smellshorsey

More on the Mouse Mystery

Okay, so I had one dead mouse with two holes in him on my tackroom floor. Then I found another dead mouse, this one obviously fell in a Rubbermaid tub, couldn't get out and died. And then there was the shredded horse blanket, the chewed open bag of feed and the strange piles of things I didn't put in strange piles.

I went back to the pound to get the aggressive cat, and the pound was out of cats! They were down to two because it turns out the Charleston pound had a waiting list of 400 people needing cats, so the Columbia pound sent all their cats down there. Well. That's how it ought to work. The two cats the pound had weren't barn-cat types. So I left catless.

I told Paul about this, which I had already done several times but this time it seems that his wife-hearing ear was actually working and he heard me. So he set out two mouse traps, one in the tackroom and one in his shop, which is behind the tack room. He put the traps on top of newspaper to make them easy to .... deal with. 

And we heard laughter in the darkness.

The next day, the tackroom mousetrap was flipped over and empty. And the one in the shop was (insert Jaws music here) GONE! And not only was the mousetrap gone, but so, too, was the newspaper under it.

!!!

How did the thing get the trap and the newspaper? And what kind of thing was it? Is it safe to go down there? Will it eat the horses next?

So today Paul bought some rat poison. We had our usual conversation about what if a rat/mouse ate it, staggered out into the yard, and the dog ate the rat/mouse. I said it could happen. Paul of course said that it wouldn't. it probably won't, but I'd rather get a cat. I'd always rather get a cat.

Except -- what if it ate the cat?

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.

Forgive Me While I Learn to Videotape Horses

I'm building a web site to give out information on Buddy, who is for sale. Indulge me while I try to learn to make a video and post it. I'm a bit shaky. Plus everytime I try to video him all I get is his nose

Our New Trailer Meets Our WMD

I love our new trailer. So does Paul, my husband. But as far as our new trailer is concerned, he's a WMD.

Within the first 24 hours he managed to pop a window out and dent the front. Boy was he mad. He was convinced that I did it because he couldn't possibly have done it, but I assured him that there were no overhanging things on the Interstate, and the horse couldn't very well break out the front window when there is a small tackroom between the horse compartment and the trailer front.

I solved the mystery when I took the trailer to get repaired. After parking the trailer at the dealer's, I opened the Yukon hatchback door. Guess what? The corner of the door was crushed in. Turns out Paul had opened the back of the Yukon so he could see better when he parked the trailer. The corner of the hatch lid/door poked the trailer window out -- and dented the front. The trailer dealer thought it was very funny -- especially in light of the fact that Paul had negotiated a lower trailer price and here the dealer was going to get that money back in repairs.

So then Paul took the trailer the next weekend, a blustery, windy day. He left the trailer door open while he was working (landscaping his office, I think.) The wind blew the steel trailer loading door open with such force that it temporarily bent around the door stop and smashed a rear light. It seems impossible when you open and shut the door -- there's a dent where the door bent that one time, but the door sprung back into shape. And it's not going anywhere near that trailer light under normal conditions.

If Paul hadn't been the one to buy the trailer, I might not let him use it, and I still might revoke his privileges, because the NEXT time he used it (third time, right?) he scraped up the paint in several places, letting metal things dangle against the paint on the inside, scraping the fenders by driving through small openings, and brushing up under a tree and scratching the top.

The trailer can withstand all the abuse the horses throw at it. But not my husband. I told him he should think about using the old trailer from now on.

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.

Summer Coats and Winter Blankets

(These two photos are of Lily riding my horse, Lucy.) "That's the softest horse I ever felt," the eight-year-old boy said, stroking Lucy, my nine-year-old TB. Her summer coat is so short and fine that it's almost like she doesn't have hair -- she's just gleaming chestnut marble -- until you touch her. And she is so very soft. Her hair is so short and fine it almost doesn't hold dirt. She looks like she's been show sheened even when she hasn't been groomed in a couple of weeks.

Buddy, on the other hand, has coarser, longer QH/TB hair. And he's nice and shiny because he's healthy -- under the dirt. I think that's good for Lily's growth and development. You can shampoo, show sheen, preen and polish your life, but then it will go roll in the mud. Perfection isn't possible.

She sometimes leaves him tied up to dry after a bath. When she lets him go he rolls anyway, but at least he's dry when he does it.

Lucy rolls just as much. But it doesn't stick to her like it does to Buddy. Lucy is made of Teflon. Buddy is made of Scotch tape, sticky-side out.

It's getting cooler and we've been getting our blankets ready in the vain hope that warm horses won't grow heavy coats. We've washed the blankets (a Saturday spent at Soapy Suds laundromat) and this weekend we're going to Scotchguard them.

As you know, both horses' blankets will be dirty the next day. But at least we're starting out clean.

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.

Tadpoles and Mosquito Larvae

There's a giant puddle around our watering trough. That's good news because it means that we've had rain. But that's also bad news because that means I'm raising my very own home-grown and hungry mosquitoes. There are squiggly larvae everywhere.

So, I went to the pest control section of my handy-dandy feed store, which sells everything from farm fashions (really nice stuff!) to mailboxes to plumbing and electrical supplies, and checked out my choices. They had exactly the right thing. A little doughnut-shaped thing you drop into standing water and it kills the mosquitoes. But what about my horses and birds? Does it hurt them? I couldn't figure out the answer to that question, so I didn't buy the stuff.

I decided to instead dig a trench and drain the pond/puddle. All went well and I had the water running out until I realized that the mosquito larvae weren't the only things in there -- there were also a zillion little black tadpoles. Yikes!

Hmmm. Frogs good. Mosquitoes bad. It's a life or death situation. Both die. Or both live.

The tadpoles were quite small, but I decided that they will grow (I hope) and just might feed on mosquito larvae. So I chose life.

I filled my trench in and added some water to the puddle.

I feel like a crazy person. My garden is overgrown, I haven't planted some plants that sit wilting in pots, and I'm here cultivating a tadpole/mosquito puddle. Not to mention the paying work that I could be doing, or the meal I could be cooking for a neighbor home from the hospital.

Next I'll be putting a net over my tadpole/mosquito puddle to keep the birds from eating my tadpoles, and then the horses will get tangled up in the netting and I'll have to drive them to the University of Georgia for costly horse repairs.

I guess I'll skip the netting, will look the other way when the birds visit, and I'll just keep watering my tadpoles. Congratulations will be in order when they've all turned into frogs.

I love summer.

Wonder if They'll Deliver Cat Food to the Hayloft?

Here I am, scrambling to find hay, keep Buddy's back relaxed and schedule summer riding lessons around everything else and Dipstick, our FIV-positive barn cat who was my mother's cat nobody wanted, decides that he'll slip up to the hayloft and get stuck there almost every day.

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to climb up in the hayloft and get a whiny cat down when you're wearing your pajamas, bathrobe and slide shoes?

But I've found a service that will deliver cat food. Wonder if they'll deliver it to the hayloft and let me skip that climbing-up-the-ladder-in-my-pajamas step? (Domino's pizza won't deliver out here....) It's at holistic cat food.

Come to think of it, it would be a good thing if my cats, especially Ye Olde Cat in the Hayloft, got extra high quality, healthy cat food. Dipstick is healthy now, even though he's FIV-positive, but holistic cat food would probably give his immune system an edge.

And if they'd deliver it, life would be easier. I spend a lot of time trying to find hay. I spend no time at all looking into cat food, and I'm afraid my cats get whatever's on sale.

After all the pet food scares lately, surely they deserve better than that. In addition to holistic cat food, they also have dog and other pet food. All probably healthier and higher quality than the food the people in this house consume (but not higher quality than the hay and feed served down at the barn).

Now, if only they'd deliver holistic people food, already prepared.

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.