Sunday, November 29, 2009, 03:27
Another Indian Summer Day
Saturday was yet another lovely Indian Summer day here at Rural Route 2. The temperature started out cold Saturday morning, in the low 20s, but when the sun came up and started shining, the air temperature warmed up to the low 40s by afternoon.
I went out with the wheelbarrow and manure picker-fork to clean up around the horse pastures, and it was glorious to be outside. I became warm enough after awhile that I ditched my stocking cap and put it on a fence post. I kept my blaze orange vest on, though, because it is still gun deer season.
It has been cold enough overnight for the last few nights that some of the horse manure was frozen, but it wasn't too hard to chip it up off the ground. Later on, when the temperature is below zero, the job will be much more difficult.
All together I took four wheelbarrows out of Isabelle's pasture and hauled it out to the hayfield, and I took three wheelbarrows out of Kajun's pasture. I don't get much time during the week for pasture clean-up, and it grows dark now so early that it is hard to do it in the evening after I have fed the horses. You can only do so much by twilight and the light of the security light in the yard.
I will be glad when deer season is finished late Sunday afternoon. I should have kept track of the number of cars, trucks and vans that drove past our place on Saturday, going in and coming out. Usually we only get a few cars per day past here. I hate to point this out to the hunters, but they are not very likely to see deer on the road in the middle of the day. And even if they did see deer, you can't hunt from the road anyway.
So far I have not heard much for gunshots around here, and that's a good thing. Some years I feel as if I am in the middle of a war zone. My old horse, Kajun, appreciates it when it's quieter too. Deer season is hard on his nerves. Of course, so is everything else. . .
LeAnn R. Ralph
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Friday, November 27, 2009, 07:21
A Good Job Done
Poor Kajun. My old horse is a nervous sort. Has been his whole life. But the gun deer season makes him even worse. I could tell last Sunday, when I could see him well in the morning light, that he had been running and making himself sweaty. Now that he is working on getting his winter coat, the hair looks all wavy and plastered down if he has gotten himself sweaty.
And that, of course, is why I questioned my decision to schedule an appointment with the farrier to get Kajun and Isabelle's hooves trimmed on Wednesday. Right in the middle of deer season. I had wanted to get it done in October, but it was so wet and rainy and muddy that I knew trimming their feet would be a real chore. You might know that it would be raining Tuesday and Wednesday.
Tuesday night when we went out to feed the horses, I told Randy we should try to get the halter on Kajun. The horse is nearly 28 years old, but in spite of all my best efforts, he still thinks that if someone is trying to put a halter on him, they are planning to kill him. Once he gets the halter on, he's fine. It's slipping it over his ears that creates the problem.
"Let me get this straight," Randy said. "It's almost dark. It's cold and wet and rainy. And you think we're going to get the halter on Kajun now?"
"It's worth a shot," I said. "It's either that or try to get it on him in the morning."
The farrier was scheduled to come at 8:30 a.m.
"If we can't get it on him, it won't be the end of the world," I said.
Two years ago when the farrier came first thing in the spring, I never did get the halter on Kajun. He ended trimming the horse's feet with no one holding onto him. I just stood and petted the horse and talked to him, and miracle of miracles, he allowed all four feet to be trimmed.
It was a really funny thing, too. As we stood in the doorway of the barn, no halter on the horse, the farrier holding up Kajun's feet and busily trimming away, a goose, a Canadian goose, landed in the hayfield about 20 feet from the gate. And then the goose stood there and walked back and forth all the while the farrier was trimming Kajun's hooves.
Under normal circumstances, a goose landing so close and then walking back and forth where he could see him would have given Kajun the heebie-jeebies. When crows land farther down the five-acre hayfield, so that they just look like small black specks, Kajun has conniption fits and runs back and forth, watching them and snorting. He does the same thing when wild turkeys are out in the hayfield.
The horse just stood there watched the goose, but he wasn't one bit afraid.
In the 14 years we have lived here, that is the only time I have ever seen a goose in the hayfield. The goose stayed there until we were finished with Kajun's feet, and then he took off. It was almost like he was watching us or like he was staying there to make sure that Kajun was all right.
At any rate, Tuesday evening, we were going to try to get the halter on Kajun. We had already put grain in his bucket outside, but not all of the grain. When he was finished, I planned to try to coax him into the barn. I make a point of putting the halter on Kajun during the spring and summer before he gets his grain. I have to quit doing that in the fall when I start wearing a stocking cap in the cold weather because for some reason, the horse is highly suspicious of me when I am wearing a stocking cap. Maybe he thinks something has happened to the top of my head but he can't figure out what.
Randy and I went into the barn, and then a little while later, Kajun came in to see if we had more grain. Usually he won't even come into the barn during deer season because he is so nervous and upset.
I tried holding out the halter a couple of times, but when I tried to lift it over his ears, he would panic.
"Let me try," Randy said.
"Wait until he puts his nose down into the nose band," I said. "And then carefully try to put it over his ears. If he is ready to get the halter on, he will stand there. But if he isn't ready, he will jerk back," I said.
I held my breath as Randy almost got the halter over Kajun's ears a couple of times.
"Try approach/retreat," I said.
I have noticed that if I walk away from the horse a few steps and then come back, he calms down a bit. Someone approaching straight on is clearly predatory behavior, as far as Kajun is concerned. But if you walk away, then you most likely are not a predator. Right?
Randy approached and retreated. Approached and retreated.
And then, much to my surprise, he was able to put the halter on Kajun.
"Good job!" I said. "Now I have to tie it on."
That's the other thing about my old horse. He will only allow his old halter, the old, red, beat up halter, to be put on his head. I bought a new halter for him a few years ago, but he did not want a thing to do with it. Acted like he thought it was going to eat him. By contrast, Isabelle does not care one little bit which halter I put on her -- the black one, the purple one or Kajun's old red halter.
The clip on the old red halter broke years ago, so if I want the halter to stay on the horse, I have to tie it where the clip would have normally held it together. Even though the little solar light on the wall did not provide much in the way of lighting for getting the twine string tied, I managed to put several square knots in it.
Fortunately, by the next morning, Kajun was still wearing his halter. The farrier came, and I stuck around to make sure that everything was going well with Kajun, then I headed into town to pick up Jack, Long John Silver and Whiskers (the barn kittens) after their spay and neuter surgery on Tuesday.
The kittens have been staying in Charlie's old kennel in the basement, and they seem to be doing quite well after their surgery, except that all three of them are showing signs of some pneumonia. I am treating them with an antibiotic.
When I arrived home with the kittens, Randy and the farrier were just finishing up Isabelle's feet. Randy said it took him about 15 seconds to get the halter on Isabelle (sigh).
On my way out to the main road to get the kitties, I went the other way so I could drive past the neighbor's to see what she had put out for a Christmas display. Guess what was reddish orange?
Pumpkin leaf bags. She had hung a star up in the tree, and the star had been shining on pumpkin leaf bags. The other night when we took Pixie for a walk, we started out thinking the star was someone in the other neighbor's hunting shack. Then we thought the red-orange were the tail lights of a car parked by the road. It took us a quarter of mile to determine it was a Christmas star shining on a Christmas display -- which turned out to be pumpkin leaf bags. . .
LeAnn R. Ralph