Playing with Plastic

Wish I'd had the camera with me when I went out to feed this morning.  The horses were up on the other side of the creekbed grazing.  When they heard me open the granary door Sunny, Rufus and Thunder bailed over the lip and up this side and loped up to the fence to whinny at me.  Amyra doesn't do the downhill plunge.  I could see her trotting along creek bank heading to the north where there's a more gradual drop.  No excited crashing and smashing, just steady progress... until her head popped up over the edge into the orchard pasture, and then she took off like her tail was on fire.  Glad she has good brakes, 'cause she left skid marks stopping.

My sister and my going on 4-year-old niece are coming for a visit next month.  I'm very excited!  On the phone the other day she asked if I had any toys here.  Horses, cats, lots of space to run around, trees to climb... no toys.  I'd accumulated a big tub of them before last summer's visit, but with our impending move I packed them all up and took them to MI with me so she'd have them to play with at my folks' place.

No toys.  Hmmm.  I think I have a box of plastic horses of all sizes in the attic somewhere.  Not sure whether she'd be as enthralled as I was though.  Unfortunately, most of the larger ones are in less than pristine condition. (In fact, I'm pretty sure there's also a separate box of legs and ears floating around up there.  Couldn't quite bear to part with them, even in pitch-it mode while we packed.)  But surely a few of them survived me mostly intact.  I'll have to see what I can find. 

As for me, I've been playing with flat plastic today.  Fly Predators, anybody try those?  I'm going to see if they really will help cut down on some of the heel/face flies. Yes, the flies have started here.  It seems early but then it's been sort of warm the last couple days, although the nights are still cool enough to keep them down.  April is vaccination month around here, and the horses are due to be wormed, as well.   I added on a tub of joint/hoof supplement; Sunny's noticeably stiffer than the other three, and Amyra's two white hooves seem too prone to chipping, so dosing at least those two with some additional biotin/glucosamine can't hurt....  Valley Vet and SLT should love me this month!

Sunny, bringing up the rear, as usual

It was a chilly walk up the road this morning, even with the wind behind us.   The ponies were disposed to walk very slowly, and even meeting a truck didn't hurry them.  We've been practicing our "getting off the road and standing still" routine periodically.  Depending on which direction the vehicle's approaching from, we hit the ditch either in a shift sideways (on-coming) or by swinging to face it (rear).  This morning's encounter was coming toward us, and politely slowed way down until we were all eased off the road.  Which took longer than it should have, thank you, Sunny!  He was in foot-dragging mode for some reason.  But everybody listened to "whoa" and waited for the click that meant their feet had stayed still and they got a treat for standing nicely.  No worries about the truck, it was just a truck, after all - lol!

Happy Ponies

The spring grass isn't very tall yet, but it is tasty - at least the boys think so.  As a post-shot reward I took them out along the driveway to graze for 20 minutes.

Unfortunately, they aren't quite done with their shots.  I messed up and got just flu andWest Nile instead of the West Nile combo I thought I was getting.  And of course I only discovered it after I got the boys done.  After some running around, Amyra got the correct combination, and I have Rufus's ready to go.  Sunny and Thunder still need sleeping sickness and tetanus.  And I now have the correct vaccines saved in my shopping list for purchase next year.

They'll all get the nasal strangles vaccine and a rabies shot yet, as well, but I don't like giving them everything all at once, and since the mosquitoes are already starting to arrive, West Nile was a priority.

On the plus side, Sunny and Amyra took their shots as nicely as usual.  Thunder was good, too.  While he's not as relaxed as the other two, he has come a very long way from the panicked response of previous years.  He took a whole two steps when I gave him the first shot, and was completely stationary for the second.  Good boy!

And this morning we have rain!  Not a lot of it yet, but enough to get things wet at least.  I'm hoping it continues all day and gets everything completely sopping.  Which is something I NEVER thought I'd be saying again after last spring!

Weekend update

Gorgeous weekend. Too nice not to be riding, but did I get any ear-time? No... But I did get the horses all vaccinated. The 4-way finally came in. I got the raincheck call this morning. A little late, as I'd already picked the vaccine up and given the shots - such timing.

Vaccinations were an unqualified success - I didn't expect much fussing really, since all of them are pretty good about shots. Even Thunder, whose reaction to anything that even resembled a needle used to be to skitter madly in the other direction, barely flicked an ear when I poked him.

It probably helped that it was a nice sunny day with no wind, but even so... J and I just walked out and caught them one at a time. Sunny persisted in thinking there was something pleasant going on that he was missing, even after he got his shot. Silly boy!

This week I have to get serious about riding time. Now that I'm officially done with work - I spent Saturday clearing my office - I'm hoping the weather will cooperate and Sunny and I can get some miles in. This morning would have been perfect, except I spent it at the dentist getting a filling. Bleh.... And right at the moment it's pouring.

So I guess I get to do laundry. Such fun!

What one shot can tell you

Yearly vaccination time has rolled around again, and I won't say I haven't been dreading it. Over the last few years I've gotten pretty good at giving shots. I've dealt with fence climbers, sqaushers, lungers, and all types of evaders. Other than one particularly bad moment when I informed Sunny that if he was that intent on not getting a penicillin shot, he could just die - he got better - I haven't had too many failures. (in my defense, it wasn't actually a life-death situation: Sunny was newly gelded and had some swelling. He was at the time basically unhandled, and very, very uncooperative. I was armed with a too short needle, and not enough patience. He won-I lost.)

At present, in addition to the two who own me, there are seven more large, and potentially uncooperative equines to get through, I keep having visions of shot reactions.... Basically, giving shots is not one of my favorite things.

Since I can't do anything much to prevent a shot reaction, but I can (maybe) do something about the squashing, evading and lunging, I've been working on shot-etiquette for the last couple of years. We, thankfully, haven't had to give too many shots other than the yearly ones, but horses do get into things, and among other freak incidents, in one year we had two horses with abscessed hooves: Sunny, foodie that he is, decided penicillin shots weren't so bad... as long as he got some grain to go with them we could stick him with all the needles we wanted. What's more, he'd happily soak his foot in that warm bucket even in the -5'F winter weather. That's my boy!

Then there's Pinto Boy....

Pinto-Boy (AKA Thunder or P-B), is a 3 year old half-Arabian gelding and my current project. He was a weanling at the time. Poor boy -- he was so small even alternating sides of his neck with hindquarter shots, he was so sore. He didn't mind the bucket part, but just try to stand by his neck! For the last two years just scratching his neck has resulted in a sudden scoot away, (and he's only slowly getting over being totally convinced the vet will kill him). Well, thanks to some sound advice from the kind posters on another blog, I collected an ink pen and my trusty clicker and spent a couple of evenings just clicking and giving him "shots." Tonight, although he was my worst-behaved patient, his "evasion" consisted of one whole step to the side. Wow. What a complete and utter difference. It's funny how the little things can make you feel really good. We have West Nile yet to do (yes, I know - it's late) and if he's as good then, I think I can say he's turned a big corner.

Tomorrow we'll see how he does with strange men -- the farrier is coming to do feet, and last time P-B was not fully convinced the poor man didn't have a needle in his pocket. Thankfully he (farrier) was very patient and was willing to walk up to him bent over so as to appear less threatening. Maybe P-B'll do better this time (I hope!).