One more week?

Jeff moved my fence line one last time so we can try and squeak out a few more days of having the horses in our yard. I'm still aggressively treating Axel's eye and it's a lot easier to get out there every couple hours when they are right out the door versus across the street. Not to mention I'm not looking forward the mud in the "dry" lot.

The weather has been pretty nice on the weekends so far. Last weekend the boys rode Cody for a while in the yard. At least until they started fighting over both wanting to ride but not together. I wish Axel wasn't so sore and someone could ride him too. I'd just be afraid he'd trip and fall. Also I don't have 4 hands to lead everyone around at once. Though Daniel thinks he can handle it himself.

We're working on week 4 of the eye meds. I can't tell if his eye is getting better or not. It almost looks like the ulcer is getting more shallow? I have no idea if that's how they heal or not. The circle doesn't seem to be getting smaller in diameter though. And it's hard to get him to open it far enough to take a photo. Every time I go near him he slams it shut. Go figure.

So in my short time taking care of my own horses my list of things I need is getting longer and longer and more expensive. Obvious things like a skid loader to feed hay, and a 4 wheeler and harrow to drag the pasture, a shelter, and automatic waterer are all sort of spendy items. Some smaller details: some of those cement dishes cuz the horses can't seem to not knock over their buckets when they are eating which gets grain all over and then they eat the grass down to dirt trying to eat up all the spilled grain, so that makes me think I also need a solid rubber mat under where they eat. In addition to the grid like tiles for protecting the paddock for mud etc.

There are still horses in my yard

After two full weeks of the eye meds Axel's eye went from getting better to getting worse. So we're back on bute for the pain so I can actually get the drops in and another two weeks of both drops. The vet said if he was in the hospital they'd put the antibiotics in once an hour so as often as I can get out there and put them in is best. At least with more attempts I'm bound to get more meds in, right? Also we switched from whatever the original antibiotic was to Cipro. So maybe a shake up there will help.

It's hard to tell since I see him every day (multiple times) but I think he's gaining weigh. Pretty sure he's butt cheeks are touching again. Still needs some topline work but if I ever get to Marshall to pick up that ration balancer that is supposed to help. (originally I ordered what I thought was right but it turned out to b some mineral instead, no harm done just not the right stuff)

I am looking forward (and I'm sure Axel is to) his eye being healed up so I only have to feed them and groom them and all that instead of making enemies. Though they might miss all the extra treats (bribes).

I also picked up some Back on Track knee boots to try out on the old man. Supposed to help keep the blood flowing and reduce swelling and increase mobility in his joints. I might have to get some quick wraps as well to help hold them up, depends on how much SMBs are if I find those instead.

An inch closer (though further away)

I've been doing a horrible job updating but I'm going to blame that on the fact that I rarely get to see Cody and Axel.  So last we left it was in the fall of 2014.  When the pasture grass started getting thin we moved Cody and Axel to a family friend's place in exchange for hay for the winter.  He has several horses so the boys got to pal around with a real herd for quite a while actually.  I tried to ride a couple times but in usual Cody fashion, he didn't want to go anywhere and Axel's arthritis is getting so bad he was a trip hazard.  We brought the horses back into town for a long weekend to work on some volunteer wheat again and give some rides in the yard.  At one point the property that they were staying at changed hands so the horses all moved to another paddock/pasture out 4 miles from the farm for the winter/spring/part of this summer.  And now finally they boys are staying at a friend's place for a couple months.  I'm really trying to get them moved as close as possible to me so when we move out there I can handle the care of them. Axel is getting thin and I really want to get him some grain on a regular basis and see if he'll fatten up.  And I'd like to blanket him this winter if he's going to stay on the thin side but I'd need to be able to check on him regularly if I do that.  Plans are still rolling around in my head on how to accomplish that.

So until then, they are a tiny step closer even though they are a few miles further away from us right now.

Catch up ... again

Just a quick catch up since I'm not doing a very good job keeping up to date.  Maybe I can do better this year.  Last year I wasn't riding since I was pregnant.  Baby was born in August.  My boys moved from my brother in law's to the big cattle pasture at the farm.  Haji crossed the rainbow bridge before winter hit.  We moved the boys to a farm outside of Canby where there's at least 10 other horses.  A guy that buys hay from my father in law is watching them for the winter.  They are actually getting fed flakes of hay so Axel isn't all puffed up like he usually is in the winter.  Cody has written me off now that he's with "his kind."  Hopefully I'll get a few rides in this summer.

I'm back to riding Booker, though lightly right now, we're lazy and it's winter, you know how that goes.  I got a pair of colt 45s for Xmas so we'll be getting him back in shape with the guns sooner than later and hopefully hitting up a clinic and a shoot this year.

Rough Weekend

Cody and Axel are doing well (save for Axel letting the cows chew his tail short). They spent the summer in the pasture with 3 cows and calves at the brother in law's place (same place as where they wintered). They are now in the big cattle pasture/wheat field with all the stock cows for a couple weeks enjoying the volunteer wheat. Then they will likely move to another location for winter, yet to be determined. There was one minor instance I was told of when they moved the horses with the bigger herd. The one bull mistook Axel for a nice stock cow and tried to show his affection, Axel did not appreciate it and ran through the fence. Doh. So there was some fence repair to be done but I don't blame Axel, that's for sure.

And in less happy news, Haji has crossed the rainbow bridge. The summer had not been kind to him and even while on pasture AND free choice hay, he still lost weight. :( We'll miss the old guy and I'm sad Daniel didn't get more of a chance to learn some horsemanship from a real expert that Haji was.

Forgive me

I'm all pregnant and stuff and getting to the barn and to the farm just isn't happening all too often these days.  Here's a photo post to catch up.

Still Slacking

It's bee a very cold winter around here and we've had quite a bit of snow.  We worked with Booker a little, not as much as we wanted since it was so cold.  Mostly working on the things that the trainer suggested along with a little goofing around.  Then at the beginning of March we sent Booker to the trainer for the month.  She's going to work him several times a week and get him back into shape and work on the stopping issues and just getting him listening and using his body properly.  Along with the training Nancy gets to ride a couple lessons as well so if the weather would cooperate that would be useful.

As far as my boys are concerned I haven't seen too much of them as we haven't been to the farm very often this winter with all the crazy weather.  I know the brother and sister in law and sister in law's brother took the three out for a little bareback ride around the pasture a couple months ago.  Sounds like they had a good time and the boys all behaved themselves.  The most work they've done in ages!  I've visited a few times to make sure everyone was still on all fours.  The slow feed Cinch Chix net is doing it's job, Axel is looking good and not too fat and his swelling has gone down significantly.  I'm guessing had we not put out hay without the net this year he wouldn't be swollen at all.  Haji may have lost a bit of weight which unless we're force feeding him 24 hours a day that was to be expected with the cold weather despite him having a blanket on. Spring should be good to get some weight back on him.  And though Axel still wants to eat everyone's feed, I think the three are getting along pretty well thanks to the small area they are in for the winter.

Middle of a Deep Freeze

We're in the middle of a deep freeze around here.  As in -20F with a -40F windchill.  Needless to say I don't like being so far away from being able to check on the boys.  Luckily they have the red barn with plenty of room for all three of them to hang out.  The report is that they spend the day outside and are always inside overnight.  So I guess they got a little smarts in their old age.

We switched over to a bulk feed.  It's easier to get and cheaper.  Probably not ideal for old men horses but I think everyone has their teeth still (talking to you, Haji) so it should be okay.  It's definitely good fat content wise and everyone likes how it tastes.  Jeff says that he hasn't met a feed these horses don't like (he hasn't tried to give Haji beet pulp I guess).

So the bulk feed is around 15 cents/lb versus the bagged senior feed which is more like $3/lb.  And they have apparently figured out how to store 1000lbs of it at a time.  Not sure what they did about that, I have two rodent proof bins that hold 300lbs of senior feed, so that probably holds a bit more bulk feed but I doubt 1000lbs. Anyways, they are fed and from all reports seem to still be alive and standing.  Someone is going to have some instructions to go photograph the horses and check under Haji's blanket for me next time he goes to the farm (without me this weekend).

Moving Again

I've been really horrible about keeping up with this blog lately.  I think part of it is the distance between my horses and myself.  But anyways better late than never, right?

Last time the horses had just gotten their feet trimmed and I'm happy to report that a month later they still look like they were trimmed last week and no one was sore from it that I noticed.  The family hadn't plowed the wheat field and a lot of volunteer wheat was growing so we figured we'd turn the horses out there for a change of scenery and something to munch on.

Low and behold, a couple weeks out there and I'm pretty sure Haji gained weight.  And they weren't eating much grain at that point because no one wanted to come up to the barn to eat.  All the while they were still on their first bale of hay.  Of course out of that whole 11 acres or so, the horses chose to stand in the one little patch of brush which meant tons of burrs.

And by "horses" I mean Haji. Though the other boys had their fair share of burrs as well.

When they needed to plow the wheat field they moved the horses back to the front pasture where they nearly finished off the first round bale.  So that bale lasted them since the end of September!  Guess they weren't done with the grass yet after all.

I wasn't able to make it out to Canby after that so Jeff took on the chore of pulling all the t-posts and trailering the horses over to his brother's place.  There's a leak in the well so we can't leave the water on all the time which means we can't use an insulated/heated automatic waterer.  And since the hose will freeze we can't really get water at all at our place so we decided to move them for the winter.  The cattle pens are all full of cattle at the inlaws so Jeff's brother's place is the only place left but there's no fence.  So Jeff pulled the t-posts in the dark and hand pounded them into frozen ground til his hands hurt for a week. Don't worry, I got to hear all about it ;)  Not being there just compounded my worry about the horses and not being able to manage their care being so far away.  It was a rough night to say the least.

So when they moved they threw out some hay from the loft and then put out a new round bale without the net which they all but finish in a week.  When I finally got out to see them after Thanksgiving they were FAT, super fat.  Which for Haji is a good thing, scratch that, great thing.  And that's without a lot of care in feeding him several times a day.  So I'm hoping he'll keep that weight on this winter. At some point someone took off Haji's blanket when it was a little warmer so I threw that back on him though he's got a nice winter coat and would probably be fine, I like the thought that he doesn't have to use his energy to keep himself warm and it'll help keep that sticky hip of his nice and warm.

So we had ourselves some more chores this past weekend and luckily the weather cooperated wonderfully.  I wrapped up the wire fencing from our place (that is a super lame job BTW) while Jeff started cleaning out his brother's barn.  Sunday I was able to get some time while Daniel stayed with Grandma and I went out to help.  The barn was full of who knows how many years worth of manure.  But between Jeff hand shoveling (I helped a tiny bit) and Joe running the bobcat they got the barn looking pretty nice.

We tied off the sides of the barn so the horses will just have access to the middle portion. That way they don't mess up the sides where the bobcat can't get and make it easier to clean in the future.  Also leaves the sides for storing various random things we found in the barn.

I put the buckets on the fence inside the barn which should mean a person can enter the barn from the small door and fill buckets without having to cross any fencelines or even go in where the horses are. The buckets will be out of the snow and rain so they can stay hung up and they won't go wandering away when a horse decides to play.  I thought maybe a neighbor kid could even feed but Jeff thinks that's too dangerous.  Anyway it's a pretty nice set up at this point.  The buckets are a little closer than I had hoped so hopefully the boys can figure out how to eat in peace and not run Haji off.  When I feed them from their buckets on the ground Sunday morning they all stood nicely and ate and Haji was able to finish before Axel came looking for seconds.  So that was nice.  Oh!  I saw Haji pin his ears and move Cody off at one point over the weekend.  Yay Haji!

I think there might be a bit of mud in our future but we'll see.  There was a low spot where the paddock is set up but this fall they filled it with gravel so maybe it'll be okay.  They do have a cement apron on the barn as well as the barn aisle to stand in if the mud gets bad.  We'll just have to scrap the aisle of manure on occasion.  Maybe throw out some stray or something.  I don't think it'll be as mud free as I thought our place would be but I think it'll be okay.  They don't have a large paddock right now but when the ground freezes they don't do too much moving around anyways.

So we cleaned up the barn, cleaned up their paddock area and put out a new round bale with net and everyone looked pretty happy.  I'm a little concerned that Haji hasn't figured out the net yet, so I'm hoping he figures that out soon if that's the case.

Sadly my hopes to see if Axel would not get swollen this winter are foiled.  They had a full round bale not in a net and he's swollen up again so I guess that experiment is off.  Oh well, I'd rather have fat happy horses in the end.  I'm also hoping this small area will make the three horses become better buddies in the end.  Maybe Haji will stick up for himself a bit more or something.

So after all my personal turmoil over the horses and their home and gaining or losing weight, I'm feeling good after this last weekend visit.  I'm thinking maybe the initial weight loss Haji had was a combination of not great hay, not getting grain quite enough, and the other horses running him around too much.  The hay is decent and the boys don't seem to run him around and he's getting regular grain so I think he'll do good this winter.  I think I can relax now.  Thanks so much to Jeff's brother for letting them live there this winter (I'm sure he doesn't mind the added bonus of us cleaning his barn either).

Long time no see

Well I finally made it back to the farm to check on the boys.  It was kind of a rough weekend.  The new farrier I had found apparently dumped me with no notice what so ever.  He asked to reschedule our second appointment and that was the last I heard of him.  Left him several messages and never heard anything back.  Is it really that hard to text me and say "sorry I don't have time for a new client, or it's too far to travel, or whatever?"  Ug anyways.

So I'm out a farrier.  We hadn't gotten the boys back on grain since moving them back to our place but they did have a round bale and the brother in law put the net on.  Apparently there was enough grass still growing because this 6x6 bale had been out for over 2 weeks and it was less than half gone.  And they had the net open (thus the hay all over the ground) so the slow feed net wasn't slowing anyone down.

But I thought everyone looked too skinny.  And it was crappy weather.  And the water tank was empty.  It all just piled on and I was feeling pretty down to the point I was going to try and find a place to board all three of them some where.

In all reality Haji isn't much different than he has been all year.  Other than putting on more fat I just don't think his body shape is going to change much.  He has muscle wastage on his back and at his age and retirement I just don't see him getting that back especially since we're dealing with a roach back to start.  And who knows what affect the cancer has on his system.  So I think it's just a matter of making sure he's fed and happy.  And boy can that horse eat.  He'll eat a full bucket of grain and knicker for more.  He even pushed me aside so he could get out the gate and graze in the yard.  Thank goodness he's easy to catch with a can of feed.

So since I was out a farrier I was left to my own devices.  I actually know someone that lives near the boys but she was unavailable this past weekend and she doesn't do shoes.  Since we're so far behind in trims, I was ready to pull shoes for the winter anyway.  So I was going to pull Cody's shoes myself and trim and trim everyone as best I could until I could get said friend out to help.  Cody had already pulled a shoe so I only had to work on one.  But I could not get that shoe off no matter what I did.  On top of the fact that Cody's feet are still a little tender I decided to give up on that.  I thought maybe Jeff could help but we ran out of time to even try.  I think I was able to rasp the clinches off so maybe he'll throw that one easily and not do any damage in the process.

So I nipped and rasps very conservatively on Cody and put him back.  I grabbed Haji and tried the same and as I was holding his front foot he went down on his knees.  Ug.  I didn't touch any one's back feet as they all seemed pretty okay.  And I didn't touch Axel's cuz his looked really good (though long). Basically I think I gave up.  Like I said, I was having an awful day.  But it sounds like my next trip out I'll be able to hook up with that friend that can help with the trims.

So I did end up grooming everyone, getting all the burrs out and what not.  Cody had a gash on his knee.  Haji got to graze in the yard while tied to the fence.  I was able to pick up more feed so now I have 300+ lbs of feed.  I don't think I'll run out in the next two weeks at least.  That reminds me to order more weight builder for Haji.

Jeff had been working on the tack room for me.  He cleaned a bunch out (though there's a lot left to go) and put up some lights and a set of lockers and one of my saddle racks.  I got some poison and mouse traps so hopefully we can get it cleaned out and sealed up a little better before I put my tack in there.  I should be able to keep bridles and blankets in the lockers and my saddles have covers.  I might have to add Bounce dryer sheets to my shopping list to put in with the saddles and help keep the mice away.  There's also some metal medicine style cabinets so once Jeff gets those better adhered to the walls I will put all the meds and first aid stuff in there.  He also built a new door so we have to get that up and paint it.

So in the end I was feeling a little better.  If everyone is still happy next trip out and we can get their feet under control I will feel much better about the situation.  One good thing was that Cody and Haji "shared" Haji's extra bucket of feed.  Cody didn't run Haji completely off.  So that was nice to see.

Back in Town

I haven't been out to the farm in a few weeks now.  Last weekend Jeff and Daniel went without me and I went scrapbooking.  I guess the goats and the cattle went back to their regular homes and the fence needed to come down so Cody, Axel, and Haji needed to leave their summer vacation home and head back to town.  Jeff didn't think I'd approve of putting the horses in the stock trailer (actually that's not a problem, but whatever) so he and his nephew hand walked the three horses back to town.  Just a mile but juggling three horses between the two of them must have been entertaining to see.  The three don't exactly have the same pace.  In fact Haji, the oldest and shortest of them all, walks way faster than everyone else.

But they are back in their regular home and the round bale feeder has been set up.  No word yet on if they put out a round bale and if they got the slow feed net on it (hoping they don't put out the bale without it). I guess the inlaws can't quite figure out why I would put a net over the bale though I've explained how much it saves in waste alone, hopefully they'll take my word for it.

In bad news, it appears I've been dumped by my new farrier.  He cancelled our appointment a couple weeks ago and never called back to reschedule.  I've left him several messages with no response.  The neighbors don't need any work done so I'm on my own.  But it happens that someone I know that used to live in the cities now lives 30 minutes from Canby.  She trims her own horses.  So if I can learn to pull Cody's shoes, she's gonna hopefully come out next time I'm there and trim the boys for me.  Perhaps she can school me a bit and I can do it myself eventually.  And I'm hoping Cody stays sound without shoes.  I still have hoof boots he can wear for riding if he isn't sore in the pasture this year.

Horses at their vacation home

As usual I'm behind in my updates.  Last time I was out at the farm I went out to check on the boys.  If I didn't know better I'd say Haji was still gaining weight.  Must be some really decent grass out there.  The good news is that the boys were hanging together once again so that made me happy to see.

Vacationing

We're running out of grass at our place where the horses are.  So we're trying to squeak out a few more weeks without having to get a round bale out there.  I drove Cody and Axel down the street to stay at my brother-in-law's place for a couple weeks.  He's got a large property fenced in where he had 50 goats cleaning up the weeds.  He's also got his brother-in-law's 5 calves out there.  And now my two "big" horses.  Hehe.

The boys were a little on their toes when they got off the trailer and saw all the goats.  The goats weren't too interested in them though.  Cody visited with a calf nose to nose and Axel gave one his usual welcome of a nice kick (darn that Axel).  When they discovered they could move the goats pretty easily they started chasing them around a bit.  I'm waiting for the reports of napping horses and goats playing king of the mountain on them.  We had only been there for a few minutes and the boys had found the waterers and had a roll, so it looks like a good vacation home.  I went to check on them a couple hours later before we left and they were across the creek behind the grove standing in the wind.

So Haji is staying at our place alone for a couple weeks where he'll try and eat up the remaining grass and also have his meals in peace for a while.  Though I've been told the three are getting along well and they aren't chasing him away from his meals as much.  Haji might enjoy the vacation location, maybe he'll have to go join them at some point.

We'll have to move them back to town before the farrier is due so he doesn't have to run all over to trim my guys' feet.  I bought a round bale feeder this weekend and I just ordered a hay net from ChinchChix.com so I should be ready for round bales pretty quick here.

New Farrier

I took Friday off of work for our first new farrier appointment.  Thursday I almost had a heart attack as he texted and asked to reschedule (OMG no! It's a 3 hour drive, rescheduling is not good) for 5pm Friday instead of the morning.  Whew!  That would work just fine.  So while Daniel napped on Friday I met the farrier down at the boy's paddock.  His usual vehicle was in the shop so he was running a barebones operation.  I grabbed Haji first since his feet looked the worse.  Though over the few weeks he's been in Canby he's worn down the flares so they weren't as bad as they used to be.  I was surprised at how pushy he was!  What happened to our calm therapy horse?  Guess the old man needs some more ground work in his retirement to keep him nice and polite.

So all three boys had their feet done.  Cody needed his shoes reset but he apparently hadn't grown too much toe as the farrier didn't need to do any trimming, just some rasping after he reset the shoes.  Not the same shoes as before and he didn't shape them quite as intricately as our old farrier but I think they look okay.  This new farrier was really fast.  Granted the boys had worn their feet down pretty well so I'm sure that helped.  I think his work was a little less "pretty" than I'm used to but I think it'll work just fine.

We scheduled the next visit for 7 weeks out since 6 weeks + some pavement might be too quick.  The good news is that the farrier said he'd be just fine with fetching horses himself and trimming with me not being there (which is good since he'll be back on a Thursday).  He said he has a few clients he hasn't even met before.  Apparently this is fairly normal in these smaller farm towns.  He's a roper and teaches roping so I think he can handle the old men just fine.  I could always see if A could go down and help but just in case he can't it's nice to know this guy is okay with handling it on his own.  Works best for him I'm sure because he can show up whenever he can make it since he drives 90 minutes to get there.

So as you'll see in the one photo, Haji has some wounds on his legs.  I first noticed them on Friday, not sure when they showed up, seemed fairly fresh at that point.  Since they are so symmetrical and he re-opened them a few times over the weekend, I don't think he's falling down.  I think a wound from falling would be more uneven and less likely to recur several times.  Some research on the interwebs leads me to think he's just scraping them up by laying down.  Bedsores of sorts.  Since he's underweight and notoriously reacts poorly to bug bites, he probably has thinner skin than most.  So I smothered him in Swat all weekend to help keep the flies off.  Maybe Haji needs some legwarmers or knee pads.

The boys seem to have gotten their routine down pretty quickly.  After I feed in the morning they go and line up at the gate to the side yard.  We've only let them out there one weekend before but they were ready to go again.  Probably this next trip out we'll fence in a bit more (ran out of wire last time) and electrify the whole side yard so they can be turned out there more than just on the weekends if A wants.  The grass in the main yard is getting eaten down so it's nice to have another option for them to graze.

Since the boys like to chase Haji away from his food they usually get locked in the yard while Haji stays in the paddock to eat.  They do not approve of this arrangement.  But Haji has to eat so much more food and takes longer and needs to finish his food so that's how it'll have to go at least until they decide to leave him alone (yeah right).

Overall though, all 3 boys are getting along well.  The neighbors said they enjoy watching them.  They said at first Haji was kind of odd man out but every day they would get to be closer and closer friends.  Last weekend every time I went to see them they were all standing near each other and Haji was happily grazing.  Granted I didn't see him real often at his temporary home but when I was there it seemed like he stood pretty far off from the other horses or didn't graze as much.

And he's definitely gaining weight.  Slowly (which is good) but it's coming.  We're still trying to figure out the best way to get him to gain without having to feed him a billion pounds of food.  I might get a bag of beet pulp this week just to see if we mix it with feed if he'll eat it, he wasn't thrilled with beet pulp last time so I dunno (and it's kind of a pain since it needs to be soaked in water).  Who knows.  We're feeding about 12lbs of Nutrena Senior grain and MVP Pro-Weight supplement right now but I'm trying to get the farm store in town to carry Triple Crown Senior which has more fat and fiber.

So yeah, while it's hard to be so far away and be able to manage everything, I think things are going okay in our little long-distance horse-keeping adventure.

The boy's new home

Was finally back to the farm this weekend.  I think it had been two weeks since I had seen the boys. But they are doing well.  Looks like Cody and Axel might have dropped a tiny bit of weight, I'm going to blame it on the heat from last week.  Cuz they are getting a tiny bit of grain right now that they weren't before and they have plenty of grass.  So who knows.  It's not drastic but after two weeks of not seeing them they looked a tiny bit ribby.  At this point they look fit, if they lost more then I'd be concerned.  Axel could stand to bit on the lean side with his arthritis, the last thing he needs is extra weight.

Haji is looking a little better.  Slowly but surely I guess.  The hubby thought he seemed peppier, more energy.  It's a little tough keeping Cody and Axel from chasing him off from his grain but it sounds like A, Cody and Axel's previous owner who is feeding for me, is making frequent trips to visit them and feed them. Sounds like he is actually making more frequent visits than the two feedings, so I guess he's enjoying having them around again.  All the horses nicker like mad when someone comes up, it's pretty funny.  We fenced off more of the yard for them to graze on weekends when we're around and so we don't have to mow as much :) At this rate the whole property will be fenced in.

Saturday I went out to get the new fence ready and feed and stuff while Daniel was napping.  And I ended up saddling up Cody.  He was very unhappy that I tied him up to tack and he was away from his buddies.  I did a couple circles on the lead and then got on and he was much better.  We rode around the "pasture" for a while, I figured better to stay in the fence line and feel him out.  Trotted a bit and then tried to explore some of their paths through the grove but Cody was not terribly willing to go away from his friends.  Decided he was calm enough so we went outside of the fence and rode around in the unfenced part of the yard.  Even cantered a bunch and he was calm and not spazzy.  I then pushed him a bit further and we walked down to the stop sign, still our property but out of sight of the other horses.  He was slow as he usually is leaving but nothing more than that.  Maybe I'll ride down to the farm next time.  Or maybe I'll get A to get on Axel and we'll go around somewhere.

Friday is new farrier day, so that'll be interesting and kind of nerve racking.  Will he show up?  Will he be good?  Will the boys behave?  Etc etc.

Another New Chapter

Well the horses have moved!  A couple weeks ago I loaded up the trailer with most of my horse stuff from the tack room and then on Friday we put the horses in the trailer and said good bye. I can't say that I didn't tear up a bit walking the boys out of their pasture for the last time.

Both boys loaded like champs. Rediscovered that Axel likes to paw while in the trailer. But other than that it was an uneventful 3+ hours on the road for home.  Took the boys out of the trailer and showed the around their new home.  The first few days they were confined to the barn yard while we were still running wire for the rest of the "pasture."  There was quite a bit of waist high grass in the barn yard so we hoped they would help that out a bit.  When we'd drive by later we couldn't even see the horses the grass was so tall.

The boys seemed to think the grass was just fine.  They found a spot where the lane starts that they could stand and catch a really nice breeze and they discovered a spot where the bugs were at a minimum near the water tank.  The line to the automatic waterer leaks so we had to put in a water tank with a float instead but it's pretty easy to fill, just turn on the pump for the well and let it run while you are feeding.  The float stops the water so it doesn't overflow and you can just turn off the pump when you leave.

On Saturday afternoon I decided it was time to drive down and get Haji and bring him home as well.  And my husband let me drive the truck and trailer down and back by myself.  Guess he's decided I'm an okay driver after all (as long as I don't have to park backwards).  So I successfully made it down to Luverne to get the old man. He seemed pretty excited to see what the trailer was all about.  Though he balked a little walking up to it, he did finally jump right in.  After I closed the divider he realized he might be leaving and had a few parting words to say to his buddies.  They ended up running down the pasture next to us as we drove down the driveway.  For some horses that sure gave Haji a hard time they didn't want to see him go.

Haji and I made it back to town unscathed and in one piece.  The boys ran him around a little bit when he first got off the trailer but after that they all calmed down and went to work on the long grass.

On Sunday we finished the fencing and turned the horses out in the rest of the yard.  Cody and Axel ran around a bit but Haji was a lot more reserved.  So far as I know, they haven't spent too much time exploring the place.  They have about 5 acres, some wooded, some yard, and some longer grass.  When I stopped on the 4th of July Cody and Axel were in the yard by the garden and Haji was in the barn yard.

They've already gone through all the feed I had bought so I had to call in and get more.  Guess I'm going to have to buy in a little more bulk if I'm not going to be out there every weekend to check on things.  Kind of an added complication of being so far away from the horses but we'll have to make do.  Cody and Axel's old owner has been feeding and making sure Haji gets his 10+ pounds of wet feed so I'm hoping he'll start fattening up soon.  I'd really like the horse chores to be as easy as possible but right now Haji is at least 100 lbs under weight so he needs to eat as much as possible.

My next complication will be getting a farrier out hopefully on the weekend while I'm there to trim everyone and shoe Cody.  Hopefully we can pull shoes this fall and he'll be barefoot for the winter and do well and not need shoes in the spring.  Maybe I can learn to trim and save some hassle in that department.   I wonder if there's a weekend crash course in hoof trimming?

This blog is going to quickly turn in to "long distance horse keeping."