Bath day

So yesterday we had our first triple digit day.  When I read the forecast Monday night, I filled a couple big tubs with water Tuesday morning.  Sure enough. 106' here (warmer in town) with 40 mph winds - blast furnace, anyone?  The horses were standing behind the barn swishing when I got home.  Nasty flies, even with the wind.

It was down to 99' at 7:30 - a good time and temp for baths.  Not soap and water baths, but sun-warmed water rinses with some tea tree wash I got back when Rufus was so itchy but never had the opportunity to use.  It's supposed to be good for skin, and since it doesn't require rinsing off, I figured it would be a good day to try it out.

Sunny was our first victim.  The directions said to mix approximately 2 ounces of wash in two gallons of (preferably warm) water.  I mixed a bucket - it didn't look like enough to wash a whole horse...  Maybe I should get him wet first? 

Initially he wasn't thrilled and sidled away from me, but when the wind hit him and cooled off the spot I'd just doused he stopped moving.  By the time I was ready to rinse him with the tea tree stuff, he was standing still just stomping the flies.  While I worked on his body, my mom used a stiff bristled brush to work it through his mane and tail.  That definitely felt good.

It was warm enough that he was drying off almost before I could do the second side.  While my mom finished up, I collected Thunder.  I was anticipating the same sort of sidling that Sunny had done, but other than one sideways glance at the bucket when I poured it across his back, Thunder appeared to enjoy his turn.  And once she realized I wasn't expecting to stick her feet in the bucket, Amyra stopped making her usual cranky face and looked almost unconcerned.  Or at least as unconcerned as she ever looks. 

But Rufus took the gold star - although giving it to him would have required waking him up, because he went to sleep.

Post-wash once they were dried off I fly-sprayed them and turned them back out in the orchard pasture where they could roll on grass and not dirt.  Dried off, they were really soft as if they'd been out in the rain, and they smelled a bit like herb tea.  Have to say, that was the easiest bath-time I've ever experienced.

No pictures, thank goodness!  Setting a new fashion trend in shorts and knee high rubber boots I definitely was not - lol!

April showers

The boys don't generally get baths - I usually let Mother Nature take care of the whole shower deal.  But then, I don't generally show, either.  And between the last bits of winter fuzz, and all of the dust and dirt from the lot...  Let's just say, a bath wouldn't hurt either of them.

I was hoping to hear the weatherman say temps would hold in the 80's all week, and that I'd be able to get them clean on Friday - but it's supposed to start raining and get cold and windy for the next few days, so it was today or not at all.

I pulled the trailer up into the turnaround, armed myself with two in one shampoo/conditioner, detangler, a rubber curry and a scrub brush, two big tubs, two 20 qt buckets, 85' of hose, and an adjustable stream sprayer nozzle, and started setting up.

Unsuspecting victims

The boys were very excited to see the trailer - they whinnied at it almost as enthusiastically as they greeted their hay.  I left them in the lot to eat while I filled the two tubs up about a quarter of the way with hot, very hot, water.  Then ran them the rest of the way full with cold water from the hydrant.  With the hose hooked on, I could just comfortably reach the closest tie position on the trailer (where Sunny's tied).

Then I collected my victims.  I started with Sunny - soaked him down with the hose starting with his front feet and working my way up after he decided getting wet wasn't worth panicking over.  When he was fairly wet on one side, I switched to a bucket of lukewarm water, added shampoo, and used the curry to work the loose hair and dirt off.  He wasn't thrilled, but didn't fuss too much, considering.  Thankfully the sun was warm enough to take the chill off the water in the hose pretty quickly, and with the length of hose I had to work with, I had a few good minutes of warm-ish water for rinsing before it ran really cold and I'd switch back to bucket-water.

We are NOT amused.

Thunder snorted a bit at my occasional overspray, but I had the nozzle on the shower setting with the hose pressure set fairly low, so it wasn't as if he was getting soaked.  Once I had Sunny sluiced off, I spritzed him down with detangler and swapped their places.

Post-bath & trim

Surprisingly, Thunder was far calmer about the whole thing than Sunny - maybe because he had time to watch?  At any rate, he stood patiently with one hip cocked while I lathered, scrubbed and doused him with buckets of water until he didn't suds up any more and the water ran clear, then coated him in detangler.  While he air-dried, I took a clean body brush and went over the now-dry Sunny.

Clean and pristine

I hadn't done more than run my fingers through his mane and tail before applying the detangler, so I was really impressed to find that even with just the soft bristled brush his mane was sleek, silky, and completely snag free. Good stuff, whatever's in there!

When they were both dry, which didn't take long given the warm gusty breeze, I trimmed bridlepaths, the worst of the ear tufties, and neatened up their fetlocks.  I'm not going to clip legs, shave muzzles, or even trim ear hair much beyond what I've done - they live outside, and taking away nature's bug and sun protection for a one-day thing wouldn't be kind.

Depending on how my lesson tomorrow with Sunny goes, and how nasty the weather gets (they're predicting rain, wind and 30 degrees colder for the weekend), I may bag the show completely.  If I do end up going, Thunder and I will brave showmanship since they're not offering halter, and Sunny and I will do huntseat equitation on the flat, hunter under saddle, and possibly hunter hack.

My only goal with both of them is to expose them to the atmosphere of the thing.  Thunder certainly isn't groomed to the level of neatness required for showmanship - neither is Sunny, for that matter!  So I'd be stunned to place at all with Thunder.  And I've never shown Sunny under saddle, so there again....

Which really takes the pressure off - if we make it, it will be just for fun and edu-tainment - lol!

Are you sure we can't go out and eat more grass?

When I was done trimming, I let them both eat grass for a bit before I turned them back into the lot.  G's been working on getting the pasture fence all hooked up and zap-capable again, so it shouldn't be too long before they can go be out for the summer.  In the meantime, they're thrilled at the briefest opportunity to crop their way along the driveway.

Beautification Day

Not that the horses haven't been getting prettified right along, but Wednesday at Eric's place was hard-core pony-spa day.  I arrived at two o'clock (and left at seven) and Eric and crew had been hard at work for hours when I arrived and showed no signs of slowing down when I left.

Eric and I both rode Buddy (he's showing him, too) but it was only about a half hour total - just long enough to get all three gaits in in both directions for both of us, make sure my show tack was properly adjusted, etc.

Then it was bath time for Buddy.  Ham that he is, he strrreeeettchhed and wiggled his nose and just generally enjoyed his scrub.  He wasn't nearly so keen on the vet arriving to draw blood for his health papers.   The others tolerated being stuck with perfect equanimity.  Not Buddy - he had to crane sideways until he almost tipped over.

Meanwhile, the other crossties were occupied by a couple of incredibly patient victims - sorry, horses - getting their final clipping and shaving.  Body clips have been done for a few days, but muzzles and eyebrows get shaved, ears clipped, and diamonds clipped into faces to make their dishes more pronounced.

Once Buddy was shampooed, conditioned, de-tangled, and spritzed with ShowSheen, I got to sort through the large bag of Sleezys (lycra/spandex for horses - better them than me!) and find one that fit him before slipping his blanket back on.

The next to go under the hose was a petite bay mare who sighed when the warm water hit her and leaned into the massage as I worked up a good lather.  She also got the full spa treatment and a Sleezy to finish.

My last bathe-ie was a huge half-Arab palamino gelding.  This will be his first show, too.  Eric's comment as I pulled him out was, "Don't get flat - he's only had a couple baths."  Hmmm...  He does like to joke.  Golden boy didn't twitch an ear.  He even relaxed and unclenched his tail and made oooh-that-feels-so-good-faces while I worked the shampoo in and made sure that all the dust, tangles and shaving-particles were rinsed out.  His bath wasn't completely without incident though.

Unfortunately, the one sideways step he did take resulted in his left front foot catching the edge of his right front shoe...  When he picked the right hoof up... the shoe remained pinned under the left hoof and the right foot landed naked on the floor of the wash rack.  Eric might have been irked about it, but since he was back and forth past us multiple times he'd seen how quietly the gelding was standing.  He just shook his head and said the nails must not have been clinched solidly.  No damage to the hoof - the nails all just pulled straight out, so it should nail back on without too much trouble.

I still have tack to wipe down, but my fleece pads are freshly washed and fluffy and the check marks next to all the items on my list of to-be-packed is slowly growing.

Someone else is finding the packing process a lot more relaxing than I am!

Mabel, that's really NOT a cat bed

If the cat is in the bathtub...

That must mean she wants a bath, right? Hmmm...

Poor Mabel. But if she didn't sit in the bathtub and whine to be watered, I probably would never have thought to give her a bath.

This is Mabel, a cat of many families.

Mabel has had an interesting life. She was rescued as a young cat - already declawed in front, and after a run-in with a car - by a young woman who later married the brother of one of T's sister's husbands. (I think that's right - would that be my brother-in-law, one family removed?) Anyway, Mabel lived with them, until they moved and couldn't take her. So she was sent to live with the husband's parents.

When my sister-in-law A and her husband L were married, Mabel went along as a house-warming cat. And she was happy enough with A & L until they moved to an apartment on the second floor. Being an indoor/outdoor cat by nature, Mabel started letting herself out via the screen on their second story bedroom window - not a good activity for a cat with no front claws.

But L's parent's couldn't take her back for whatever reason, so Mabel ended up with A's mom,V, my mother-in-law. Except that V's mini-dachshund Ginger did NOT like her. And tried to eat her whenever she ventured upstairs from the basement. And Mabel, being a social creature, did not like living in the basement.

So at Christmas two years ago, Mabel came to live with us. She made the 7 1/2 hour trip complacently curled up on my down jacket in the back seat, emerging periodically to check that we still weren't willing to share any jerky with her. On arriving, she took great delight in tormenting poor Snowball, who was sure Mabel was going to eat her. For a year we woke to cats squawking and the scrabble of feet as cats lunged across us in the dark.

Eventually though, Mabel & Snowball came to an understanding, and they now nap on the bed together - not quite touching, but almost.

Mabel & Snowball

Back to the bath...

At some point among her previous residences, Mabel became accustomed to drinking from a dripping tap in the bathtub. So when she wants... well, pretty much anything, from food or water to her belly rubbed, Mabel sits in the tub and talks about it to anyone who will listen. She has a very extensive vocabulary.

And there's no place like a bathroom for captive audiences.

Occasionally, she gets herself trapped between the shower curtains while lying in wait. If the bathroom door is closed and she can't get in, she thumps on it with her back feet.

Sometimes she even sleeps in the tub so as not to miss an opportunity to demand that we turn the water on for her. (Even though the cat food and water is much more conveniently located in the kitchen!)

It's mildly entertaining, but...

Anyway, right now she's shedding, and a little dandruff-y despite frequent grooming on her part and regular brushing on mine. And hairballs are just nasty when coughed up on the floor for bare feet to find. So last night as I was brushing my teeth, there sat Mabel in the tub. Shedding. And whining - loudly - to have the water turned on. So I did.

I adjusted it nice and warm, and proceeded to shampoo her and use the showerhead (it's on a hose, so you can move it around) to rinse her off all squeaky clean.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't bath a cat
- they don't need it -
but I just purely couldn't resist.

Actually, she wasn't too fussed about her bath - I think the warm water and the massage while I lathered her felt good - but she didn't much care for being towel dried.

This morning, guess who
was sitting in the tub again.
Sigh....
I do wish I'd gotten pictures of her
all spikey-wet and drying carefully
between her toes with her little pink tongue!