The Terrible Twos

Heaven help me I may just throttle Steele.

Okay, I know that it's not good to threaten the life of a horse. Especially on the internet. It might get, well, misconstrued.

But seriously, he may just drive me around the bend.

He's two now and he's swings between a  swaggering brat to a lovable teddy bear. Kind of like an adolescent boy.

In my previous post I wrote about him attacking Irish's blanket. Today I came home sick from work to find that he had it ripped.

I trudged out through the snow with my can of hairspray and coated it.

I trudged back with  Steele following. He must have not been impressed with my ignoring him because he gave me a nudge with his shoulder. I had to be firm about my personal space. Later I look out the window and he's at it again. So the hairspray can be coded as a massive failure.

I looked in my cupboard. I found some cleaning supplies.

hmmmm. might work

but they are poisonous

still....

NO. 

fine then. 

I hate it when the voices in my head disagree.

So I trudged back out to the field muttering to myself. After all, don't they realize that I'm sick??? Apparently not. Also, why is Irish tolerating Steele pulling on it? How can he like being a chew toy??? I went out with the fly spray and coated Irish with Steele closely supervising. As I walked back (did I mention that they were at the farthest end of the field?) I realized that to distract Steele from the blanket toy I had to supply another toy. I was not going into town to buy a jolly ball. So I got out a large container that the oil comes in. I put in some snow and ice to rattle around. It seems to be working for a bit.

I will need more toys.

Or a mare.

Does anyone want to loan me a mare?

How Irish came to smell like a Salon

*sigh*

The only thing that's worse than a bored horse is an intelligent bored horse.

Because they find ways to entertain themselves with whatever is at hand. Like wood posts, door latches, pitchforks placed too close to the stall.

and blankets on their buddies.

Today as I went out to clean the stalls there they were- at the top of the field. Steele industrially chewing on Irish's blanket.

I yelled.

They ignored me.

I yelled again.

They looked at me. I think I saw Steele stick his tongue out at me.

So I went to walmart and bought the cheapest, biggest bottle of hair spray I could find. When I came home they were both down in the stall so I seized the moment and ran into the barn. When Irish saw what was in my hands he tried to bolt out of the stall. It was like he knew what I what I was planning. I headed him off.

By the time I was done his straps, tail flap and edges of his blanket were coated in the foul smelling stuff. Irish went outside looking disgruntled. As he passed Steele, Steele's lip curled up.

It will be worth it if it works. Irish cannot go without a blanket and I can't afford to replace them frequently.

Geldings.

What do you do to keep others off of blankets and such?

New Year's Resolutions

Steele here everyone. I hope you had a terrific Christmas full of carrots and apples. But not peppermints.
Now that 2013 is here I figured it was time for me to write another post and what better topic then some resolutions. Mom says that this will be a big year for me so I thought I'd better put some ideas down.

1. I will wait patiently for my servant to open the doors in the morning before I go outside.
2. I will not sneak out of my stall when she's not looking (besides my feet make too much noise on the wood floor)
3. I will not snatch hay out of my servant's hands when they are bringing it into my stall.
4. I will continue with my diligent inspection of the muck bucket while the servant is picking out my stall (note- it's not my fault if it tips over, that's the occasional consequence of doing a good job).
5. I will try to leave my hay in a neat pile and not fling it all over my stall. While it allows me to lay down and eat it gets pooped and peed on. Besides it makes the servant mutter.
6. I keep the dog out of the pasture. He bugs Irish and that's my job!
7.  I will try to figure out this whole going in circles while mom stands in the middle thing. I will not try to eat the whip.
8. I will stand still while the servant grooms me. If I'm patient she will get to those itchy spots and apparently does not need me to show them to her.
9. I will keep growing. For that I need to keep eating. Fortunately I like eating!
and
10. I will continue being my wonderful, intelligent, funny and lovable self!

Snow Day

Today, like most of the east coast of North America we were hit with a massive snow storm. In the morning my face was being pelted by driving ice and I could not get the front doors of the barn open. They were frozen shut. Fortunately the back doors were fine so I could come in that way. The horses were stuck in for the morning. Irish was not impressed made sure that I knew it. Steele is much more easy going and was fine being inside.

By afternoon it had cleared off so I dragged my son out to help me dig out the dutch doors. Steele had a blast.

whee

look at the snow fly

nothing like a roll to freshen one up. 

Tomorrow I plan to drag out the snow shoes and head into the woods.

In case you are wondering- I didn't take many of Irish. His problem has returned so he wasn't up to doing more than walk about. :(

The Voice of God..?

Three years ago, when our youngest graduated and headed off to university we put the house on the market and started looking for our dream property. I swear we looked at everything for sale that had 5 acres to 100 acres. Nothing seemed right. Finally we found the right one. I fell in love with the house and property immediately. All it was missing was the barn and paddocks.

When we first purchased it I took a zillion photos (no surprise there :) ).

This is one I took from our bedroom window:

I could picture the barn and fields.

This I took this morning:

I know it's rainy but to me it's the most beautiful view in the world.

As you can see the weather has been atrocious. This means that I can only let the horses out into the little paddock beside the barn- the field is too wet and dangerous for them to run around in. I put Steele's rain sheet on so he wouldn't get soaked. As I looked out the window I saw the following tableau:

Steele was mouthing the buckles on his blanket while Irish was pulling on the neck. I'm sure that this was the dialogue:
Steele: "I'm pretty sure that we need to undo these metal thingies"

Irish: "nah, I'll just pull it over your head"

Steele: "ow, it's also connected between the legs you know!"

Great,  I thought just great. They'll have that blanket in shreds. 

I opened the window and yelled: "Irish- oy! stop it!"

Steele stopped and looked around, settling the innocent 'who me?' look on his face. But he couldn't see me. His head swiveled around.
Irish was frozen, Steele's blanket still in his mouth.

Steele: "did you hear her?"

Irish "shh just pretend that we're doing nothing"

Steele: "But where is she???"

Me: "Irish.let.go.right.now"

Irish lets go and pretends to mouth some hay. Steele is still trying to figure out where I am.

I think that it's good for them to know that they are being watched.

Merry Christmas

I would like to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Steele is wishing all your horses unlimited treats and attention

it was surprisingly easy to get him to accept the hat. Once he realized that he got an apple slice for leaving it on he was on board.

Update on Irish

I had the most perfect Christmas gift today. Today was actually clear with neither rain nor snow and temperature was 8 degrees Celsius. I noticed this morning that Irish was covered in shavings which meant that he laid down through the night. He rarely does this anymore- I think because it's hard to get up. I check the front of his fetlocks- no fresh sores or blood. His other symptoms had been disappearing as well but I was holding off in case I was fooling myself.

Because everything is a soggy muddy mess the horses can't go in their field but have to stay in the smaller sacrifice paddock. To make this easier on them exercise is helpful.

So after my morning coffee I donned my breeches and headed out to saddle Irish. Ed asked me if I was going to hack and I told him that no because everything would be far to soft. Turns out that this was a good plan. I knew something was up when he started jigging going up the hill. And then freaking out at the 'A' side of the ring. I thought that he was spooking at the place across the street (it is a mess of old cars and sheds). I rolled my eyes because of course he sees this every freaking day. He was absolutely full of piss and vinegar. In fact I briefly considered dismounting and getting the lunge line but I decided that I would just ride through it.

Irish was like he was about 4 years ago. Which means a total brat. He was up and full of himself and very distractable

But he was completly and utterly sound. Using his hind end was not a problem. Forward was not a problem.
Steering? Well that was sometimes a problem. But we worked through it all. I know that when he's in this mood walks on a long rein are not helpful. His Thoroughbred side needs to GO. So we went- mostly trot. It's very tempting to hold on to the reins when he's like this but it doesn't help. The idea is to half-halt and do things to make him focus on me. One of my favourite exercises for this is to do a 20 metre circle with 10 metre circles at the 4 points. Once he burned off his initial energy he settled into work. On his trots across the diagonal he really wanted to lengthen. So I let him. Whee it was fun. Of course he couldn't sustain it the full way so I brought him back. But he hasn't been able to lengthen for a long time.

I was over the moon. It was so tempting to keep riding but I didnt' want to make him sore- after all he's out of shape. So we walked down to the barn. I was grinning.



Merry Christmas to me.
Given that the previcox worked so well I believe that it indicates that his issues were arthritis but I have to check with my vet to be sure. Which means it will likely recur. But that's okay. I'm going to enjoy this.

I should have known when I saw this the other day