Worming, but no farrier

The farrier was due at 9 a.m. yesterday morning, which was great, because not only were we supposed to be the first appointment of the day (better chance of an on time arrival), but it would still be cool.

We were there early. I wanted to get them all wormed.

It's been raining here for about the last week, and yesterday morning was crazily foggy - not a common sight here. We we drove up the horses, all but one lone sentinel standing guard duty, were lying down in a rough circle napping. Very cool. Unfortunately, I was driving and on the wrong side of the truck, so didn't manage a picture. Disappointing.

Worming went well.

But the farrier didn't show up. Again. And he wasn't answering his phone. After an hour and a half, we finally decided he was going to be a no-show. I told J to call me if he did happen to appear, but she said if he did she was telling him to go away, she'd wasted enough of her day (!)

I get it in principle - I'm not big on wasting my time, either. But the horses still need their feet trimmed. This is either the third or fourth time he's failed to appear. And it's getting a bit old.

I wouldn't mind so much if he'd call and at least say, "Hey, I'm not going to be able to make it." But so far that hasn't been the case. Running late is understandable, although a phone call to let us know how much longer he'll be would be greatly appreciated - and I know he carries a cell phone, because it fell out of his pocket last fall when he was here, and one of the horses stepped on it. We had a conversation about cell phone insurance.

So... I think I'll be trying someone different.

Not-quite-Friday Book Review: something from up north

Once again, I've missed Friday. But since I slacked last week, I suppose I'd better not this week.

We get Canada's weather down here in SD quite a bit, so what's more appropriate than a book from up there?

The Phantom Roan by Stephen Holt

Great old-fashioned Western-style coming of age novel. A young cowboy sets off to fulfill his dream of becoming a vet. Hitchhiking across Canada, he rescues a mangy, injured, outlaw roan with a nasty attitude. Against the advice of his new employer, he nurses the horse back to health, and befriends him. A side story covers the issue of mange management and the government-required cattle dousing that many ranchers attempted to avoid.

The main action kicks in when the outlaw roan's former owner, a rodeo livestock promoter, reclaims the horse with plans to return him to his former career as a vicious outlaw bucking horse. Very exciting stuff.

Growing up, for some reason I always thought this story was set out west somewhere like South Dakota or Montana. Which I suppose isn't so odd - there are a lot of similarities between Canada's "west" and ours. In any case, this was one of my favorite books - and after reading it I spent lots of trips scanning the ditches and creek bottoms we'd drive past for mysterious horse shapes that I could rescue.

The closest I ever came to a "road rescue" - other than returning a the down the road neighbor's escapees occasionally - was on one trip up to visit my folks. Driving along in the pitch black night, somewhere in WI I rounded a corner to see the taillights in front of me light up and something that was not a deer scampering across the road.

It was a burro. I pulled over, chased him back through the farm gate and, since it was two in the morning, closed the gate and stuck a note to it explaining why.

Of course, when I came back by a week later I discovered that the fence attached to the gate I'd shut was decorative, and only ran for about a 1/4 mile. It was open on both ends. But the burro was okay.

Still here...

Okay, I haven't fallen off the planet, really I haven't. It's been a hectic week getting H packed and off to CT for a couple of weeks with her mom, cleaning house in the aftermath and preparing for my sister to arrive for her visit.

Not much new horse-wise to report. After playing phone tag with the farrier, the ponies have a manicure scheduled for Saturday a.m. at 9 o'clock. Which is good, because Sunny's feet are long enough I've been worrying about him overreaching. And a couple of them are clicking pretty badly.

Nose flies have arrived - BECG, you just had to send them this way, didn't you :)

And it's been raining for the last 5 days. Not a bad thing for the hay situation, but not good for riding.

Other than that... quiet is nice.

Knights and Arabians

I played hooky yesterday and went to Sioux Falls to the open show the Arabian horse society sponsors. During the breaks, the Renaissance Festival sharing the grounds took over the breaks for jousting demonstrations. Very cool!

One of the only non-blurry pictures I took.

Although these two both turned out really cool...

...through no fault of my own.

And to complete the magic kingdom theme of today's post, this went over the house the other night.
It's Puff the Magic Dragon - or at least his head - although he'd spun around by the time I got the camera, and you can't see his face any more.

No show pics - it was too dark in there for good ones, but there were a lot of horses there of all types, not just Arabians. Itty-bitty Shetlands, paints, quarter horses, appaloosas (very pretty ones), a couple of TBs.... Lots of kids having a ball.

Do not disturb

Apparently it was nap time....