The Open House took place here at Back Acres Farm last Saturday and I was very pleased. The weather cooperated, thank God, since the forecast was not great. Present were old faces and new - and the demonstrations were just excellent. Wendy Bryant worked her dental magic on several horses - her magic consisted not only in technical expertise but in persuading the horses in question to cooperate. They were tranquil and accommodating and at times, it almost looked as though dentist and patient were dancing together. Wendy's e-mail is w-bryant@comcast.net if any of you want to contact her.
Dr. Kevin Landau, the demo vet, arrived during Wendy’s time slot and it was very nice to see them consulting together on horse teeth and general health issues. Kevin had insights about the relationship between overall health issues and proper mouth care, and also plenty of interest in Wendy’s technical savvy and experience, since vet schools were long delinquent in teaching much about it. It was nice to see the two professionals collaborating, with no pride of place or expertise...just sensible people talking together about the best possible outcome for their horse patients regardless of who could provide it.
Kevin’s demo was just as good. He is a former western medicine vet with a large animal practice who has re-focused his practice to only alternative care. He demonstrated muscle testing as a diagnostic tool, acupuncture and acupressure, and cold laser techniques. He used many attendees to demonstrate the muscle testing, and the crowd was riveted. Two horses were used as demos, and everyone could see the befores and afters of diagnosis and some basic treatments, and the explanations were simply put and very effective. Kevin is also extremely knowledgeable in Chinese medicine and the efficacy of nutritional healing (both in primary foods and in supplements). It was great to have the opportunity to ask him so many questions without being conscious of the time and his need to get to his next appointment - it was very relaxed. For more information about Kevin, check out http://www.landauvet.com/about.htm
The afternoon began with the horse dancing demonstration. Bonnitta Roy brought her Arab stallion Kemancho who was a complete pip. He gave an impressive demonstration of stallion posture and pride, whizzing around the ring looking as noble as a picture - tail and head up, trumpeting for joy (or for mares..whatever). He settled down after a bit, and Bonnie put on some music and began showing how even a distracted horse could be persuaded to twirl and dance in circles around her as she circled herself forwards and backwards. It was lovely - and for a more in-depth idea of what Bonnie does, here is a cite to an article about them.
http://www.enlightenedhorsemanship.net/2008/12/yin-yang-and-horses-an-interview-with-bonnitta-roy/
The next demonstration was Farah DeJohnette and her horse Mercury - a large and impressive horse with high energy. Farah did liberty work with him at first - showing a horse focused on his human even though unrestrained and in a strange place with lots of new smells and sounds. He showed his form over a jump at liberty several times. Then Farah put a bareback pad on and a bitless bridle, and demonstrated his dressage moves achieved without the traditional equipment aides, and then finally took off the bridle all together and rode him in a neck strap over the jump and through some short dressage patterns, talking all the while about what was possible with soft, connected riding techniques. It was quite impressive, particularly since it was obvious that Mercury is not an easy horse, but one who is very, very connected to his human.
One of Farah’s students then did a demo with her horse - she is a young person whose pony used to be quite difficult. She free-longed him in several directions at various gaits and then over poles using just hand signals and a wand - there was a clear bond between them which was lovely to see.
The last event was with a Morgan gelding who had applied for the clinic portion of the day, as a horse who was difficult for his owner. He had a history of biting, and being unresponsive to leading (e.g. dragging his owner around): I understood that his behavior was often problematic and occasionally dangerous. The horse came in and went in circles for the first few minutes - head up high and turned to the outside - not a horse who was comfortable on any level. Farah sat and watched him for a bit, to assess him, and then began to have what she calls a “conversation” - minimal interactions to see what the horse (by means of his body language and his responsiveness to her - or lack of it ) had to say. It was evident that he had no desire or perhaps even capacity for connection at that point. So Farah began establishing the means for connection - getting his attention, setting up some boundaries, inviting him in. It was all very quiet - the loudest sound was a plastic bag tied to the end of a longe-whip, the noise of which she used to send him away when he was disrespectful of her personal space. There were no restraints, no yanking, no raised voices, but by the end of the hour he had volunteered to walk next to her at a respectful distance in any direction, and was willing to leave food in a dish unless she gave permission for him to approach and have some. And if she asked him to leave the dish and walk with her again, he did. He head was down, his eye was soft, and he was altogether a different guy. His owner practiced with him a bit what had been demonstrated, and was thrilled with the difference. It was really a very graphic illustration of what can be accomplished with tact and connected riding techniques. Farah’s website is full of information and videos of this work - you can find it at http://fdhorsetraining.com/
So I would say the day was a great success - we had hoped to demonstrate the benefits to horse and rider of a variety of holistic techniques and approaches, and I think we did!
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Times of Plenty
Fall is the very best time of the year, in my opinion. The air is perfect, the light is perfect, the color of everything (sky, grass, trees) is clear and burnished. The first smell of wood smoke is - let’s face it - magical. I have had a fire going for a few days, as the tactile analog of comfort food. So nice to come into a room with a fire, I think. The dogs agree.
Second cutting came in yesterday - as usual, a miracle. I didn’t know for sure if it could be cut at all until the day before. We had over twenty-one inches of rain between Irene and the aftermath, and there was standing water in that field not too long ago. I was hoping for four days of drying, since the dew stays late and arrives early in the afternoon and the days are so much shorter, but I had to make due with three (since it is raining AGAIN today) and the hay seems fine anyway. By the end of the day yesterday the dried grass had that nice crackle when you picked it up and the bales were beautiful. We will need to be careful when we feed it - it is horse fudge (or worse) and they would gorge on the bright green-ness of it, if allowed. And, typically, I had no idea how I would get the bales into the barns until the 11th hour when help just showed up. These bales were heavy enough that I was extremely grateful for the assistance. It turns out that my back still has some limitations on how much weight I can throw, and 50-60 pound bales exceed it.
It was a little bit of a scramble this morning to find sheets to fit the horses which need protection - my blanket collection was still at the cleaners but the rain was so cold I didn’t want to send horses out without some portable shelter, at least. It was a hoot fitting a 75" rain sheet to a rather large Hanoverian but we managed. All these horses’ own sheets, of course, were tidily put away at their owners’ homes until needed
I am also pretty psyched about the open house this coming Saturday (details on Facebook and the backacresfarm.com webpage). It is a good excuse to get everything cleaned up and tidy which is this week’s job. Recently, however, the large water pressure tank failed and it was an interesting exercise to get it changed out this past Monday. It was originally installed in the new barn feed room on a pedestal, and boarded up in place after being seriously insulated - since it gets quite cold out there. It is the main tank for the houses and all the barns, so when the wooden walls began showing suspicious wetness underneath the tank it was time to Take Note. Thank the lord it was still under warrantee - but the repair made quite a mess. The cloaking boards are still off in order for the underneath and floor to dry out and I am really hoping to get it back together before Saturday. Doesn’t make a good impression to have boards and screws lying around a tack room.
See you on Saturday, I hope!
Second cutting came in yesterday - as usual, a miracle. I didn’t know for sure if it could be cut at all until the day before. We had over twenty-one inches of rain between Irene and the aftermath, and there was standing water in that field not too long ago. I was hoping for four days of drying, since the dew stays late and arrives early in the afternoon and the days are so much shorter, but I had to make due with three (since it is raining AGAIN today) and the hay seems fine anyway. By the end of the day yesterday the dried grass had that nice crackle when you picked it up and the bales were beautiful. We will need to be careful when we feed it - it is horse fudge (or worse) and they would gorge on the bright green-ness of it, if allowed. And, typically, I had no idea how I would get the bales into the barns until the 11th hour when help just showed up. These bales were heavy enough that I was extremely grateful for the assistance. It turns out that my back still has some limitations on how much weight I can throw, and 50-60 pound bales exceed it.
It was a little bit of a scramble this morning to find sheets to fit the horses which need protection - my blanket collection was still at the cleaners but the rain was so cold I didn’t want to send horses out without some portable shelter, at least. It was a hoot fitting a 75" rain sheet to a rather large Hanoverian but we managed. All these horses’ own sheets, of course, were tidily put away at their owners’ homes until needed
I am also pretty psyched about the open house this coming Saturday (details on Facebook and the backacresfarm.com webpage). It is a good excuse to get everything cleaned up and tidy which is this week’s job. Recently, however, the large water pressure tank failed and it was an interesting exercise to get it changed out this past Monday. It was originally installed in the new barn feed room on a pedestal, and boarded up in place after being seriously insulated - since it gets quite cold out there. It is the main tank for the houses and all the barns, so when the wooden walls began showing suspicious wetness underneath the tank it was time to Take Note. Thank the lord it was still under warrantee - but the repair made quite a mess. The cloaking boards are still off in order for the underneath and floor to dry out and I am really hoping to get it back together before Saturday. Doesn’t make a good impression to have boards and screws lying around a tack room.
See you on Saturday, I hope!
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Miscellany
It’s been an interesting week, what with one thing and another. The weather predictions were so awful as of last Friday on, that all I could do was make lists....containers (in and out) to fill with water, remove the arena dressage letters, put away porch flowers, close all the barn windows, not to mention turning the new barn into a water-proof bunker, etc. etc. The bunker prep was endless - bales and sandbags, measuring tarps to fit, running sump-pump hose so that the doors would close over it, extension cords, trench and swale digging with the tractor bucket, and on and on. Plus what to do about bracing the big barn doors against the wind? Their surface area is considerable, but if one side were braced adequately, then the other could be closed against it. Probably. Bringing the tractor inside would not work since then two horses would be blocked into their stalls by the length of it, and chores would be even more of a drag. I finally settled on a pallet topped with several hundred pounds of feed as a brace - it worked a treat. We had five extra horses on a sanctuary basis, as well - everybody fit, thank goodness. Always room for one more.
Sunday was pretty bad, I must say, although it did not, as usual, live up to its press. Still, the winds were severe - the harshest test yet of the barn roofs and general construction. I was very happy that everything survived without any damage at all. Nothing tore, bent, ripped or broke. The insurance companies should be paying me, for pete’s sakes. The water was quite a show - a river running down the street, and others gushing through the pastures. My neighbor Cam had cleared away detritus from the main culvert draining the back yard’s water around the cupola barn, and when I peeked at it midday the water coming out of it was impressive. Similarly the trench dug uphill from the new barn was full, full, full of rushing water - all of which would have ended up in the barn. It was quite gratifying to have everything work in the way intended. Only one tree down, and one huge branch elsewhere, and each had the consideration to fall harmlessly on to clear ground. They didn’t even mess the fencing.
Lots of time indoors, during the weather. I spent quite a bit of time with my cats and dogs, all flopped around me as I laid on the couch watching the branches whip around. My little long-haired Manx cat Henna is such a hoot. She has her schedule, by which you can set your clock. Mornings when I open up the main house, she races at speed through the door as if putting one over on me, then comes skulking back for a scratch and some kibble. Some kitty speedway follows - the Run of Joy engaged in by several cats and the mid-size dog. Then when I am drinking my coffee on the couch, there is the royal ascent to the couch back, where she stretches out, purring, for some more petting. Then as I go out for chores, there comes the day time nap on my bed, and late afternoon twining about my ankles. The evening rituals are also set in stone - their little cat dishes must contain certain elements (yogurt and two kind of wet plus some raw hamburger) to qualify as acceptable. I have a lot of fun with this little pack.
Cleanup after the storm wasn’t too bad - Monday morning took three people three hours, and then Tuesday and Wednesday meant branch and stick cleanup and some tractor work. I am mindful of the open house coming up on September 24th and excited to have the “public” here to see how nice it is (if I do say so myself). Of course that means serious grooming - even more serious than usual - having three main barns plus the house is the same sort of housekeeping challenge that Candy Spelling use to face (although I imagine she had help). And I can’t stand scraggly pastures - of which there are about 15 acres. So, lots to do. See you then!
Sunday was pretty bad, I must say, although it did not, as usual, live up to its press. Still, the winds were severe - the harshest test yet of the barn roofs and general construction. I was very happy that everything survived without any damage at all. Nothing tore, bent, ripped or broke. The insurance companies should be paying me, for pete’s sakes. The water was quite a show - a river running down the street, and others gushing through the pastures. My neighbor Cam had cleared away detritus from the main culvert draining the back yard’s water around the cupola barn, and when I peeked at it midday the water coming out of it was impressive. Similarly the trench dug uphill from the new barn was full, full, full of rushing water - all of which would have ended up in the barn. It was quite gratifying to have everything work in the way intended. Only one tree down, and one huge branch elsewhere, and each had the consideration to fall harmlessly on to clear ground. They didn’t even mess the fencing.
Lots of time indoors, during the weather. I spent quite a bit of time with my cats and dogs, all flopped around me as I laid on the couch watching the branches whip around. My little long-haired Manx cat Henna is such a hoot. She has her schedule, by which you can set your clock. Mornings when I open up the main house, she races at speed through the door as if putting one over on me, then comes skulking back for a scratch and some kibble. Some kitty speedway follows - the Run of Joy engaged in by several cats and the mid-size dog. Then when I am drinking my coffee on the couch, there is the royal ascent to the couch back, where she stretches out, purring, for some more petting. Then as I go out for chores, there comes the day time nap on my bed, and late afternoon twining about my ankles. The evening rituals are also set in stone - their little cat dishes must contain certain elements (yogurt and two kind of wet plus some raw hamburger) to qualify as acceptable. I have a lot of fun with this little pack.
Cleanup after the storm wasn’t too bad - Monday morning took three people three hours, and then Tuesday and Wednesday meant branch and stick cleanup and some tractor work. I am mindful of the open house coming up on September 24th and excited to have the “public” here to see how nice it is (if I do say so myself). Of course that means serious grooming - even more serious than usual - having three main barns plus the house is the same sort of housekeeping challenge that Candy Spelling use to face (although I imagine she had help). And I can’t stand scraggly pastures - of which there are about 15 acres. So, lots to do. See you then!
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Stream of Consciousness
Things have been quiet for a while, save for the daily minutia of horse and farm care. Phyllis the chicken is getting fairly vague - we find her at a distance from the coop now looking faintly bewildered as though she neither knows how she got there, nor how to get back. She has become so teeny - even with her feather topknot (she is a Polish Crested) she weighs about the same as a stick of butter. Fortunately the other hens don’t pick on her (is that where the expression came from? “Peck” morphed into “pick”?).
Another chicken incident took place a few weeks ago. A woman stopped by to ask about the farm, and in getting out of her car took the dog out on the leash, presumably to pee. It slipped the leash and took off after the chickens, killing one. I was out doing errands, but my housemate reported hearing hysterical screaming - from the woman, of course, and presumably from the chicken who wasn’t taking the event too well. I came home just after the melee, finding my housemate holding a black plastic bag with The Remains, talking earnestly to the woman who was still crying. I felt terrible for her - it wasn’t even her dog (she was dog-sitting) and she was beyond mortified. We carried on with the tour, talking about possibilities for horsing around, but I don’t think she will be back even though I assured her repeatedly that accidents happen and I wasn’t upset (it was an old chicken). The memories are likely too painful...
There is a happy health outcome here. My old standardbred Spirit had been doing poorly for a while - appetite off, weight loss, stiff in his movements, seemingly a bit depressed. The thought occurred to compare him with another horse here who had had many of the same symptoms for quite a long time which we never could seem to address. Then she spiked a horrific fever along with some leg swelling, and the vet recommended doxycycline, as the probabilities were that this was a tick-borne affliction. Sure enough, her fever and swellings went away, but then so did ALL her other long-term symptoms - her appetite came back, her chronic scratches went away, her coat got glossy, she was much less stiff, and she became much, much happier. Conclusion - she had had a low level infection the whole time (though her blood work came back negative, apparently as it often does.) Our wonderful vet examined Spirit and agreed to the two-week course of doxy, and sure enough, he is responding. His symptoms were much less drastic, but I was unwilling to let him get any sicker before acting on my suspicions. Compared to the valleys, Plainfield has almost no ticks and fleas but they are around enough to cause the occasional problem.
We are hunkered in against the weather for the next several days - severe thunderstorms today and of course the hurricane aftermath predicted for Sunday. There have been several heavy storms in the last week. Last Friday I was driving home from a day in RI seeing my aged father, when I hit the serious hail and flooding 20 minutes from home and of course I was frantic. It seems as though I can’t leave for more than two hours in any safety, for pete’s sakes. There was somebody here at the farm, as always, but since I wasn’t here personally to get the horses and goats in out of the weather I was a mess of worry in the car. All other cars were pulled over, but I plowed on towards home, to arrive to the glad sight of everyone tucked into their stalls and dry and safe.
The drainage swales are being deepened as we speak to keep the water away from the barns, and I will be filling all water tubs on Sunday morning against a power outage. Plenty of feed in the barrels and hay in the barn - life is good.
Another chicken incident took place a few weeks ago. A woman stopped by to ask about the farm, and in getting out of her car took the dog out on the leash, presumably to pee. It slipped the leash and took off after the chickens, killing one. I was out doing errands, but my housemate reported hearing hysterical screaming - from the woman, of course, and presumably from the chicken who wasn’t taking the event too well. I came home just after the melee, finding my housemate holding a black plastic bag with The Remains, talking earnestly to the woman who was still crying. I felt terrible for her - it wasn’t even her dog (she was dog-sitting) and she was beyond mortified. We carried on with the tour, talking about possibilities for horsing around, but I don’t think she will be back even though I assured her repeatedly that accidents happen and I wasn’t upset (it was an old chicken). The memories are likely too painful...
There is a happy health outcome here. My old standardbred Spirit had been doing poorly for a while - appetite off, weight loss, stiff in his movements, seemingly a bit depressed. The thought occurred to compare him with another horse here who had had many of the same symptoms for quite a long time which we never could seem to address. Then she spiked a horrific fever along with some leg swelling, and the vet recommended doxycycline, as the probabilities were that this was a tick-borne affliction. Sure enough, her fever and swellings went away, but then so did ALL her other long-term symptoms - her appetite came back, her chronic scratches went away, her coat got glossy, she was much less stiff, and she became much, much happier. Conclusion - she had had a low level infection the whole time (though her blood work came back negative, apparently as it often does.) Our wonderful vet examined Spirit and agreed to the two-week course of doxy, and sure enough, he is responding. His symptoms were much less drastic, but I was unwilling to let him get any sicker before acting on my suspicions. Compared to the valleys, Plainfield has almost no ticks and fleas but they are around enough to cause the occasional problem.
We are hunkered in against the weather for the next several days - severe thunderstorms today and of course the hurricane aftermath predicted for Sunday. There have been several heavy storms in the last week. Last Friday I was driving home from a day in RI seeing my aged father, when I hit the serious hail and flooding 20 minutes from home and of course I was frantic. It seems as though I can’t leave for more than two hours in any safety, for pete’s sakes. There was somebody here at the farm, as always, but since I wasn’t here personally to get the horses and goats in out of the weather I was a mess of worry in the car. All other cars were pulled over, but I plowed on towards home, to arrive to the glad sight of everyone tucked into their stalls and dry and safe.
The drainage swales are being deepened as we speak to keep the water away from the barns, and I will be filling all water tubs on Sunday morning against a power outage. Plenty of feed in the barrels and hay in the barn - life is good.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Horse stories - the distant past
After freshman year’s frenzy had settled down, I pursued and secured a man named David as my boyfriend. David was willing to make his new shiksa girlfriend happy, and since we were now living on an old farm outside our university town, this meant buying me a horse. It is difficult to really comprehend just how clueless I was with regard to the horse plan. Since my childhood, I had always managed to find my way to the back of a horse, but in each case the horse had been tended by someone else. I had never done any feeding, or mucking, or advance purchasing of supplies. The shortcomings of this background did not suggest themselves to me, however, and I found a horse dealer about 20 miles from the farm. We visited the dealer, and there he was. A large, black, bony, truculent, ewe-necked, and overbearing animal - instantly named Hieronymus - who was my dream come true. Age? Didn’t ask. Condition? He was walking around - good enough. Price? $125.00, cash. David meekly handed over the payment, and I made arrangements to ride Hieronymus back to the farm, since it never occurred to me that most people used a trailer to take delivery. It also did not occur to me that I hadn’t ridden much for several years, that my beater of a saddle might not fit the horse, or that perhaps he was neither in condition for that length of ride - nor safe with the bridges and road hazards between the sale barn and the farm. I confidently arrived to collect Hieronymus, David drove away, and there I was. Completely alone with a horse who - unsurprisingly - wasn’t very interested in being saddled or ridden. Within the first five minutes, his head had flown up and hit me in the face as I tried to mount. Blood, swelling, and crossed eyes, and we hadn’t even left the yard yet. Having no choice, I persevered, and many, many hours later I was three-quarters of the way back to the farm, slumped over the pommel in a haze of pain and fatigue. Finally a car drew alongside with David and friends inside, looking for me. I remember actually falling off the horse and being driven home. I did not notice how Hieronymus got back, but I found him in a straight stall the next day, when I eased painfully out of bed, barely able to walk or see.
In spite of this inauspicious beginning, our relationship prospered. The farm barn was dilapidated (and felt haunted), but I dragged old cow stanchions together to make a makeshift run-in stall, There was rudimentary fencing in the weedy pasture, and Hieronymus seemed comfortable enough, once I bought a book on what to feed him. We went riding often, and he didn’t throw me (although he did throw some friends). Our life together was good....until one classic dark and rainy night...
I had gone out to the barn after dinner to see how he was doing, but he wasn’t inside. I didn’t think much about it since I figured he was out in the pasture, but as I left the barn, I heard a uneven clopping noise and Hieronymus loomed out of the night from the wrong side of the barn. He was limping and cut and bleeding, and I could not imagine what had happened. After leading him haltingly back into the barn, I hurried into the house to call the vet and get some disinfectant. And as I was dialing, the front door swung open and there stood a state cop. Oh man, I thought - my horse is a complete mess, and now we’re getting busted...anything else? Remember that this was the 60s: there were - ahem - substances on every surface. Instead of reading out my rights, however, the cop asked how my horse was? My jaw dropped - how kind of him to inquire, I thought - and I replied that actually he wasn’t so good and I was trying to call the vet.
As I later learned, the pasture fence had sagged in the rain and Hieronymus stepped over it into the road. Meanwhile, a traveling salesman was driving slowly along and naturally failed to see the black horse in the moonless and drizzling dark, and hit him. Hieronymus reared up and came down on top of the car - still invisible except for the iridescent purple of his coronary bands (daubed with gentian violet just above the hoof line against an infection) - and these purple appendages bludgeoned in the windshield, roof, hood, and side-mirror, reducing the poor driver to incoherent terror. Hieronymus finally disengaged himself and staggered off into the night, and the salesman crept to the nearest phone and called the police. The car was totaled, and my father’s homeowner’s carrier eventually and indignantly cancelled his policy, stating as a reason their disinclination to be responsible for daughters’ horses.
Aside from being pestered by the insurance adjuster, I wasn’t too upset by all the legal aftermath, being mainly concerned with my horse. He healed up fairly well except for a wound on his heel which just wouldn’t close. After two months, I was forced to conclude that expert help was needed, and decided to take him to the world-renowned equine facility at Cornell. I had to rent a rackety single horse trailer with a clamp bumper hitch, and was able to borrow a lard-bottomed family station-wagon to pull it - unconscious of any need for tiresome calculations as to the ability of the weary engine to pull a loaded trailer. The next shipping task involved pictures I had seen of trailered horses with neat bandages around their legs. I didn’t know why this was done, but it seemed the thing to do when visiting a world-renowned horse facility...etc, etc. So I tore up an old white bed sheet and carefully wrapped each leg in strips of cotton sheeting, fastened with a large safety pin. The ensemble was completed by a frayed dingy cotton lead rope. Once all these preparations were concluded, I and my reluctant house-mate Tom slowly ground our way through the hilly Finger Lakes roads to our appointment with veterinary destiny.
We eventually pulled in to the large animal area at Cornell and parked. We looked out the window, and observed with apprehension the spectacle of sleek, shining horses with soft, clean summer blankets tippy-tapping on glistening hooves over glossy tiles. Tom and I got out slowly, lifted down the rear ramp of the trailer, and out slouched Hieronymus, bed sheets trailing in long lines behind his legs, scruffy and derelict at the end of his unraveling rope. Complete silence, except for the sound of Tom slinking away from this scene of Olympian humiliation. The only comment I can remember was from one young vet who asked if I had EVER picked out my horse’s feet. He stayed there for a month - his teeth needed floating, his gut needed worming, his feet needed trimming, plus there was that heel injury - the list was formidable. I thought that quite honestly, they should have paid ME for the otherwise-unobtainable experience they got through working on him. Cornell didn’t see it that way, however, and the bill came to $85.00 which was my complete summer’s earnings for that year.
Hieronymus lived with me for perhaps another year after that - rolling uninhibitedly in the newly planted organic vegetable garden, running through five strands of barbed wire to make friends with a passing horse and rider, and throwing off the occasional friend who had assured me that OF COURSE they could ride. David and I finally went to see Ralph the Guru - an actual guru whose advice was legendary - and asked him what to do with this horse. I adored the horse, but it was just one thing after another with him. Ralph said I should get rid of my horse - that if things were right, then they were easy. I went home after this consultation, and stayed up very late, sitting on the front porch overlooking Hieronymus’ pasture and weeping in the moonlight at the idea of giving him up. The thing about Ralph was, he never gave advice unless asked, but he was always right.
So, within the week I found a farm with horses owned by a man who really liked Hieronymus’ looks, and wanted to take him. The man arrived with a trailer, efficiently loaded my horse up and drove him away. I went to visit once: I saw Hieronymus off in the distance, contentedly herding around a group of other horses, completely indifferent to my presence. His new owner was quite happy with him, and had re-named him Lucky.
In spite of this inauspicious beginning, our relationship prospered. The farm barn was dilapidated (and felt haunted), but I dragged old cow stanchions together to make a makeshift run-in stall, There was rudimentary fencing in the weedy pasture, and Hieronymus seemed comfortable enough, once I bought a book on what to feed him. We went riding often, and he didn’t throw me (although he did throw some friends). Our life together was good....until one classic dark and rainy night...
I had gone out to the barn after dinner to see how he was doing, but he wasn’t inside. I didn’t think much about it since I figured he was out in the pasture, but as I left the barn, I heard a uneven clopping noise and Hieronymus loomed out of the night from the wrong side of the barn. He was limping and cut and bleeding, and I could not imagine what had happened. After leading him haltingly back into the barn, I hurried into the house to call the vet and get some disinfectant. And as I was dialing, the front door swung open and there stood a state cop. Oh man, I thought - my horse is a complete mess, and now we’re getting busted...anything else? Remember that this was the 60s: there were - ahem - substances on every surface. Instead of reading out my rights, however, the cop asked how my horse was? My jaw dropped - how kind of him to inquire, I thought - and I replied that actually he wasn’t so good and I was trying to call the vet.
As I later learned, the pasture fence had sagged in the rain and Hieronymus stepped over it into the road. Meanwhile, a traveling salesman was driving slowly along and naturally failed to see the black horse in the moonless and drizzling dark, and hit him. Hieronymus reared up and came down on top of the car - still invisible except for the iridescent purple of his coronary bands (daubed with gentian violet just above the hoof line against an infection) - and these purple appendages bludgeoned in the windshield, roof, hood, and side-mirror, reducing the poor driver to incoherent terror. Hieronymus finally disengaged himself and staggered off into the night, and the salesman crept to the nearest phone and called the police. The car was totaled, and my father’s homeowner’s carrier eventually and indignantly cancelled his policy, stating as a reason their disinclination to be responsible for daughters’ horses.
Aside from being pestered by the insurance adjuster, I wasn’t too upset by all the legal aftermath, being mainly concerned with my horse. He healed up fairly well except for a wound on his heel which just wouldn’t close. After two months, I was forced to conclude that expert help was needed, and decided to take him to the world-renowned equine facility at Cornell. I had to rent a rackety single horse trailer with a clamp bumper hitch, and was able to borrow a lard-bottomed family station-wagon to pull it - unconscious of any need for tiresome calculations as to the ability of the weary engine to pull a loaded trailer. The next shipping task involved pictures I had seen of trailered horses with neat bandages around their legs. I didn’t know why this was done, but it seemed the thing to do when visiting a world-renowned horse facility...etc, etc. So I tore up an old white bed sheet and carefully wrapped each leg in strips of cotton sheeting, fastened with a large safety pin. The ensemble was completed by a frayed dingy cotton lead rope. Once all these preparations were concluded, I and my reluctant house-mate Tom slowly ground our way through the hilly Finger Lakes roads to our appointment with veterinary destiny.
We eventually pulled in to the large animal area at Cornell and parked. We looked out the window, and observed with apprehension the spectacle of sleek, shining horses with soft, clean summer blankets tippy-tapping on glistening hooves over glossy tiles. Tom and I got out slowly, lifted down the rear ramp of the trailer, and out slouched Hieronymus, bed sheets trailing in long lines behind his legs, scruffy and derelict at the end of his unraveling rope. Complete silence, except for the sound of Tom slinking away from this scene of Olympian humiliation. The only comment I can remember was from one young vet who asked if I had EVER picked out my horse’s feet. He stayed there for a month - his teeth needed floating, his gut needed worming, his feet needed trimming, plus there was that heel injury - the list was formidable. I thought that quite honestly, they should have paid ME for the otherwise-unobtainable experience they got through working on him. Cornell didn’t see it that way, however, and the bill came to $85.00 which was my complete summer’s earnings for that year.
Hieronymus lived with me for perhaps another year after that - rolling uninhibitedly in the newly planted organic vegetable garden, running through five strands of barbed wire to make friends with a passing horse and rider, and throwing off the occasional friend who had assured me that OF COURSE they could ride. David and I finally went to see Ralph the Guru - an actual guru whose advice was legendary - and asked him what to do with this horse. I adored the horse, but it was just one thing after another with him. Ralph said I should get rid of my horse - that if things were right, then they were easy. I went home after this consultation, and stayed up very late, sitting on the front porch overlooking Hieronymus’ pasture and weeping in the moonlight at the idea of giving him up. The thing about Ralph was, he never gave advice unless asked, but he was always right.
So, within the week I found a farm with horses owned by a man who really liked Hieronymus’ looks, and wanted to take him. The man arrived with a trailer, efficiently loaded my horse up and drove him away. I went to visit once: I saw Hieronymus off in the distance, contentedly herding around a group of other horses, completely indifferent to my presence. His new owner was quite happy with him, and had re-named him Lucky.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
HEY!! That’s right...so it is..
That time of year again - and the saga continues. I have a personal hay field which has been cut and baled by a neighbor for years. I never know from one season to the next whether or not his services will be available, and it is not as though there is a lot of local competition for the privilege of doing it. The ideal cutting week (3rd week of June) came and went this year - the weather was not terribly cooperative and the person in question was simply not around. I began getting more and more troubled about what to do - it is a six acre field which contributes quite a bit to my annual needs, plus if it weren’t cut, then what? There would be no second cutting (although the bobolinks would be happy - their fledglings would have a rare chance to survive the haying season). Should I just brush hog it? Geez, how wasteful. Plus I had given the town permission to plant sugar maple saplings along the perimeter, to support the initiative of replacing the ancient (and decaying) sugar maples which line the major roads in Plainfield. Not only are they beautiful, but they have long contributed sap to the maple sugar houses in town. Now, however, new trees must be twenty feet back from the road (unlike the originals which are almost IN the road in many cases) so two sides of my field perimeter are dotted with these little trees and their support stakes - kind of an obstacle course for someone trying to cut.
Finally I broke down and begged another neighbor to help. He is among the busier humans on the planet, and I had no great hope that he would be able, but mirabile dictu he agreed, and so it happened. I never saw such a good job in my life. He cut between each little tree so cleanly that it looked like he used scissors, for pete’s sakes. And into the corners. And around the electric pole. It was beautiful to see. He tettered and tettered for several days - and then, the fell clutch of circumstance intervened and an unpredicted tiny micro-burst cell of rain came through. It poured buckets at his house, making puddles and rivulets, and he and his wife were in fits of worry and upset. So much so that they actually drove to my field to assess the damage, the dears, only to find that barely four miles away it had hardly drizzled. Kind of a heavy dew, no more. It was a miracle. The hay was perhaps a touch more brown than it would have been, but it was just fine. The horses (who constitute the acid test) like it very much.
Here’s the pisser. I had gotten (paid for) between six and eight hundred bales off that field for many years. This year - and there is no less hay - I got four hundred....
Finally I broke down and begged another neighbor to help. He is among the busier humans on the planet, and I had no great hope that he would be able, but mirabile dictu he agreed, and so it happened. I never saw such a good job in my life. He cut between each little tree so cleanly that it looked like he used scissors, for pete’s sakes. And into the corners. And around the electric pole. It was beautiful to see. He tettered and tettered for several days - and then, the fell clutch of circumstance intervened and an unpredicted tiny micro-burst cell of rain came through. It poured buckets at his house, making puddles and rivulets, and he and his wife were in fits of worry and upset. So much so that they actually drove to my field to assess the damage, the dears, only to find that barely four miles away it had hardly drizzled. Kind of a heavy dew, no more. It was a miracle. The hay was perhaps a touch more brown than it would have been, but it was just fine. The horses (who constitute the acid test) like it very much.
Here’s the pisser. I had gotten (paid for) between six and eight hundred bales off that field for many years. This year - and there is no less hay - I got four hundred....
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Investment Opportunity
It has come to me that - in the future event when I have extra money - I should invest in companies which make applesauce and molasses. Horse people will know instantly why this is so - it is only remarkable that it has taken this long for me to reach the conclusion. Right now, for example, I am making noticeably more trips to the dump for my recyclables, since the dang boxes are overflowing with empty applesauce and molasses jars. And it never seems to be the ponies which need it - it is always the HUGE horses with their high dosages of icky and unpalatable powders which need the spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. Well, more like a quart. And it is a good thing we use many times the recommended number of fly predators - even though flies also love the stuff there just aren’t that many flies around, even in the heat.
Hay is a more difficult subject this year - I am practicing my mantra, to wit: If you don’t worry, then you won’t need to worry. Kind of esoteric, but it makes sense to me. And in the reaches of the night when things can be dark on every level, the mantra is handy. I certainly have enough in the barns for quite a while, but my comfort is in having them quite full by now and alas, it has not happened. The field which was to have suppled a huge quantity of my needs was cut a day late, in its 20 acre entirety, in spite of the fact that everyone (including the farmer) knew that weather was coming in. Sure enough, only a few hundred bales were possible, and I would not buy half of it since it was not dry enough, The rest of the cut hay was soaked, and then soaked again and again. Totally ruined. They don’t call it the heartbreak of farming for nothing - what a waste. The sodden rows are still there, silent in their mute reproach to bad luck and sad judgement every time I drive by.
The rain is making for extraordinary growth this year, though. The gardens are leaping out of the ground, and are very beautiful. And the pastures are bearing up nicely, I must say. There is still plenty of grass for everyone, and each morning the horses are in a good mood and hustle themselves out to their Happy Places - it is cute.
I am happy that the growth is so lush and beautiful for another reason, as well. We are planning an Open House here at Back Acres on Sept. 24th, and as I am a houseproud owner, it matters tremendously to me that the place look nice. And so it will - the grass will still be green at this rate, and the flowers thriving. Details of the event are in the new Mass. Horse and on the Back Acres Farm Facebook page - hope to see you then!
Hay is a more difficult subject this year - I am practicing my mantra, to wit: If you don’t worry, then you won’t need to worry. Kind of esoteric, but it makes sense to me. And in the reaches of the night when things can be dark on every level, the mantra is handy. I certainly have enough in the barns for quite a while, but my comfort is in having them quite full by now and alas, it has not happened. The field which was to have suppled a huge quantity of my needs was cut a day late, in its 20 acre entirety, in spite of the fact that everyone (including the farmer) knew that weather was coming in. Sure enough, only a few hundred bales were possible, and I would not buy half of it since it was not dry enough, The rest of the cut hay was soaked, and then soaked again and again. Totally ruined. They don’t call it the heartbreak of farming for nothing - what a waste. The sodden rows are still there, silent in their mute reproach to bad luck and sad judgement every time I drive by.
The rain is making for extraordinary growth this year, though. The gardens are leaping out of the ground, and are very beautiful. And the pastures are bearing up nicely, I must say. There is still plenty of grass for everyone, and each morning the horses are in a good mood and hustle themselves out to their Happy Places - it is cute.
I am happy that the growth is so lush and beautiful for another reason, as well. We are planning an Open House here at Back Acres on Sept. 24th, and as I am a houseproud owner, it matters tremendously to me that the place look nice. And so it will - the grass will still be green at this rate, and the flowers thriving. Details of the event are in the new Mass. Horse and on the Back Acres Farm Facebook page - hope to see you then!
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