smellshorsey

You Can Catch Poison Ivy from Your Horse

Who can resist this face, which says, "Pat me! Pat me!" Yes, It's hard to keep hands off of such a cute pony. But if you could read the sign, which you probably can't since I can't either, it said something along the lines of "Do NOT touch this horse. Poison Ivy!"

I thought maybe that was the pony's name. There's probably a pony somewhere appropriately named "Poison Ivy." Maybe the pony bites. Lures you in with a cute face, then CHOMP.

Or maybe the pony had rolled in poison ivy and you'd catch it if you rubbed him. My cousin caught poison ivy from his dog who spent the day romping in poison ivy and the night in my cousin's bed.

But no. I learned something new at Pony Club camp, where this photo was taken. This pony was out grazing and came upon some very yummy poison ivy, so he ate it. Apparently poison ivy doesn't bother horses, but it comes out through the horse's skin and secretions -- and if you touch the horse for the next 48 hours or so, you may as well go roll in the poison ivy yourself.

That Horse Isn't Loose, He's Just Grazing Part III

This is the third (and I hope final) part of a series about people who let their horses loose and call it "grazing." I call it "Loose Horse!" Click for Part I and Part II.

Sometimes I see things that aren't there when I go to feed the horses in the morning. Like no horses at all (they're behind the barn) or three horses where there ought to be two.

But no, on this particular early Sunday morning there were actually three horses out there. Two inside my fence, one outside. They were having a nice visit. A very exciting visit. How was I going to catch this stray horse -- and whose was it? It was a nondescript dark bay.

So I called to Lily to come help me. She was asleep but she came out quickly, grabbing a handful of carrots from the refrigerator to tempt the stray horse. Note: carrots don't rattle, so they offer no temptation to a stray horse. Use feed in a bucket instead.

Anyway, the mare took flight when she saw us. And we ran after her trail, our horses providing a background of whinnies and thundering hoofbeats. We lost sight of the stray mare, but saw where her hoofprints had torn up several neighbors' neatly tended turf. We followed her trail across our block and across the next street, where I saw a man I'll call Rusty working in his yard. Now, Rusty has two horses. I've seen him ride one of them in twelve years. The stray horse was in his yard, grazing. I called out, "Is that your horse?"

Rusty said, "Yes. She's fine. She's just grazing."

"But she's loose," I said.

"That's fine. I let her out all the time to graze. She doesn't go anywhere," he said.

"She was just at my house," I said.

"Oh. I didn't know she'd do that," he said. "That's never happened before." And then he thanked us for following his horse.

The very next morning I got a phone call from the neighbors behind us who keep elderly QH gentlemen. "I don't know what your new horse looks like, but there's a horse in my yard," she said.

For all I know, it could be mine. Markus is an incredible jumper, and Lucy has jumped one pasture fence before, though not here (she did it with me riding her at another farm, but that's another story). So I went outside and did a head count. Both of my horses were in the pasture. So I got back on the phone and told her to call Rusty, which she did. Of course it was his horse.

So -- surprise -- two days later I hear a stampede. Rusty's two horses are racing around the outside of my pasture while my TBs are racing around the inside. Rusty's paint walking horse is winning, but don't tell the Jockey Club. Rusty's horses are keyed up beyond getting caught, not even with a rattling bucket.

Two doors down some teenage boys continue to play basketball even though there are loose horses flying through their yard. I thought that was kind of funny. The horses must have passed through their yard at least three times. The boys never lose their concentration, they keep on playing. Wow. Wonder if they can do that in math class?

Another neighbor comes out with a golf cart and wants to know if the horses are mine. (I have a dark bay and a chestnut -- there's only one paint in the neighborhood and that's Rusty's. Non-horse people aren't very observant.) No, they're not mine. They belong to Rusty. So Golf Cart #1 goes off to Rusty's house, and then, finding no one at home, goes out searching for the horses. 

Lily and I grab halters and run toward Rusty's house. It's a long way and I'm out of shape. We lose sight of the horses, but since this is daylight and after work people are outside and several different men working in different yards all tell us which way the horses have gone. Each one says a different direction, which only means that the horses have been running around for a while. Each thinks he just saw the horse and we should follow the way he's pointing. So we ignore them and go to Rusty's, hoping the horses have gone home.

Golf Cart #2 drives up with two women in it, one is Rusty's wife, Delilah. I don't know the other but she is the driver and is dressed in pajamas at 6:00 in the afternoon and is wearing socks but no shoes. Delilah looks done in.

"Your horses won't even come when we offer them food," I say.

Delilah answers, "That's because they broke into the feed stall and ate every last bit."

"You'll need to have the vet come pump their stomachs when you catch them," I say. "They could founder."

Delilah doesn't look too interested. So Lily adds, "They could get crippled. They could die."

Delilah says, "Good." (She doesn't really mean this -- she's just had it with the horses.) "I told Rusty we need to get rid of the horses."

We see them gallop by and they head of toward the sunset but this doesn't look like a happy ending. Delilah has given up and is ready to go inside.

I feel like shaking her. "If they get hit by a car, somebody could get killed," I say. She doesn't answer. Her son was completing his senior project when their computer crashed, and she'd been trying to recover his files when somebody called to say her horses were loose. I can tell she feels like this has nothing to do with her. These are her husband's horses.

"Rusty called me and told me to catch them," she says. "I can't catch them."

"If they get hit by a car and someone is killed, you could be sued," I say. "You could lose everything. If you can't catch them, you should at least call the sheriff so they can try to keep people from driving in this area."

She's still not motivated, so Lily and I head for home thinking that maybe they'll come back to see our horses. Golf Cart #1 has given up and gone home, shaking his head. Golf Cart #2 doesn't know what to do. And Delilah has turned into a statue. 

My friend and hay supplier drives by. He sees us carrying halters and leadropes and stops to ask if we need help. "They're not our horses," I say. "Rusty's horses are out."

He looks disgusted. He was going to help if it was us with the problem, but now the picture has changed. "Rusty's horses get out all the time. Rusty feeds them, but that's it. I don't know why they have horses." And he waves and drives off, his noisy diesel nearly drowning out our thoughts.

When we get home there's a neighbor I've never met standing in the road. "Are those your horses?" he asks. "I've already caught them once today but they got away."

I explain that they are Rusty's horses. And while we're talking to him and introducing ourselves, Rusty's horses -- the paint walking horse and the retired trotter mare -- come flying by. They are unfit, foaming, wringing wet and heaving to breath. But they're not ready to stop. We try to outsmart them, to pen them, to corner them. The area is too big with too many obstacles. Finally, the trotter mare flies by Lily and Lily manages to snag her halter. It scares me to watch from way across the field, a strange horse going too fast and too close to my daughter. But Lily has done it. And with help from the neighbor, she's able to put a halter and lead rope on the paint, who, by the way, is named "Monster." And is actually pretty cute.

Monster and her friend are jazzed up so we walk them back to Rusty's with difficulty. Lily is wearing Rainbows (translation: expensive leather flip flops that advertise her mother's extravagant and foolish love for her), bad shoes for working with strange and agitated horses. But she comes through it all with ten toes.

"Mom, these horses are about to drop," she says. "They need to be hosed off and walked."

"And to have their stomachs pumped," I say. We know none of this is going to happen. Delilah is mad at her husband and worried about her son's senior project.

"What should we do?" she asks. I don't really know. We're supposed to be at a dinner party in town in 45 minutes. We're not dressed and it's a long drive. In fact, we are sweaty and covered with horse sweat. But that wasn't the question. The question was about the horses, and I didn't know what to do.

Delilah is the one who needs to call the vet. Or call Rusty and get him to call the vet. Or do something. Delilah calls Rusty on her cell phone. Then she tells us, "If you don't mind, could you tie them up to the fence posts?"

Wringing wet, blowing, foamy and full of grain. I might be slack, but Lily is a good Pony Clubber and she says, "We can't do that. They're too hot. They need to be hosed off and cooled out."

Delilah looks like she's just been told to push a rock up a hill for eternity. "How do you know that?" she asks.

"That's what you know when you have horses," Lily says. Ouch. But she's right. And Delilah never claimed to know anything other than that she didn't want horses or to be out here with us.

"We'll hose them off," Lily volunteers. Delilah gets the hose for us. I'm worried about Lily's toes in her Rainbows. We hose off both horses but they're still too hot, still blowing.

"Now they need to be walked until they're cool," Lily says. We walk them for a little while, Delilah walking beside us. She's obviously not the fittest person and carries a lot of extra weight. A lot. This escapade has been difficult for her physically. It has possibly also done her some good, as would walking the horses but I didn't just say that.

The mare I'm walking has quit blowing, but Monster has not. I can't keep walking her. We need to go. And here's that fine line you don't know which side to dance on -- you know what needs to be done, you've told the responsible person what needs to be done. If they don't do it, then what do you do?

This isn't abuse. That would be different. This is more bad choices and ignorance. I say again I think she should call the vet, and she says there probably wasn't that much food in the grain bin. Lily says that Monster needs to be walked. Monster's continued blowing says she needs to be walked.

Delilah appreciates all of this, she really does. For some reason, maybe her fitness, maybe who knows what else is going on in her life, she just doesn't have it in her. She keeps marvelling that Lily knows how to do all these things (basic horse ownership stuff like how to tie them and how to hose them and how to check their general condition), and Lily tries to answer somewhat delicatedly that these are the things you know if you own a horse.

I say we need to go. Lily says that Monster can't be left like this, that Monster needs to be walked. She looks at Delilah. Delilah says, "Okay, I'll walk her. At least until you can't see me anymore." And we all laugh. Sort of.

The neighbor driving Golf Cart #2 -- the one wearing her pajamas and socks -- offers to drive us home. We accept. She drives us through her yard, where we meet her husband and get to see his bonsai collection. It is huge and beautiful. We have a nice chat. I'd like to see her again and am glad Monster introduced us. She tells us that she puts on her pjs as soon as she gets home from work, and when she saw the horses loose she jumped in her golf cart without thinking. I like that in a person. She takes us home.

When Lily and I get inside our house, there's a voicemail from a neighbor from down our street. "Your horses are out. That big brown and white one was in our yard." This neighbor is very particular about her lawn and flowers. I know she was not happy to have her turf churned up by galloping hooves.

I just wish she was particular enough to notice that I have no flashy colored brown-and-white horse in my pasture. Wasn't me. Our horses are solid colors, and they graze inside the fence.

That Horse Isn't Loose, He's Just Grazing Part II

Maybe I'm unusual, but I think a horse belongs either tied up to a trailer or safe inside a fence.

This is Part II to a series I'm calling, "That Horse Isn't Loose, He's Just Grazing." You'll find Part I here under the title "some people are even stupider than me."

Okay, I'll admit it. One day I did turn Lucy out in the back yard -- under my supervision -- because I didn't think she'd go anywhere with Buddy screaming for her from the pasture and me sitting in a chair reading and keeping an eye on her. There was so much grass, so much grass. How could she think of leaving?

It all went well for about ten minutes, with her grazing in the tall grass that has overgrown where our garden should have been, but then with no warning she trotted off to visit the elderly geldings that live behind us.... And I took off after her.

Thankfully, I had my cell phone and called my daughter, Lily, to come help me catch her.

"Mom, are you stupid? You just turned the horse loose?!?"

"Well, yes, but I am right here."

"And she's at the neighbor's. You're just reckless." She always says I'm reckless. I'm not, just a combination of foolish optimism and being slack.

Anyway, it wouldn't have been a big deal if Buddy hadn't made it one. Lucy was just visiting, but then Buddy's screams made her down right alarmed. Listen to him scream! What must have happened while she was gone visiting the neighbors? Lordy, there must be wolves, bears and pigs after her! Alarmed over whatever she imagined was happening, she trotted back and forth through the bushes. And I was beginning to have some good imaginings of some bad stuff myself.

But all it took was one good rattle of the feed bucket and she was back home, nose in the bucket. My stupid exploit was over. Lily returned her to the pasture, lecturing me the whole time. I haven't done something this stupid since. Well, not that I'm going to tell you about.

So, while I'm about to call the kettle black, I'm also the pot. Part III tomorrow.

Some People are Even Stupider than Me

And yes, I know that should be, "some people are even stupider than I." But when you're talking about stupid, good grammar is optional.

Okay, first you had me with my horse tangled up in the hay net in the trailer, even though I knew better. Then you had the other people at the horse show.

Unbelievable as it may be, there are people even stupider than I am. I was walking around the show grounds when I saw two loose horses. Not what you need at a show with so many children, green horses and wild riders. So I yelled to the announcer's booth that there were two loose horses, which when I pointed, they could clearly see. They stopped the show temporarily and announced that there were two loose horses.

Two women at the concession stand yelled out, "They're not loose. They're grazing."

Yes, they had brought their horses to the show and turned them loose, like dogs, to roam around and graze at will. I thought I'd seen everything.

Maybe I'm doing things wrong. Fencing is expensive and hard to keep up. Maybe I should just turn my horses loose. If anybody gets upset, I'll explain with a smile, "No, Buddy isn't eating your rosebushes, Mrs. Campbell. He's just grazing."

The two women did wander over to their horses and catch them. The horses were a bit underweight and could have stood some more grazing time, and the women could have stood a little more time away from the concession stand. They put lunge lines on their horses, and more or less tied them out from their trailers.

Maybe I should have given them my hay net while they were at it.

How We Proved that a Hay Net in the Trailer is Dangerous

Have you ever noticed that if you don't know something is dangerous, you can get away with doing it. Once you know, God holds you accountable.

I have used hay nets for years. About a year ago I heard that you should switch to hay bags because horses sometimes got tangled up in hay nets and the results could be B-A-D. So, I only used my hay nets for when the horse was tied to the outside of the trailer. Inside the trailer I used a hay bag.

Except that Lucy didn't like the hay bag. The opening didn't open exactly where her dainty nose sits. So she'd toss it like a punching bag before giving up and then it was just in her way.

Today when we were going to a show, and running late, of course, Lily put in a hay net instead of the hay bag into the trailer. With my knowledge and permission.

We loaded Lucy, who was upset to be going to the show without her boyfriends, but she was the one who needed schooling and never goes anywhere. She pawed and banged around in the trailer, so without wasting any time, I pulled out. She kept pawing. Then she quit. The weight in the trailer felt odd, and sometimes I felt like it was pulling funny. But I kept going.

Nearly an hour later we got to the show grounds and went to unload -- only to find Lucy standing on three legs in the trailer with one leg very seriously snarled up in the hay net! This was a heavy duty hay net, too. She was trembling from the exhaustion of standing on three legs while being trailered. A friend turned up with a knife and painstakingly cut Lucy loose rope by rope.

To my infinite gratitude, Lucy stood quietly until cut free. Then, after she quit trembling and her veins weren't standing out under her thin TB skin, Lily warmed her up and the horse seemed fine. They had a good day at the show, with Lucy making some mistakes but being a willing and even interested competitor. She enjoyed going somewhere.

Until it was time to go home. I don't blame her one bit -- she decided that the trailer is an evil, scary place and she wasn't getting on it. Ever.

We did what we had to do, which ranged from getting dragged all over to tempting her with the Bucket of Earthly Delights to getting out the lunge whip and holding it in a very visible place but not striking her (though I am not against force, we just didn't get to that). She suddenly and with no warning hopped it. I gave her lots of time with the Bucket of Earthly Delights.

The hay net is in the trash can. And I thank the Lord that my horse had enough strength and balance to stand on three legs on that journey, and also had enough sense to not panic. The what ifs are playing vividly in my mind. What if she had fallen? What if she had broken something?

So very many ways to make mistakes. Just when I thought I'd made them all.

Thank God it turned out all right.

Buying and Selling Horses

I finally got Buddy's web site put together and have listed him on two horse classified sites. The phone has started ringing. And I'm looking for a horse for Lily.

Which are the best horse classified sites? Where should I be listing him?

I thought to link to his site here, but I've got my phone numbers and all that other personal info. on the site and I'm trying to maintain some kind of privacy with this blog. If you're interested in an 11-year-old Apx. QH/TB gelding that does English and Western and is the sweetest horse you've ever seen, leave me a comment and I'll contact you and send you the info. and web site link.

I don't really want to sell Buddy. That's like selling your dog. And Lily is even worse about selling him. A teenager at the little show we went to last weekend found out Buddy was for sale and was dying to buy him. Lily didn't think she was good enough for Buddy and I almost had to lock my daughter in the trailer because you just can't say those kinds of things to a prospective buyer. Or to a stranger. Or really, to anybody. (She was only saying them to me about the girl but I was afraid she would be overheard.)

The teenager rode him and the funniest thing happened. When she asked Buddy to trot, he started limping. He'd just done three jumping classes and several flat classes. He wasn't anywhere close to lame. I stood there in wonderment. Lily said, "See? He doesn't like her either. He's faking so they won't like him."

After about eight lame steps he returned to normal, but Lily is convinced (and I'm wondering myself) if this wasn't a protest. Fortunately, the girl's father already has four horses and though the girl's instructor and the girl loved Buddy, we haven't heard a thing.

Then somebody else who'd seen him at the show asked us to bring him to their farm for a woman I know slightly to try. So that's what I did last Sunday. Lily rode Buddy first so that the woman, who has had several bad experiences with her own horse in the past year and has lost confidence, could see that Buddy is a fun, reasonable guy. Lily then took him out in the field and jumped a bunch of log jumps. Buddy was a saint.

Then the woman, whom I'll call Rebecca, got on Buddy. They did great. I could tell that something was bothering Rebecca, though. She wasn't in love. I told her she could take Buddy on a trail ride with her friends, which she did. Buddy wanted to get in the front but she had no trouble keeping him back. He didn't have a problem when other horses rode his rear-end. He didn't mind the cows. He tried to tippy toe around the water but he was still okay. And he didn't have any problems with odd objects or the activities of people on nearby property.

Rebecca and her friends reported that Buddy had been great and that they really liked him. BUT....

When Rebecca and I were away from everyone she confided in me. "You know I've had my horse, "Wifebeater" (name is made up), for many years. I don't think I'm ready to get another horse," she said. "Even if I'm afraid to ride Wifebeater."

She is a really kind and sensitive woman who takes excellent care of her horses. I wish she would buy Buddy. He would have a great forever home. And he would treat her better than Wifebeater has.

"I can't imagine going into the pasture to catch another horse while Wifebeater looked on," she continued. "It would break my heart to see his face."

My heart was beginning to break. I wanted her to buy Buddy.

"I really haven't resolved my issues with Wifebeater," she said. "I had a horse communicator out to help." She made it plain that she didn't really believe in horse communicators, but still, she had paid one to come out.

"The horse communicator talked to Wifebeater. It didn't help with the problems we've been having. But Wifebeater did say it was all right if I got another horse -- so long as it wasn't another male horse," she said.

So Buiddy was perfect but the wrong gender to suit her old horse? I wish I had thought to say, "What do you care what Wifebeater thinks? He's treated you terribly. You deserve a nice horse who'll be nice to you." But I didn't think to say anything because my thinking apparatus had frozen up.

Time to Change Horses

We've been wrestling with a tough decision here for a few weeks. No, longer than that. It's been about three months. Lily's horse, Buddy, has decided that jumping is for other horses, dogs and kangaroos, not for him.

Lily says it's not fun anymore. He doesn't want to jump (though he jumps gloriously here at home). She wants to jump. She keeps trying to jump him at Pony Club and other farms. And he has become dead set against it.

I don't know how we got here and don't want to go into all the things we've tried and failed. All I know is that it's not working. It could be our fault. But we are where we are -- and it's time to move on.

Her trainer and I have suggested to Lily that we get her another horse.

There's been much weeping, and I'm not far from it myself. I can't tell you how many times we've had the following conversation:

"Mom, have you ever known a horse with as much personality as Buddy?" she asked between sobs.

"No," I confessed.

"Mom, have you ever known a horse as affectionate as Buddy?" she asked.

"Well, the others get pretty affectionate if you have food," I tried.

"You know Buddy doesn't need food to love us," she said. True, but it helps.

"I never want to sell him," she said. "I love him, and he does everything great but jumping."

"But jumping is what you want to do," I said.

"Nobody has as good a personality as Buddy," she retorted.

"You don't ride on the personality," I said.

Things changed last week. I took Buddy and her teacher's horse off to school at another farm. Buddy was absolutely fabulous. He stood quietly at the trailer while we tacked him up. He was calm and interested in his new surroundings, but stayed quiet and perfect.  He warmed up and looked like a million bucks. Then, when it was time to jump, he quit. Nothing doing. No jumping.

This horse has been evented a few times and never once had a refusal. He's gone in shows and never had a refusal. But he has decided that he isn't jumping -- and we're not going to make him.

We tried. I won't go into everything, but we tried. He has made a decision. No jumping except at home. And that's not good enough.

The thing that was different last week is that Lily's smart teacher brought her own horse, Ollie, and after Buddy had disappointed Lily, her teacher said to get on Ollie. Lily jumped Ollie over several courses. And we asked, "Did you have fun?"

"Yes. But I have fun on Buddy when I take him trail riding and do flat work and go places with him. I just can't jump him," she said.

"What if you got a horse that did all the things that you love to do with Buddy, and that horse jumped, too? In fact, you could take that horse places and jump -- not just at home," we said.

Lily was as dead set against replacing Buddy as Buddy is dead set against jumping.

The instructor sent Lily off to jump some more on Ollie. And this time it seemed to register what she was missing. Riding horses and jumping is her very favorite thing to do.

So we've made a heart-breaking decision. We're going to sell our precious Buddy and get a horse that wants Buddy's job. Lily will fall in love again.

The multi-talented but non-jumping Buddy will get a good home (we'll see to that). And he won't miss us nearly as much as we're going to miss him.

Getting Stuck

 I haven't been posting because I've been stuck. No, not like the horse in this picture, though this is exactly how I feel. (Photo from here.)

Let me first explain what "stuck" is. It's not getting your head stuck in a chair, no matter how coy and attention getting that might be.

Stuck is much less dramatic and possibly even less useful. A local riding school has some very reliable school horses. They can be relied upon to do what you ask, or perhaps not. But they won't do anything stupid or dangerous.

Sometimes, for no apparent reason, they get stuck. Maybe they will have been standing in a group while their riders jump individually, or while their riders were getting instruction on what to do next. At any rate, when the group of horses moves off, one (or more) might decide not to. Their riders will flail away with their legs banging the horses' sides in an effort to move the horse forward, but the school horse (or horses) don't budge. They are stuck.

You've seen it. You may have experienced it. The horse is stuck, all four feet planted on the ground. It's not going anywhere. It is stuck.

The instructor has to intervene. She pulls them forward. They come unstuck and it's like it never happened. "Sometimes they just get stuck," she tells the rider.

I've got something that I just have to write and don't want to. It's not hard, but there's a lot of it. I've done all the pre-work, the research and interviews. And try as I might, I can't make myself move forward. I am as stuck as one of those school horses, and there is no one but me to get me unstuck. I'm not doing a good job of urging me forward, but I am doing a good job of at least limiting fun distractions, like blogging.

I came a little unstuck this morning, since the deadline was last week (oops!). I'm a third of the way through. So long as I don't get stuck again (this is not writer's block -- this is an inner protest) I should be finished by Wednesday.

And that will unstick the rest of my life.

I need to post about riding horses in the ocean in the Bahamas last month. I need to blog about the Pony Club Quiz Rally, and especially tell you about the shoe table. But for now, I just need to stay unstuck. Be back soon.

Remember to Breathe

Here's a photo of Lily practicing a leg wrap on a friend at last Saturday's Pony Club meeting in Aiken.

I think we're all holding our breath. The national news makes me go fetal, and I don't dare open anything from my 401K. So I've turned off the news. The sun still shines. The horses aren't worried. And really, now, you can't live if you're not breathing.

Lily learned this lesson the hard way on Saturday at Pony Club. She had a great clinic with Richard Lamb, who told her group that they were all really good at one thing: not breathing. So he had them count (he also suggested singing but didn't get any takers) out loud while then went through a gymnastic and then over some jumps.

You could watch them all relax as they counted. The horses relaxed. The kids relaxed. The parents relaxed. Just remember to keep breathing. And counting or singing (I would have made them sing Christmas carols but I wasn't in charge).

All was well until they were winding up. Lily and Buddy approached a jump. Lily had quit counting -- and breathing. Buddy hesitated, then overjumped it. When they landed, Lily's weight was on her hands (on his neck) and knees (somewhere on his back/sides) and she was stiff from holding her breath. She was not relaxed, counting, breathing and going with the horse. To her surprise, and mine, she wasn't able to recover and instead, after several strides on an increasingly stiff and alarmed horse, she fell. It would have been a nothing fall, but she landed almost tangled up with him and as Buddy turned to gallop away, his hoof kicked her. It wasn't an intentional kick, but he hit her calf. Fortunately she had on tall boots. Even more fortunately, nothing was broken. She really hurt and needed ace bandages and crutches for a few days, but is okay now.

Richard Lamb was very kind and consoling. But he did happen to mention that it wouldn't have happened if she'd been breathing.

Sounds so simple. Just breathe. A good lesson for every situation.

Forever Home

White Horse Pilgrim and Pony Girl have interesting posts going on "Forever Homes" -- buying a horse and keeping it until death do you part. It's something I'd rather not think about, because I'm not sure I'm able to do it.

There are so many good reasons to have horses, and to do everything you can for your children to have that experience. There are also good reasons to go to college, pay your mortgage and save money for retirement. Sometimes owning a horse can make these other things almost out of reach. Horses take time, money and space.

When we started keeping horses when Lily was little, I bought her a one-eyed Shetland pony we named Arthur. He cost less each month than the cats to feed. I cannot say the same of Buddy and Lucy. Nor was he ever lame, required fancy shoes or anything other than a move into Equine Senior food.

It is a painful thing to sell a horse. I can't believe that I sold the best horse I'll ever have, Jack, when Lily was two and I couldn't imagine ever riding again. I thought I'd keep him forever up until she was born. How could I let such a horse go?

I'd let someone I trust lease him while I was pregnant and when Lily was small. When he came back, I almost wept to see him. Then I didn't want to see him anymore, because I knew that I couldn't do with him all that needed to be done. He was talented and liked his work. I'd be lucky if I had time to feed him. All I could figure that would happen to Jack is that he'd sit in my pasture and AGE.

I was seeing too many people (my parents) and old dogs and cats age, and I couldn't  bear to watch the horse of my dreams, the horse of my life, start to go downhill, too. There are some things that are too much to face all at once.

(My post-partum depression went on for a few years.... can you tell?)

So, I called a friend and former instructor, told her how much I wanted for Jack, and she came for him. He spent two nights in my barn. My horse I called my Gift from God, because he was better than I could afford and better than I could ever be. She took him to a fancy A-circuit barn run by famous people, and they sold him. I don't know what they got for him but when I heard what they were asking I was flabbergasted.

Of course, he didn't vet out. He had navicular changes but was not lame. But I still got a decent price, and I'm sure they did, too.

And I have to hope and pray that anybody who would pay that much for a horse would do right by him. I intentionally did not find out more than the bare facts about his buyer. I didn't want to ever be able to find him again. (Picture the scene at the end of Casablanca, only it's Jack getting on the plane and I'm Humphrey Bogart.)

Will I keep Buddy and Lucy, like the neighbors behind me with their five aged horses, one of whom requires an air conditioned stall? I'd like to think so. My heart would break to look out of my office window and see an empty pasture. There would be a hole in my morning if I didn't hear Buddy neighing for me to hurry up with that breakfast stuff.

But the sad fact is I can't make promises of any kind. All I can promise is to do my best by them.