smellshorsey

Where to Get Free Silk Flowers for Your Jumps

I'm afraid most of you are right. If I want flowers by my barn, I'd better get silk ones. Or maybe have hanging baskets or something that can be moved out of reach for when the horses are turned out nearby.

Which brings me to the subject of today's post: how and where to get free silk flowers for your jumps. The short answer: from a cemetery maintenance crew. With permission. (I'm not suggesting grave robbing here. I'm suggesting that you ask for the flowers that they would otherwise throw away.)

I used to work in an office across the street from a huge perpetual care cemetery. What perpetual care meant in this case is that all the grave markers were set flat into the ground so that the whole area could be mowed. Only certain flower containers were allowed, so if people wanted to put flowers on the grave, the only choice was to use silk flowers.

Whenever there would be a big storm, these silk flowers would take flight and blow across the street. They would mound up outside of my office window, which went all the way to the ground. There's nothing much sadder that a pile of wet silk flowers blown off of graves. I grew to hate the sight of them. A few weeks ago I drove down that street after our big wind storms and saw that there were silk flowers impaled in fences and other places where they had blown from the cemetery. It happens so regularly and seems so grotesque that it's like a Hitchcock movie that never got made. (Maybe the fact that I would sometimes see open caskets from my office window makes not be able to see these flowers-turned-trash as nothing more than flowers-turned-trash. They're ugly, sad trash escaped from the grave where they were placed by people who are missing someone they love.)

But one enterprising stable owner has developed a relationship with the maintenance people at the cemetery. After big storms when the flowers have blown all over the place, the maintenance people don't know which flowers go where, so they throw them all away (like they'd put them back, but that's another story). So this stable owner gets as many as she wants to use for decorating her jumps. It works for her. It's a good way to recycle something bound for the landfill. And there's an endless, endless supply.

What Flowers Can I Plant that the Horses Won't Eat?

The tack room is nearly fixed up, though I think I need to pour a concrete pad outside of the entrance or do something so we aren't fighting the dirt. Yesterday we hung up our riding hats, including Buddy's Idiot Hat for trailering. It's kind of funny. Three people helmets and one for a horse all hung together.

I'd like to plant flowers by the barn/tackroom. Pansies aren't poisonous but they will be eaten. What flowers can I plant that (1) won't be eaten and (2) aren't poisonouse?

I was thinking of sunflowers, the giant kind for the birds. Or zinnias. They like to live. Plants have to have a real will to live to make it around here. But I don't know if they're tasty or poisonous.

I'm looking for something that tastes bad, isn't poisonous, likes to live in heat and drought and is pretty. I don't ask much.

Any suggestions?

Spring Cleaning

Blogging is light because I've been abducted by a 13-year-old on Spring Break who must be channeling my mother-in-law. We are cleaning and organizing the barn. She'd rather do this than go to the beach!

Stripping the stalls was easy. Now we're re-doing the tack/feed room. Too much stuff. Too little room. Complicated by having to keep my mother's cat, Dipstick, in there at night and he sprays, so we have to ... well, box stuff up and cuss a lot.

Last night we almost decided to evict him and let him find another place to sleep. I'm glad we didn't. The neighbors who were feeding the feral cats left, and it appears that the cats have moved into our hay loft. Tiger and one of them had a monstrous fight last night. I'm sure Lily and I were quite the sight chasing the squalling, tumbling cats through the pasture in our pajamas. We brought Tiger inside and he was so full of rage that he growled the whole time he was eating and we were examining him. He got some scratches. I hope they don't get infected.

Usually Tiger sleeps in the dog bed with the dog on the porch. We have an indoor cat, too.

What to do about the feral cats? If I were smart, I would set traps and haul these cats down to the animal shelter. If I were smart and didn't think I was hauling them to be euthanized. I'll ponder this for a while. It's clear we need to change how we leave the food out.

In the meantime, we're dealing with the too much stuff, too little space dilemma. You never know when you might need something again. A blanket that doesn't fit our current horses might fit one in the future. Ditto bridles, etc.

It will be great to be done. I hope we have a chance to plant flowers and make it pretty. And I'm so thrilled that Lily wants to do this on Spring Break, though I think that she may have been abducted and replaced by an alien.

Lots of riding going on, too.

Average 1,000-lb. Horse Produces 9 Tons Manure per Year

For spring break, we're doing all kinds of fun things. Today is stall stripping day. Fortunately, my sister-in-law (Saintly Brother's wife) likes to garden so she came over to haul off a truckload of it. (This photo has nothing to do with us but looks better than we did.)

Stall stripping isn't my favorite thing, but there's something about good, hard work like shoveling manure that's good for cleaning the soul. My back hurts but my heart is happy.

And, in case you ever wondered just why you have so much manure, did you know that the average 1,000-lb. horse produces 9 tons of manure each year?

Now, back to writing a brochure, which is a less happy kind of manure-shoveling. I wonder how many tons of manure the average freelance writer produces in a year?

Horse Abuse Can Get You 20 Years in S.C.

I've tried to follow the Arabian horse abuse case by the Trexler family since some of the horses found were hidden in a barn at the end of my road. (I never saw the horses -- they usually had one chestnut gelding in fair but not robust shape who was very friendly and was kept in the pasture. I didn't even know they used their barn, which from the street is a cute little traditional barn. So much for me being a nosy neighbor or even an aware one.)

Anyway, the local paper has a summary story about this case that seems to cover the whole thing from the beginning until now. You can read it here. The newest development is that all three family members could face felony charges that will bring 20-year sentences.

I hardly know this neighbor. I used to see his wife at the pool and always enjoyed talking to her. She was nice. I know she also fed the feral cats in the neighborhood, which may not be the wisest choice but shows her kind heart. She has since left him -- I think before all this happened -- and I'm really sorry for her and her son that she has been mentioned by name in the newspaper. She's not connected to this terrible story at all.

How did her husband, a state agriculture official, end up hiding horses that were not his and were near starvation (and had been quarantined in Georgia) in his barn? Was he trying to save his mother's hide? Did he have a plan to fatten them up? Were they only there temporarily? If the stalls had been clean and they had food, I'd like to believe he was trying to save the horses. But the stalls weren't clean and they didn't have food. It appears he was only trying to save his mother. Whatever the reason getting involved in his brother's and mother's mess was a big mistake. And now he's lost his $84,000 a year job and may face 20 years in jail.

I was talking to another horse person. Let me emphasize that we don't know squat so this is all speculation. No, it's gossip. I said that my neighbor should never have let his mother hide the horses in his barn. The other horse person said, "How could you tell your mother 'no'?"

I just wish they'd found clean stalls, food and water in the barn. I wish he'd tried to help his mother and the horses. It's a pretty tangled web and I'm sure I don't know much about it.

One funny thing. It seems like we have more "tourists" in the neighborhood. Every time a car drives slowly by our house and I see them looking at our horses I think, "Thank goodness they're fat."

Three of my neighbors have extremely aged horses that can't keep weight on. If you'll look at the rest of their herd (and notice the swayback-ness of the old horses) you'll realize that the old horse might just be an elderly creature. But if I were them, I think I'd spray paint "Old horse. Eats tons. Can't gain weight." or something on the creature so the "tourists" would understand.

And another of my neighbors just took in a stray dog who was near starvation. She says, "If they look at the other dog (a rotund black lab) at least people can see that we feed our animals and that there must be a reason this dog is so skinny."

It's a funny thing to feel like you're being watched and judged.

I just hope they don't interview Buddy and Lucy. They'll probably complain that the service is two slow and that they'd really rather have orchard grass.

Lucy's Personal Trainer

I wish I could snap a picture, but if I go outside the horses will stop what they're doing and come to me. Here's what they're doing:

Buddy wants to play (always).

Lucy doesn't (always, which means never).

So Buddy's following Lucy all over the pasture, and she's having to walk fast to stay out of the way of his all-set-to-nip lips and teeth. If she breaks into a trot, he'll break into a canter and deliver the bite. He doesn't care if he gets kicked in the head (that's our problem). So she's walking fast. He stays right behind her. This is fun. Lucy is alpha. But beta boy can bug her and feel like the boss for a little while.

Lucy needs the exercise. My daughter, Lily, is watching them with me through the window. "Look Mom," she says. "Lucy has a personal trainer."

Do Horses Increase or Decrease Your Stress Level?

I love this cat photo. I love cats. Big cat, little cats. Aloof cats, bossy cats. Cats that are superior but still deign to let me clean out their cat boxes.

I've never seen a survey, but most horse owners I know also have cats. (Or dogs.) And now there's a study that's found that having a cat lowers your risk of having a fatal heart attack by 40 percent! Here's an excerpt from the BBC story :

Cat owners appear to have a much lower risk of dying from a heart attack than their feline-spurning counterparts, a study suggests.

Researchers looked at nearly 4,500 adults and found that cat ownership was related to a 40% lower risk of suffering a fatal heart attack.

The team speculated that having a cat may reduce stress and anxiety, and so protect against cardiovascular disease.

Then it goes on to say that maybe it's not the cat, it's being the kind of person who likes a cat. Yada yada yada. I guess that means that if you don't have a cat and don't want one, you need to reinvent yourself as a cat lover and get one. But, wouldn't that ultimately create more stress since you're really not a cat lover yet there's one in your house telling you what to do?

Enough about that. So, what does owning a horse do for your health? I've not seen a study so far. While I'm sure riding a horse reduces stress and anxiety (though it depends on who you're riding), owning might increase stress and anxiety, depending on how suicidal your horse is and whether or not you can find and afford hay.

Just watching my horses graze improves my mood. When driving, we stop on the side of the road when we pass pastures with moms and foals. Horses are like magnets -- the pull is strong.

I'm certain that if I knew less (I know enough to be dangerous, so I worry too much) and they cost less to keep, that owning a horse would be a boost to health. And that's not counting the ways they make you come outdoors, play, sweat, work and disconnect from the stresses of life.

In fact, when I was in college my father let me bring Spot to school, provided I could find a cheap place. I found a beautiful big pasture with other horses where I could board her for $50/month but I had to feed her. So every day I drove out into the country to feed Spot. Yes, she only got fed once a day but she did fine on that, fortunately. I carried the grain in the trunk of my car (my car smelled great!) and I fed her in a bucket while I watched her eat before turning her back out. Some days I didn't have time to feed her, let alone ride, but she had to be fed so I drove out there anyway -- 20 minutes both ways plus however long it took her to eat. I got a 3.9 that semester -- the highest average I ever had. I believe it's because I spent time every day with my horse. I came back refreshed and ready to learn.

Horses are more than fun. They're good therapy on so many levels, from what we do in our backyard to therapeutic horseback riding that helps people with a range of physical, emotional, cognitive, and social special needs. But chances are you know more about this than I do.

Some days they cause me so much stress I think ownership is overwhelming. And other days I don't think I could live without them.

I know someone who suddenly quit riding, sold her horses, and said she's never had so much time and money. And I know somebody else who's working two jobs to keep her horses.

Horses: stress relief or causes of stress? Are they beneficial to your health? What do you think?

How to Tell if Pearls Are Fake

I'm a great believer in mixing fake jewelry with real jewelry. If your rings are diamonds, surely your earrings are too, right? I think you can get away with a lot, though I'm so stupidly honest that if somebody compliments me I'll say, "It's fake. I got it at Target."

Plus I'm fickle so I don't want much that lasts. My grandmother had a very valuable very ugly piece of porcelain. I was so pleased when someone else wanted it. What a burden -- it's my grandmother's, it's worth a lot of money, it's fragile and it's ugly. Give me something with no obligation I can cast aside when I'm tired of it. (Note: This does not apply to people, animals, vehicles, trailers, computers, iPods, refrigerators or any other useful, costly thing.)

But, if you're buying Pearls, caveat emptor! There are a lot of fakes out there. I don't mind fakes, but I don't want to spend real money on fake pearls. If you see pearl jewelry for sale on the Internet and the price is too good to be true, well, use your head. It's a fake.

Kind of like if there's a fabulous, fancy horse in my price range, he's got navicular or something else wrong with him. (More on this tomorrow. Or whenever I get around to it.)

We've all seen how they test pearls to see if they're real or fake in the movies -- by biting down on them. Turns out this is a real test. (Not sure how you do it on the Internet, though.) Here's how you do it in person: gently bite down on the pearls with your front teeth. Slide your teeth up and down the pearls. If they're real, they'll feel gritty. If they're fake, they'll feel smooth.

You can also make sure you're getting the real thing by buying from a legitimate source. Terry Shepherd, who's known as The Pearl Hunter, says that all the fake pearls are bad for business. If you want to find out more about him or pearls, go to his site www.thepearloutlet.com.

Golden Acres

The dear,older neighbors who live behind us are having some scary times. The husband, who is a French history professor, author and former army ranger, has been in the hospital first with heart problems and now with pneumonia. He's been in the hospital for at least six weeks.

I've always said I wanted to come back as one of their horses. They have four elderly horses and jokingly call their house "Golden Acres." One of their horses has heaves so he spends the summer in an air-conditioned stall. I know that the wife is spending all her time at the hospital, so we've been going over and playing with the horses we're calling the Old Gentlemen. They stand in line for the shedding blade. The one who needs it the most has Cushings, so his fur isn't letting go. I wish my clippers were industrial strength so I could help him out, though maybe like many old people this horse is cold and still needs his sweater for the chilly nights and morning.

Sometimes we do it while they're loose in the pasture. Lily and I take turns being each other's "butt guards" because these horses believe in mutual grooming while you're shedding them, and I'm not comfortable having a strange nose and teeth doing little circles on my butt cheek because I know what could happen next. Their fur is so thick there are parts that I just pull out with my hands in big clumps. The new hair underneath looks so fresh. I think it must feel really good. They all say, "Do me next!" Or, more likely, "Forget him! Do me NOW!" These are some sweet, pushy, pet horses.

One of them is a TB, the others are QHs. Even at his advanced age, the TB still does slightly kooky things. The professor had a grad student out working on the fences. The student was afraid of horses. Eventually, he was concentrating on his work on the fence and forgot about the horses. The TB had never seen a guy wearing earrings before, so he crept up behind the student and played with the earrings with his lips. It was great fun for all the spectators but not the student, who is still trying to catch his breath.

Here are three of the Old Gentlemen in their stalls. The other photo is the dark bay and palomino fur (this is not horse hair -- this is heavy felt-like fur). They're very sweet but they make me sad -- they're old. Their dear owners are in a scary, bad place as regards their own health. But all the horses know is that we show up and it feels good, so they enjoy the moment and the sunshine. It's something I should learn from them.

Horse People Are Just So Nice!

Last week I bemoaned the fact that I had to pay $11.99 for hay. Today, I'm very happy to report that an unknown source (at his request as he is having to turn down customers delivered 50 bales of Coastal Bermuda at $7.00 per bale. I hope that will get us through to first cutting because this is all he can give me.

This doesn't look like much, but here's my new 50 bales stashed away behind the hot-wired gate. Yahoo! (Click on all photos to enlarge, though I can't imagine why you'd want to.)

Horse people are so nice. Many thanks to you who offered to help me find hay and those who offered moral support, Mrs. Mom, Mikael, jdp who's paying $16!!!, and photogchic, to name a few.

And, because Lucy is in rehab, my hay supplier also offered me a gelding or six to ride in the meantime. I can keep one (or six) here or I can go to his place, (and bring Lily and her horse, Buddy), and we can trail ride there on Sunday afternoons. Horse people are so very nice.

For the folks Googling for photos of Coastal Bermuda hay (again, click to enlarge), I tried to take a close up for you. It would have been prettier in September but here's what it looks like in March.

My hay man and friend warned me that even with rain things aren't going to be great when buying hay in the summer because he's been told fertilizer prices may double. He thought he might try chicken manure instead, but there's a risk to the horses of getting salmonella with that. So it's back to fertilizer. (My father sometimes uses chicken manure for his garden. Once it came with a half-living chicken in it. And it smells so very, very bad.)

For any Googlers looking for photos of Timothy-grass-mix hay, here's one. Pretty -- but not sure it's $11.99 a bale pretty.  I don't know squat about hay. Coastal Bermuda is what grows best here so that's what I buy. One year I had to buy Orchard grass from  Michigan or somewhere and that stuff was gorgeous (and costly). The horses didn't like the expensive Timothy at first but  got over that in less than 120 seconds.