I haven’t posted for a couple of weeks – it’s just been the same round of fighting weeds (by letting horses eat them mostly – except for the morning I spent pulling thistles by hand, and have the arms to prove it), treating thrush (which may or may not be gone) and trying to keep the ground wet (I HATE flood irrigation). At least our turn tomorrow is in the daytime, which is good. Except for that one bent gate I can’t open by myself. But how could I expect anything to actually work like it’s supposed to?

We let the horses out after church today – Tiger went through the gate like a great wind, head down, tail up. The rest of the family thought it was thrilling. But the other horses let them down – it was the walking horse parade. I guess escaping onto the driveway has lost its novelty for the old fat folks. Tiger continued to mess around on the grass, making huge leaps and bucking like a wild thing. He especially loved it when I brought out an unfamiliar trough and dropped it on the drive—a fine excuse to rear and buck in terror. None of the other horses even raised a head to see what was what. Ah, youth.

Sophie has NOT foundered on the great green grass this year. No, instead, she’s dropping weight and looks pre-anorexic – hip bones jutting, croup falling off on the sides. She looked fine till a couple of weeks ago. Maybe the heat – it’s possible. So now she’s on hay and grain and extra grass and probably will founder after all.

jetta no longer limps. that’s what makes me think the thrush might actually be gone. It’s going to take a while, though, for those frogs to build themselves back up. This is exiting, I know, but it is the stuff of horse-ownership – days of nothing but pleasure in the beauty and personality of your equine buddies, against weeks of worrying about naggy details. Kind of like raising children. A lot like that, actually. I’m also treating a little swelling in Jetta’s right eye.

Nobody will probably ever read this. You never know. Maybe somebody will come along, looking for a new use for gentian violet.

Had a setback with Jetta’s feet. She’d been doing so well, I decided to put her out in the morning with everybody else. It was two days after flood irrigation and early, so the ground was wet and there was dew. But her feet seemed hardened up, and her frogs dry. But the next morning, when I checked her feet, the frogs were all mushy again. Drat. It’s not easy, juggling horses all throughout the day. And she gets so nervous when I put everybody else out, she won’t hold still when I’m trying to do her feet. Someday, she’s going to haul off and cow kick me. If I live through it, I’ll have to wail on her, and I don’t want to do that.

But yesterday morning, she was looking good again – after much careful attention. I have blue cuticles again, but there you go. I found out today that Geneva’s horses are doing a little lame thing too, after Weston. He does like to trim close, but he knows his stuff.

The other day, Tiger was standing very close to the arena fence. So I climbed up there and just sat on his back, side-saddle. Of course, he moved right away, but the movement was so smooth, that, in the two seconds before I slid off, I really enjoyed myself. We have done no training for over a month. Too darn hot, and I’ve been hunched over the computer, working on the website. He’s still showing ribs, even after having five hours or more on the grass beyond what the big horses get. Maybe that’s why he’s so sweet tempered. He was alone on the grass for hours the other day, and when we got to the pasture to put him away, he came flying across the grass to us, elated, evidently, to have company. I have him pegged to be the next alpha – Dustin allows him to eat out of the same tub. Only Jetta has been allowed to do that, and that was way back when.

And definitely as hot as July. I’ve been putting them out a little later, mindful of what Westin said about the sugar content when the grass is high. And I’ve been leaving Jetta and the baby out till four or five, hours and hours. Yesterday, when I came in the afternoon to put them away, I was climbing the fence and realized that I couldn’t see Jetta anywhere. In the next second, I saw her, lying down flat in the grass. Scared me to death. heat stroke? Heart attack? Colic?

I yelled her name, and her head came straight up out of the grass. So she wasn’t dead. In fact, by the time I got to the pasture gate, she was waiting for me.

One morning last week, I got up early, put them out, came back an hour later (after the feeding frenzy had settled down) and put the dead saddle on Tiger. I left it on him for a couple of hours after I’d put the big horses in. It didn’t seem to bother him at all; he just grazed away, all the time, getting used to the ungainly weight on his back. I took it off before the heat came on, but he was still soaked under the girth. Haven’t tried it again since – too hot, and we’ve been too sick.

Zion has still been ouchy on that left foot (I know it’s the left because Weston finally told me it was). And Jetta has been getting that way more and more to the point where she almost doesn’t want to take a step – which is bad.

We (almost the entire Randle extended family) came down with something absolutely horrible Monday night and have been sick for three days solid. All I could do for the horses was drive down there (which I did without running into anything, only by luck), pull myself over the gate, drag myself down the drive, do what I had to do, and then retrace my heavy steps and go home. But yesterday, I was well enough to worry. So I called Weston.

Here’s the thing about a horse’s feet: the farrier, if he is worth his salt, knows more about a horse’s feet than a vet does – unless you are lucky enough to have a vet who was once a farrier, as I do. It’s one of the oldest professions, and these guys are very serious about what they do. Weston doesn’t do this as a day job – he’s a computer guy. But he loves the horses and keeps up the skills he learned growing up with them, and also keeps up on new technology and technique as carefully as my dentist used to (he’s retired now, bless him).

So Weston is my guardian angel.

He came this morning, bright and early, to see about Jetta, who was, obligingly, worse this morning than ever. He found a couple of things – yes, she was a bit tender on the floor of the hoof (my ignorant terminology), but also, her frog has been deteriorating because of the thrush, which had gotten down into the soft tissue. I hadn’t taken her little bit of thrush seriously, the way I did Dustin’s, and I hadn’t done right by her.

By the way, I treated Dustin with the Gentian Violet, and the thrush is gone. A small bottle costs under six dollars at Kmart, and lasts a good while. Don’t get it on your hands – it’s bright blue dye. Get the smallest syringe you can – I used a 6ml – stick it into the bottle (carefully – my hands were blue for weeks after the first treatment – when I just poured it into the hoof) and draw up what you need. Then you can put the stuff directly where it’s needed.

So we decided to continue that treatment for Jetta, along with some iodine, applied to the entire bottom of the hoof, to help toughen it up. So this morning, I did those things – soaking the sick frog in bright blue and then in iodine yellow. And I have to keep her off the wet grass. So she will only be going out in the heat of the afternoon. But she got hay this morning, and that made her happy.

I am doing the iodine on Zion’s thin place as well.

Weston didn’t even charge me for the visit. “I was going to be over there across the river anyway,” he said.

I told him, “If there’s anything I can ever do for you or for your children, just say the word.” It came out with a deep sort of ring, as if there will be a time I can make good on the promise. And as I spoke, it came over me that this is the way life should be on the earth—people willing to take care of one another, just for the sake of love and mutual respect.

So, this evening we coated her frogs again with the gentian violet and the hoof with iodine. We’ll see.