smellshorsey

Shut Down by Lightning

Lightning will strike twice and I'm here to prove it. I haven't been posting or visiting lately because I haven't had Internet access. The first time it struck and knocked out my modem. We have cable Internet, so I had to wait for the repair guy to come out this way. That took a few days. The modem was partially damaged but he connected me a different way and I was back online.

Then, on July Fourth, God put on a tremendous fireworks show with a great blessing of rain and enough lightning to power the U.S. if only we could capture and control that energy. This time the lightning struck us more than once and knocked out our telephone, Internet and cable TV. It took days and days to get a repair, and it's not quite right yet (so I get to wait for the repairman all day Friday). It fried the cable connections down by the street as well as the one leading into our house. We heard it when it hit. Yee ha! That'll get your attention.

But I'm back. And as I type this, I see another storm coming. Our Thunder Hound, who is afraid of lightning, has already stood on his hind legs to look in the window to tell us, "Let me in!" And he's in, probably trembling by my daughter's feet downstairs.

The grass is green and life feels good. One of my hay suppliers has already had a first cutting (which he saves for cows). Soon, surely I'll be getting 2008 hay. When it rains every day the grass grows -- but the farmers can't cut. As long as the grass is growing I'll sit here happy.

And my tadpoles are getting really big. No legs yet. They look like little black shiny whales.

So I'm back -- for now.

Sore Back Leads to Bad Temper

Last week in Lily's lesson Buddy was his evil twin, rushing after jumps, not wanting to transition from the canter to the trot going downhill, and doing some bucking after jumps. It was mostly out of character since (1) it was at the end of a lesson and he was tired and (2) it was mercilessly hot (90s). Who takes off bucking at the end of a lesson in hot weather?

Tori, Lily's new teacher, approached me with concern. "I think Buddy hurts," she said. "He shouldn't object to a downward transition going downhill."

Now, Buddy is a hard one to read. He takes off bucking and farting across the pasture whenever he can think of a reason. Tired of eating grass? Better go gallop, buck and fart. Butterfly landed on the pavement at the high school ten miles away? Better go gallop, buck and fart. So, when he does the same when Lily's riding him, I'm confused. Does he hurt, is he having fun or did she just make him mad?

So we had the vet out. She checked Buddy out thoroughly and decided that he had a sore lower back. She says that happens a lot to horses that canter and jump a lot. She put him on bute and muscle relaxers for a week.

He continued to gallop, buck and fart in the pasture, but this week at his lesson, except for one crow-hop, he was positively angelic. Sorry I was too busy watching to take photos!

The hope is that his back has relaxed and with care won't hurt. I'm pretty good at hoping.

Just wish Buddy could talk and tell us if he's having fun -- or hurting. Or maybe not. He probably cusses like a sailor.

Cat in the Hayloft, Snake in the Stall

I've about had it with Dipstick, my mother's cat who lives in my barn. He's a sweet cat and was a wonderful companion to her, but his habit of getting up in the hayloft and whining to get down (he cannot get down on his own, even if left there for days) is way past annoying.

I know the old joke about if cats couldn't get themselves out of trees, we'd see cat skeletons everywhere. But the truth is, this cat can't get himself out of the hayloft. Lily figured out a system where we can put him in the cat carrier and lower him by a rope. If he starts giving us trouble about getting in the cat carrier, well, he can live in the hayloft.

So yesterday morning he's up there whining. He's got the world's most obnoxious whine. Very grating. And I'm down in Buddy's stall picking what needs picking when I see something odd. A long skinny black snake scrunched up in a corner and stretched up part of the way up the wall. I did what all stall-cleaners holding pitchforks (or apple pickers) would do. I poked it. It moved. I left. It left later.

And of course I got Dipstick down. After refueling, he went back up into the hayloft.

Anybody want a slightly used but very sweet cat?

Speaking of Riding Your Horse instead of Driving....

In my last post I mused about riding our horses for transportation. I came upon this NYT's story about a police horse who spooked at a backfiring motorcycle and threw his rider, then made his way through NYC to get to his home stable.

Surprised this doesn't happen more often. Here's the story:

After Throwing Rider, Police Horse Returns Home Alone

Aldo, a police horse on routine patrol in one of Manhattan’s busiest sections, may have lost his cool on Friday afternoon — but he didn’t lose his sense of direction.

      

About 2 p.m. at Prince Street and the Avenue of the Americas, Aldo bucked at the sound of a backfiring motorcycle and threw his rider, a veteran police officer.

The officer landed  on his shoulder and neck, as Aldo took off.

The reports of “officer down” sent officers of the Emergency Service Unit racing to the scene. Once the rider was determined not to be seriously injured, attention turned to the missing Aldo.

But the officers need not have worried. Within about five minutes, the horse made it back to the stable, where he was being looked at by department veterinarians, said Officer Martin Brown, a Police Department spokesman, who said Aldo suffered only a few minor cuts.

The riderless Aldo had gone south, then a bit west, a journey of about eight blocks, to arrive at his base, the stable alongside the First Precinct station house at 19 Varick Street.

The mounted officer, who was not immediately identified, was taken to St. Vincent’s Medical Center, where he was treated for minor injuries to his shoulder and neck, Officer Brown said. He has been on the job for 21 years, the last six of which were served in the Mounted Unit.

Aldo is 8 years old and has been on the job about a year. He came to the Varick stable in December after training at the Police Academy’s stable in the Bronx.

The police said that one 911 caller reported a riderless horse heading south against traffic on the Avenue of the Americas near Spring Street. Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said, “You know, Aldo knows his turf.”

 

Why Horses Eat Tree Bark

See this tree? It used to have bark. Now it has horse teeth marks. Not content with being horses, Buddy and Lucy want to be beavers. I don't know what kind of tree this is but it's one I like. I need to paint it with Tabasco or something. They're also beginning to work on the pecan trees, which may bring out the horse muzzles. Sweet gums they can have because the gum balls get in their feet. But pecans are another matter.

If you ask around you'll find a lot of reasons given for why horses eat tree bark. Some experts say it's a lack of copper or other nutrients. Other experts say it's to make up for fiber in cold season grasses.

Buddy and Lucy have not one but two mineral supplement blocks. They eat a bale of Coastal Bermuda hay a day. They get a pelleted feed that's supposed to be full of yummy stuff. There is some green in the pasture. I agree with the experts who say it's because they like the taste. But maybe there's a grander scheme.

You didn't think horses were long-term thinkers and planners, did you? Neither did I. But this bark-eating thing has been going on a while, and I'm seeing a plan.

First they ate all the bark they could reach off of our sweet gum trees. Go figure. If the tree is actually sweet that's a no-brainer. So we had a big die-off of the sweet gums in our pasture because the horses cleaned all the bark off of the trees. In other posts on this blog you'll see photos with stumps in the background. Those were the sweet gums. We had to cut them all down before they blew down and hit the barn. We made some of them into jumps.

But we missed one. And in the high winds over the weekend, the top sheared off and broke through the fence. We didn't see it at first because it's in the wooded back of the pasture where we seldom go. But Lily and some friends were out exploring and discovered the gum tree crashed through the fence. It's hard to make out what's what in the following photo. Paul put a board across the top as a temporary fix. You can see the tree squashing down the wire portion of the fence, and the dead horse-eaten trunk standing in the foreground.

Notice also that they have already started eating the upper branches that are now within reach.

Tell me. Is it because the trees are tasty, or because once eaten through, they'll be able to go visit the neighbor's horses and eat their grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side-of-the-fence?

Preparing the Horses for Severe Weather

The line of storms that spawned those tornadoes that have done so much damage is on its way here. The last time I checked, we're most likely to see high winds (50-60 mph) with the possibility of tornadoes, though nothing like what's happened elsewhere (we hope). It will just last a few hours, during which time I will be regretting that we built our house with so much exterior glass and no basement. It's hard to know what to anticipate because the only thing the media loves more than the Super Bowl and Super Tuesday is Tornado Wednesday.

I hear that in addition to all the deaths, there are horses missing. I'm really trying to know as little as possible about all of this until the storm has passed for us, too. It's hard to say anything that sounds sincere much beyond I'm really sorry and can't imagine. And I'm grateful for the lives that were spared, such as the students at Union University.

But right now, I've got to make the decision I always hate to make before severe weather: what to do with the horses? Perhaps they'd be safer in the barn, where flying objects can't hit them. And even more than that, where Nutty Buddy can't go stand under a tree in the lightning. (He really does.) The pony we used to have, Annie, knew exactly what to do in a storm. Put her butt to the wind and keep eating. If it really got bad, she'd go in the barn.

In high winds, I'm not so sure metal barns don't turn into kites. It's got a concrete foundation and is well built. But its tall with a roof overhang. With the right wind, it could be a kite. So I've got their stall doors fastened open. They can go in there if they want. I don't think they ever want to when it's a storm, unless there's ice.

Other than Buddy's habit of standing under a tree in a lightning storm, I trust my horses' horse sense. Right now they have a better grip on the situation than the weatherman, with a lot less drama and hysterics.

Now the dog, Parker, is hysterical and had to come inside. Apparently he's been watching cable. He's sitting on the floor, trembling, and letting the indoor cat chew on his ears.

If it was a hurricane or something certain to be worse, I'd probably spray paint my phone number on the horses, in case a downed tree broke my fence and they decided to go exploring.

Right now they're standing in their favorite spot where they can spy on the neighbor horses, which are also out but I'll bet they get brought in.

We need the rain. We don't need the wind or the drama.

I hear it coming....like the sound of a freight train. It really does sound like a freight train -- because it is. I don't think tornadoes have whistles.

The Fences Always Need Mending

Give a horse a fence and he'll gnaw a hole through it (I'm not even talking about cribbers). Or, if his behind itches, he'll use it to scratch. Eventually, the horse will win and the fence will need fixing.

We used to keep a hot wire around the perimeter of our pasture, but lightning keeps zapping the charger.

Bless Lily's heart, she tried to fix this piece of the fence. Looks like Christmas decorations gone awry. Click to enlarge.
  Here's the fence crew at work in our sunny, 74-degree January weather.

I'm Pretending that Lucy's Not Lame

Paul and Lily fixed the hot wire that "encourages" the horses to stay out of the hay garage. (For some reason, I posted about their exploits here.)

Nobody colicked.  I keep the hay off of the ground with a "floor" of plywood boards and wood pallets on top of bricks. Somebody with their great horse-weight crashed through in several places during their Hay Feast the other night, and Lucy is lame. Lucy is never lame.

I can't find any heat or cuts. I assume when your Big Pig Self crashes through a floor not meant to hold  horses, something could twist or turn. For my peace of mind, I'm going to pretend that she's not lame. If she's not better in a week or so, I'll call the vet.

Mantra: Lucy is sound, Lucy is sound, Lucy is sound.

This is because my New Year's resolution is to ride her three times a week. It's too cold for me to ride (Lily is riding at this moment -- I'm inside with my coat on) so It's Too Cold to Ride and Lucy is Sound.

My niece is my horse vet and she's wonderful. She moved to another part of the state a month ago, a wonderful opportunity for her at a big lay-up barn they're building to catch the North-South traffic on I-95. It will also have a surgery and a team of several vets. I started missing her before she packed the first box.

If she were here, all I'd have to do is call her and she'd stop by. We'd have a nice visit. She'd run her hands up and down Lucy's legs and tell me there was nothing she was worried about.

So I'm not going to worry either. At least not today.

I don't want to think about all the things it could be. A vet once told me to throw away my veterinary encyclopedia because it wasn't helping me. I thought he was being funny, but I think he might be right. I need to let go of the things I can't help.

I had to reschedule the appointment for hospice about my mother next week because it conflicted with an orthodontist appointment for Lily.

I'm grateful Lucy and Buddy didn't colic. I wish Lucy wasn't doing a good impersonation of a lame horse. I just can't carry it all, though.

Lucy is sound until proven otherwise. Later. Later. Always later.

How to Read a "Horse for Sale" Ad

Here's the ad, more or less (this is from my imperfect memory -- I've underlined the parts I'm sure of; the rest is approximate):

"8yo reg. gelding, chestnut, 4 stockings. Lovely mover. Very affectionate. Clips, loads, stands for farrier. Loves trail riding. Always ready to go. Gets along well with other horses. Suitable for any discipline. 30 days professional training. Child safe."

Here's the truth, more or less:

A local trainer (Jane) known for working with difficult/impossible horses gets a call from a former client. They've bought their daughter a new horse, and she can't ride him. They want to send him to Hell Camp for 30 days. So Jane takes him.

The horse, though lovely, is very difficult. When Jane takes him trail riding, HE TRIES TO MOUNT THE MARES WHILE THEY ARE BEING RIDDEN. He has a host of other problems, and Jane determines that he is "proud cut" (hasn't been completely gelded). When the 30 days are up, Jane admits defeat. "Send this horse back where you got him. You'll never be able to use him for your daughter. In fact, I'm not sure anybody can use him."

So the people returned the horse. When they checked the seller's web site later, they found the ad for their horse, written above.

It is true that he  had 30 days of professional training (where he flunked out). It is true that he loves trail riding (especially if there are any pretty mares to mount). It is true that he is lovely. But he will never, ever be child safe.

Sometimes you have to read between the lines.

Dingity dangit! Quit digging up the grass!

I can see the pasture while I type this, and what I see isn't good. It used to be a fine, lush pasture of Coastal Bermuda grass. Between the drought and the two eating machines, it now looks grey and ugly. And now Buddy has taught Lucy a new thing: take those hooves and dig up the grass by the roots.

This accomplishes two things: It means I need to get the farrier more often, and it decimates the already stressed Coastal Bermuda. I'm beginning to see sand through bald patches.

Good thing he's cute.

How to make a fat, lazy horse jump

I see someone stumbled upon this site by searching on "how to make a fat lazy horse jump" so I decided to throw in my two cents on this subject, even though this is not exactly an advice site. You see, I have all kinds of experience making a fat lazy horse jump, though I have even more experience on how to keep a swift, fit, rushing horse from jumping with far too much eagerness for any mere mortal.

So, how do you get a fat lazy horse to jump? First off, why isn't the horse jumping? Did the horse previously know how, and suddenly isn't interested? Maybe the horse has grown sour -- or hurts.

I know of a horse that was under-performing for no apparent reason. The vet found out why -- the horse was lame in both front feet! You couldn't tell the horse was lame because both feet were lame. If your feet hurt, you don't want to jump (or do much else). Plus, it's dangerous. Find that horse another job!

The horse could also be unbalanced, not fit, not have the right conformation or have some other physical obstacle to performing. You might try doing more flat work, getting off some of that weight (even if the horse isn't lame, all that weight landing on his/her front feet produces a lot of wear and tear that can lead to lameness), and working on circles and gymnastics to build up muscle strength and flexibility.

Is the horse afraid? Take things slowly. Follow another horse over the jump. Keep working on it until it's no big deal. Slow, steady and with much praise.

If the horse is playing with you and playing on your weakness, spend some time in what we call "who's in charge" work. We often have to do this with Buddy at horse shows, where he needs to be reminded of who's in charge. I stand on the ground and give Lily commands to do precision riding, such as canter five strides, halt immediately. Walk ten strides. Halt and back four steps. Canter eight strides, then trot fifteen, etc. Just keep switching it up. Do circles, serpentines, reverse your direction. Don't do anything that the horse can anticipate, and demand an immediate response. Know in advance your next three moves. If you ask for a canter, canter the next step. If that doesn't work, get organized (even if that takes some time) and ask again. This is about showing who's in charge (not Buddy) and precision riding.

I'm not a professional, and they have a lot more tricks than this.

If there is no reason you can't humanely ask the horse to jump, you might want to get a stronger rider or professional to take the horse for a while. They can also work with you in the saddle.

Lucy is the laziest horse I've ever had. She will spend far more energy trying to avoid doing whatever I ask than it would take to actually do it. The good thing is that she's figured out most of the time that it's easier to jump a jump than to go around.... Not always, but most of the time.

Lucy can go from lazy to wild thing in an instant, so I usually don't do a lot with a crop and spurs with her. (Red-headed Thoroughbred mare.) But that's always an option.

Good luck! And believe me, a fat lazy horse that's in no hurry to jump is a much bigger pleasure than a rusher. (Unless they duck out and leave you on the ground. And you really cannot put up with that!)

Scary stuff

Bazzy Boy visited yesterday and I got introduced to his blog. Bazzy, like Lucy, flunked out at the track. Bazzy, unlike Lucy, has his own blog. Don't tell her. She's already got an inflated sense of entitlement.

Here's something that makes me laugh out loud -- Bazzy's list of things that scare him, Scary stuff.

Lucy agrees with him particularly about Bags of Death, House on a Stick, and Big Blue Flat Bag of Death. So glad we don't have to worry about kangaroos. Surprise Deer are bad enough. 

Buddy isn't afraid of lightning, but doesn't like rain, so he's sure to go stand under the tallest tree. (The barn is open at all times for their shelter, but who wants a barn when you can stand under a tall tree and cause your owner to lose years of her life just watching and debating whether she should go out in the lightning storm, walk under the tall tree to get you, and then put you in the barn?) Lucy just keeps grazing. If it gets really bad she'll turn her rear end to the wind. If it gets really, really bad, she'll go in the barn. Then run out again because of the sound of rain on the metal roof. But I digress.

Very funny. Go visit Scary stuff -- and then come back! What's on your horse's list of scary stuff?

Freak accident (warning: sad story)

I don't want to even tell this story. I think that we as a civilization are so inundated with sad stories that it isn't good for us. Some days you should just turn off the news and go riding! So why am I telling this story? I have no idea.

If you don't like sad stories, skip to something else. I have lots of cheerful entries for your entertainment. The only redeeming thing about this story is that it is such a freak event that you don't have to worry about it happening to you or the people or horses you love. The only thing I can think of that would have prevented it would have been a flash noseband, and unless there are other reasons your horse needs a flash, the likelihood of this event is so small that it's not a reason to get a flash. The only other remedy might be fly spray, and that was probably being used so I guess wouldn't help.

So enough with the warnings. Here's what happened at a local barn last week. A teenage girl had just finished riding her very nice hunter/jumper mare. They'd had a nice ride, nothing odd had happened. Just a ride like many of you will have today.

The girl rode the horse back to the barn and slipped her feet out of the stirrups in order to dismount. In that instant, the mare reached around to bite at an insect on her side and accidentally bit the stirrup. You know how horses' teeth have a gap behind the front teeth and the molars, leaving a nice space where the bit can go? Well, that's where the stirrup went -- and got hung up! The horse, who tends to be over-reactive, freaked out. The girl's mother was nearby and helped snatch the girl off of the horse. The girl was safely on the ground when the horse flipped out and fell to the ground, slamming her head into a solid post that helped support the barn before the horse mom could run back with scissors to cut the stirrup free.

The vet came immediately, but the horse was not all right. The mare could not stand, and had blood running from her nose and ears. There was nothing anyone could do. The horse had split her skull. This mare, in the prime of her life, died.

Right there in front of her distraught human best friend. And there were other horse-loving girls, children and teenagers, who were there. The atmosphere at that barn right now is one of deep mourning, and it is spreading with the story to other horse lovers in the area. There is such a thin line between normal and catastrophe.

One minute a horse is biting at a fly. The next, she is dead.

There's a lesson here. But I don't know what it is. I could say something about enjoy every day and how you can never horse-proof the world (the more valuable a horse is, the more likely it is to have something catastrophic happen to it -- don't know why). Instead, I'll say I'm really sorry. Now I think I'll go check my fences. There's always something a horse can do that no one expects.

The tissues are on me. A better, more cheerful entry tomorrow. I promise.

Horses aren't the only things that bite

Before Lucy, I never had a horse that would bite. I wish she would either bite more often, so I could deal with it properly, or not bite at all, so it wouldn't be an issue. She bites about once a year.

When I first got her as a 2-year-old racetrack flunkee, she would turn around and bite my booted toe when she was tired of being ridden. That meant about ten minutes into her workout my right toe, always my right toe, would get bitten. Well, this is easy to fix. Got a boot? Can it kick?

She's a smart girl. Probably a smarter girl than me. So now she does things like grab the reins when I'm riding on the buckle. Or have an attack of Sudden Itch Syndrome (SIS), which means that she has to stop whatever she's doing and scratch her front leg with her noseband, or maybe she's scratching her face with her front leg. Hard to tell. But if she scratches it once, she needs to scratch it a million times.

I'm a soft touch. I understand itches. So, I fall for it. But when that second itch comes moments later, well, even I have figured it out.

Last fall I was standing by her stall door, facing away, when she BIT the top of my arm. For no reason other than it was there. I hope I whacked her, but I was so shocked I might not have. As I said, I'm not used to horses who bite. She hasn't bitten since so maybe I did impress upon her the importance of not biting people. Then again, it's about time for another bite....

I didn't think anymore about it, just watched the area get purple, then green. Then it went away and I really did forget about it. Until I noticed a lump in my arm. I still didn't make the connection to Lucy's bite. I am always banged up and bruised from messing with the horses, trailer and other heavy stuff, so I can't tell you what violence caused which purple spot, other than to tell you I am not a victim of anything other than owning horses. Anyway. So, I have this arm lump.

My mother and aunt had breast cancer. I know what a lump means. I have ARM CANCER!

I call the doctor, who says to "watch it." (I could be a doctor. They always say to watch it.) So I watch it. Eventually the skin puckers and indents. I call the doctor to report. The verdict: It must come out!

It was then that my doctor told me that there is such a thing as arm cancer, but people don't get it there in that spot. But the puckering is very mysterious. So the doctor carves it out. A few hundred dollars and an ugly scar later, I find out it's old scar tissue from a trauma, such as a horse bite.

I guess I should be glad Lucy went for my arm.

I'd like to tell you that I went right out there and bit Lucy back, but I didn't. Instead, I'm going to play along with Kate, who runs a fun blog or three, including I think, therefore I blog, and bite back. Her blog has a lot of interesting tidbits on it even though I haven't heard a word about a horse yet. Enjoy!

Large round hay bale equals large round problem

I've already whined about the hay shortage. So you won't have to hear me whine all winter, I'm stocking up now on some decent Coastal Bermuda, which is what we grow around here.

Unfortunately, I don't really have room to store it all. Especially since, in my desperation last winter, I bought a large round bale of hay.

Now you may do just fine with large bales of hay. The one time I put one out for my horses, (and it was beautiful, fresh hay), Lucy couldn't stop eating. She ate until she had to lie down. She even groaned. The Big Turkey had all the symptoms of Too Much Thanksgiving Dinner Consumption, which in horse translates into: COLIC!

The vet came out, etc. Caught it early. Lucy lived to overeat another day.

Since I couldn't very well move the big bale of hay, I had to limit Lucy's time out with it.

Buddy was okay until the very end. Then, when they were eating the dregs, that's when he colicked. The vet came out, etc. Caught it early. Buddy lived to colic another day.

Last winter all I could get at one point was a $50 plus delivery bale of mediocre Coastal Bermuda. All I could get. So I had it delivered and put it in the back of the hay garage, with the idea that I would feed it in daily portions rather than leave the whole thing out.

A few days later Lucy greeted me at the gate. She had moldy breath. Uh oh. Breath that smelled like moldy hay. Uh oh. About this same time I found some $12/bale orchard grass, so that was the end of the round bale.

But it wasn't. It's still sitting there. It weighs 800 lbs. I cannot move it. It will not roll. It sits, slumped in the corner, occupying space where I could store good hay for the coming winter.

I advertised it for free on Craig's list, and had a taker who wanted to feed it to his goats. His truck broke down on the way and he never re-scheduled.

A neighbor said he'd like it for mulch, but just had surgery and can't use it. Another neighbor may want it but I'm not hopeful.

So, my husband, Pyro Paul, wants to drag it out using a chain and Ben, and burn it this weekend. Great. It's in the high 90s and we're going to start a fire in a drought.

Anybody want a free 800 lb. bale of hay? All you have to do is come get it. PLEASE!

Hay Watch

You might think you know horses just because you ride often or own one, but unless you are the one responsible for the horses, you don't know horses. They are one of the most destructive forces in the universe.

They have eaten my fences. They aren't cribbers -- they like the taste of treated wood when it's wet. Yum, yum. Love that poison! Beavers couldn't have done any worse.

I'll whine later about the other things they have torn up, but today, they broke into the hay garage. Now, there are two problems with this. One is that they might have eaten so much that they'll colic. We'll watch and wait. Right now both horses are fine. I don't think they ate a dangerous amount, but they left the hay such a mess that it's hard to figure out exactly how much is missing.

My daughter fed them this morning. She assures me that she locked the hay garage gate, and she probably did. But you have to fasten the chain and snap so that the horses can't reach it, and then lock it twice in case they do. I don't think she has mastered this. I would hate for the horses to colic in general. It would be extra terrible (we as a people are out of superlatives) if my daughter thought she caused their suffering. So, they'll get bran mash tonight and in the morning. And not one thing else but grass.

My second complaint is that it was part of a shipment of hay I just bought to try to get me through the winter. Hay, like gas, used to be cheap. Now, Rumplestiltskin wouldn't need to get whatever-her-name was to spin straw into gold. It is gold! This is the third year that hay prices are nutty -- triple what they were when I first started horsekeeping. When Katrina hit, all the Gulf Coast hay crops were ruined so that caused a hay shortage. (Mind you, I am not unsympathetic to the greater casualties caused by Katrina. I just mention hay, one of the minor things. But not minor when you have to write a whopping big check or ten for hay....) Then last summer we had a drought, so last winter there was no hay. I bought hay from states I haven't even been to. I bought hay in all flavors of grass, most of which I'd only heard of. I paid and paid and paid for hay. Oh! And did I mention that transporting this hay from far flung regions of the country cost extra because of gas prices?

Now they tell me that hay fields are being converted to corn and other ethanol crops. So hay will become even costlier.

Horses were never a cheap hobby, but keeping them at home worked out pretty well.

Are they grateful? No. Of course not. They trampled the new hay. They ate it. They acted like me at a chocolate buffet where I didn't know anybody.

Good thing they're cute. And part of our strategic plan to keep our girl safe through her teenage years.

But hay! Shut your big mouths and get your hooves off of my gold! You must think that stuff grows in fields.