip did have one positive outcome.  It definitely clarified something for me – lazy or not, I was awfully glad to get my Zip back.thumbnail_IMG_0487

(Before BJ, there was Pokey, a sweet-tempered Shetland pony.  You can read about her in the February chapter of The Return to the Family Farm.)

Next Week: Meet (the other) Ethel!

No Humor Today

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If you’ve been reading my blog regularly – thank you.  If the reason you read it is because you enjoy my sense of humor – thank you again.  It is to you faithful readers, that I wish to apologize in advance.  For there is no humor in today’s blog.  There was simply none for me to find.

I could have lost BJ last week.  BJ, my youngest horse, my corral clown, my hat-stealer.  That BJ.

There is no single word that strikes fear in the heart of any horse owner more quickly than the word “colic”.  To most people, that word conjures up images of crying infants and sleepy, distraught parents.  To far too many horse owners, it means death.

When I was eighteen, my family lost a yearling to colic.  Arapahoe was born to our mare Strawberry, who we had raised from a foal.  Arapahoe was a member of our farm family, and we were all heartbroken.

Eleven years ago, Danny and I lost Pokey to colic.  Pokey was a sweet-tempered pony loved by everyone who knew her.  I still treasure the crayon-drawn sympathy cards sent by some of the young children who mourned her loss with me.

So, you see, my knowledge of colic is personal, and my fears are not unwarranted.

Unlike dogs, cats and humans, horses cannot vomit.  When a dog or cat has an upset stomach, they can vomit and relieve their own discomfort.  Since a horse cannot do that, the offending substance must pass through the entire intestinal tract in order to bring relief.  If there is gaseous build-up along the way, or if the intestine becomes blocked, the situation can become very serious, very quickly.  When a horse is experiencing colic, they have a tendency to roll and twist their bodies on the ground, trying to relieve their pain.  Unfortunately, this can lead to the intestines twisting and closing off the offending material.  When that happens, gas continues to build, creating more pain. If caught soon enough, emergency surgery can save the horse.  If not, it inevitably leads to death. 

It is imperative that a horse experiencing colic not be allowed to roll.

It was right about noon.  I was washing my hands at the kitchen sink when I glanced out the window and saw all three of my horses grazing.  Suddenly, BJ lifted his head and began trotting circles around the other two.  At first, I thought he saw something – maybe a deer – that excited him.  But the others kept grazing.  Then he began running more erratically, kicking out behind him with his hind legs.  Although his behavior was quite unusual, I still thought he was just being playful.  It was only after I saw him turn his head and bite at his own sides, that I understood.  He was in pain.

I immediately went outside and watched him more closely from the pasture fence.  I had not called to him, but when he saw me, he immediately came running toward me.  It was a very cool day, but as he ran past me, I could see that he had broken out in a sweat.

Suddenly he stopped, dropped to his front knees, and began to roll onto his side.

“No BJ!” I yelled as I shimmied through the rails of the pasture fence.  As I ran towards him, waving my arms and yelling, “Get up! Get up!” he lifted his head off the ground to look at me.  He got back up onto his feet as I approached him.  I had no rope, nothing but my hands, but I hoped he would follow me to the barn.  He did.  I truly believe he knew I was trying to help him.

As we hurriedly walked together to the barn, I pulled out my cell phone and called my vet’s office.  When the receptionist heard that BJ had colic, she understood the emergency and promised that a vet would leave immediately.  It’s about a twenty-five-minute drive to our farm.

I put a halter and lead rope on BJ and we began to walk.  Walk to help relieve symptoms, walk to keep his blood flowing and intestines working, walk to keep him from rolling. 

By this time, both BB and Zip had responded to BJ’s predicament, and both came running to the barn as well.  BB walked beside us, and periodically nickered softly to BJ.  She did not interfere, but she also did not leave our sides.  I truly believe that she, too, knew that I was trying to help BJ.  Zip stood a distance away, but watched every move we made, also nickering periodically.

I could tell that BJ was in intense pain.  He was sweating more profusely and his eyes were wide with terror.  Several times, he attempted to drop to his knees, and I knew he wanted to roll.  Somehow, I managed to keep him on his feet and walking.  Several times, he bit at his sides, as if the monster attacking him and causing such pain could be crushed by rolling, or scared away by biting.

Twelve minutes had passed since my first phone call to the vet.  I called again. 

“Has he left yet?” I asked. 

“Yes,” she reassured me.  “He should be there very soon.”  We kept walking.

About fifteen minutes later, I saw the vet’s pickup truck turn onto our farm’s driveway.  I had walked BJ, with BB walking beside us, for the entire thirty minutes.

The vet gave BJ two shots, one to relax him, and one to aid his digestion.  The effect was almost immediate.  He stopped biting his sides.  His sweating lessened.  His eyes looked more normal.  His muscles relaxed.

And then he pooped.

The vet stayed about twenty minutes longer, just to be sure that he would not relapse, but the crisis was over.  At least it was for BJ.

For me, the repercussions lasted a bit longer.  What if I hadn’t looked out the kitchen window when I did?  What if I had gone to town to get groceries?  What if…?

The reality is, when you open your heart to love, you also open it to the pain of loss.  The two are inseparable.  With three horses aged 20, 17 and 10, two dogs aged nine, two cats aged twelve, and two rabbits aged seven, there will be losses.  And it will be painful.

But I would rather live a life filled with love and loss, than no love at all.

(There is a photo of Arapahoe with Strawberry in the July – The Filly chapter of my first book, A Year on the Family Farm andI talk about Pokey in the February chapter of my third book, The Return to the Family Farm.)

Next Week:  Be Careful What You Wish For

Hey! That’s My Hat!

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In previous blogs, I have written about Zip’s propensity for growing a thick winter coat and about how special BB is, but I have yet to tell you much about BJ, the youngster in the herd.

BJ is the only one of our three horses who has never known an owner besides me.  And he never will.  I promised BB before I had her bred that if she did this for me, she would have her foal beside her always.  I try very hard to always keep my promises.

The foal was due around the same time that our second granddaughter was due.  My daughter-in-law asked me point blank one day, if both babies were born at the same time, which would I choose to be present for?

Thank goodness I didn’t have to choose.  I was present for both.  BJ was born first on May 14, 2009, and our granddaughter arrived on May 29.  It was a very good year.

BJ was born in our corral, about mid-morning.  Danny and I were both present.   I had been watching BB closely, and when she couldn’t seem to make much progress, I called the vet.  He ended up having to pull BJ.  Now, just so you know, our vet is not a small man.  In fact, in another life, he could probably have been a lineman for the Kansas City Chiefs.  He struggled to pull BJ, and, after the birth, told me that BJ looked like a month-old foal.

BJ is still huge.  The average height of a quarterhorse is 15 hands, or 60 inches (one hand = 4 inches) from hoof to withers (highest point of the front shoulder).  BJ is 16 hands high, or 64 inches.  That is actually the average height of a thoroughbred.  But BJ is not slender like a thoroughbred.  He has the thick, muscular features of the quarterhorse.  So, bottom line, I always get the feeling when I’m riding him, that if he really wanted to, he could toss me like a rag doll.

But honestly, BJ is pretty darn sweet.  And he is beautiful.  Really.  A creamy buckskin with thick, wavy black mane and tail.  His maternal grandsire was a racehorse, and his paternal grandsire was an award-winning showhorse.  He is a sight to behold as he races through the pasture.

It is his personality, however, that I love most.  BJ talks to me.  When I call the horses, he is the one who answers back.  When I come out of the house and walk towards the corral, he is the one who nickers in anticipation and greets me at the gate.  

He is still trying to establish his place in the herd.  Zip will calmly put up with BJ’s ear-flattening, tail swishing and foot stomping for a while, but will eventually get fed up with it.  Clearly not intimidated by BJ’s size, Zip will flatten his ears, bite BJ on the shoulder or rump, and quickly put the youngster back in his place.  BJ’s constant testing of boundaries reminds me of some other young males who used to live in our household.

BJ is funny.  He’s my corral clown.  If I laugh out loud at one of my horses, it is always BJ.  One day I got a facetime call from my grandkids while I was in the corral with the horses.  As I was holding the phone, talking to the kids, BJ came up behind me, put his head on my shoulder and watched the phone.  He was so curious!  He sniffed the phone and put his lips on it, trying to figure out how those tiny people got into that small box!  On their end, the grandkids were seeing huge nostrils, a huge tongue, and huge teeth.  They thought it was hilarious.

But in my opinion, the funniest thing BJ has ever done involved my new hat.

Normally, I wear a large-brimmed straw hat when working outside.  But if it’s rainy, I have a water-proof hat that I wear instead.  That hat is a cobalt blue.  Now, I am convinced that horses can see some form of color.  It may not be exactly what we humans see, but my experience is that they respond to color.

For instance, before we moved back to the farm, I boarded BB in town very near our home.  As I rode her around the area where she was boarded, she would stop at every newspaper holder in front of the neighborhood homes.  She ignored the mailboxes, but was fascinated by the plastic newspaper holders.  She sniffed them, licked them, and I generally had a difficult time pulling her away from them.  It suddenly dawned on me.  They were all green!  The same green color as her grain bucket.

Back to the blue hat.  BJ noticed it.  As I was sweeping and shoveling that day, he kept crowding me, sniffing and nibbling at my new, out-of-the-ordinary, blue hat. 

I pushed him away.  “Get out of here.  I’m busy,” I told him.

He persisted.  He grabbed at the brim of the hat with his teeth. 

I waved him off.  “Quit it, BJ!  Leave my hat alone.”

The hat had a chin strap which I had tightened under my chin.  He again grabbed the brim with his teeth, pulled up, and almost guillotined me. 

I gave up.  “Fine!  You want my hat so bad?  Here, take it!”  I took the hat off, placed it on the top of his head between his ears, and wrapped the chin strap around his ears so that it would not slip off.

I honestly thought he would try to shake it off.  He did not.  Instead, he paraded around the corral, head held high like an ingenue balancing a book on her head at Miss Priss’ School for Young Girls.

I laughed at his silliness, but he didn’t care.  He stood and posed as I took his photo.  He continued to wear it the entire time I did my chores.  Not once did he try to shake it off. 

When I finally took my hat back, he let me.  He had accomplished what he had set out to do.  For a while, it had been his hat.

(Growing up, my horse’s name was Strawberry.  Read all about her in July – The Filly in A Year on the Family Farm and August – The Secret in Another Year on the Family Farm.)

Next Week:  Note to Self:  Next Time, Wear Gloves

It’s Springtime on the Farm!

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It’s Springtime on the Farm!

For many people, the sight of a robin is the first sign of spring.  But for me, the first sign of spring is a bucketful of Zip’s hair.

Zip is one of my three horses.  Over the past eleven years, I have discovered that Zip can predict the severity and duration of winter better than any groundhog ever could.  This year, Zip developed the coat of a polar bear.  Unfortunately, the predictive capability of his outer covering was, once again, spot on.  We had one of the coldest, bitterest, snowiest winters that I can remember in a long time. The photo of Zip’s frosty ears is proof positive that his fur coat was not for naught.

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So now, with the lengthening of days and the onslaught of southerly breezes, Zip has decided he no longer needs his protective coat.  I first noticed that he was beginning to shed when I saw him rubbing his neck along the edge of the horse feeder.  Shedding makes him itchy and miserable.  So, I sighed, got the horse comb – and a bucket.  It’s not my first rodeo with Zip.

The first day I filled the bucket twice, smushing down the hair each time.  The second day – two buckets full again.  I am now down to about half a bucket per day, but then I fill the bucket the rest of the way with hair from my other two horses.  They never get the furry coat that Zip does, but they also don’t tolerate the winter the way Zip does.

The horses love being groomed in the spring.  It’s like a horsey massage.  Their eyes half close while their lower lip relaxes and their heads drop.  They will actually nudge and push each other out of the way to get closer to me and my grooming tools.  (“It’s my turn!” “No! You went first last time!”)

Then its my dogs’ turn.  They are Labs.  You know, from Labrador.  Way up North.  They love the snow – frolicking in it, licking it, rolling in it.  They start panting when the thermometer climbs to the low 70s.  The next bucket is filled with their undercoat.

I, on the other hand, am a human.  My protective winter coat has a zipper.  And I am absolutely thrilled when I can, once again, shed it.  This past winter, there were days when it literally took me five minutes to put on all the outer clothing needed to do my chores.  Dressed in my indoor pants, long-sleeved T-shirt and wool socks, I then added: bib overalls, sweatshirt, wool hat, neck and face scarf, coat with attached hood, glove liners, fur-lined boots, and finally outer gloves.  And then I had to pee.  Just kidding.  That’s a rookie mistake.

There are other signs of spring as well.  My tulips, hyacinths, daffodils and peonies are all sending up shoots.  Early spring grasses and weeds are turning green.  The cottonwood and native creek elm trees are all budding.  Water fowl are migrating.  The dry, cold winter air is gone and the morning air, while still chilly, now has a dampness to it.  And the sunrise is once again visible from our bedroom window.

I like to tell people that, although we didn’t know it at the time, when we built our farmhouse ten years ago, we built our own personal Stonehenge.  Our bedroom window juts out to the north of our garage, and our kitchen window juts out on the south.  As it turns out, on the spring equinox, we catch our first glimpse of the sunrise through our bedroom window as the sun shifts to the north.  Then, on the autumn equinox, we catch our first glimpse of the sunrise through our kitchen window as the sun shifts to the south.  The position of our house was determined for other reasons, but this side benefit has turned out to be my favorite.

Yesterday, I planted my beet seeds.  Beets are an early spring crop, and resistant to light frost.  I will plant other garden seeds later, when all threat of frost is past, but beets are always my first and favorite.  I still have a few jars of canned beets from last year’s crop, but by the time my new crop is ready to harvest, I’m sure they will be eaten.

Yesterday, I also hosed down our garage floor.  There are sooooo many benefits to country living, but I would be lying if I said there were no disadvantages as well.  First, and foremost, is unpaved country roads.  Most of the county roads around our farm are sand roads.  A few in our county are chalk or fine rock, and some of the really poor roads are just plain dirt.  The level of maintenance is dependent upon the level of traffic use and number of homes nearby.  This past winter, it was impossible to keep the roads in good condition.  I would have been unable to travel the roads at all, had I not had a 4-wheel drive vehicle.  Snow melted, then turned to slush, mixed with sand and mud, then froze again.  Then we got more snow, then more slush, then more mud, ad nauseum.  Frozen chunks of this mixture clung to wheel wells, then melted and dropped to the garage floor overnight.  Yesterday I cleaned out three-months-worth of county road debris from our garage floor.

Every new season brings a new list of farm chores with it, and I love it.  Just when I get tired of tending my garden, it’s time to harvest.  Just when I get tired of mowing, we get our first freeze.  Just when I get tired of the snow, Zip starts shedding.

(One of my most memorable springtime stories from my childhood is about a calf named Cinnamon.  It begins in March and finishes in October of my first book A Year on the Family Farm.)

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Next week:  What is that smell?!