Yes, the colt broke the trailer today.  Somehow, he decided he needed to be on the other side of the trailer neck hitch thing – I’ve changed the panels around, and we’re parking the trailer behind the barn now – so I’ve got this little isolation stall  . . . with a trailer in the middle of it.  And grass, grass growing terribly long. So I put Jetta in it for a while the other day, hoping he’d eat it down, which she hasn’t.  So I put the colt in it today.  He was content enough with the grass.  Until he got on the wrong side of the trailer neck.

I guess he tried stepping over it and caught his foot in the  break cable.  He didn’t panic.  He made very little noise.  But I guess he pulled the cable out and severed all the connections.  So now we have a trailer to fix.

This wasn’t what I was going to write about.  Oh, and I’ve been feeding Stan’s pony and filly.  Which has been fun. But I wasn’t going to write about that, either.  

I’m writing about a sweet thing I saw the other day.  I don’t remember seeing any of my five horses every actually grooming each other.  Maybe once.  Maybe  Zi and Jetta, years ago.   But just a couple of days ago, I was working in the arena and I turned around, and there were Hickory and Dustin, head to withers, grooming each other.  I think this is the passing of the alpha.   I would never have expected to see Dustin peacefully paired with anybody.  But I’ve seen the colt eating next to him- carefully.  And now this.  It was pretty amazing.

After Sophie’s mental breakdown on the lane, I realized that I was going to have to do some tuning up of everybody.  I’m not that great a rider, and the idea scared me.  So I started out taking Sophie for walks, taking her down there by hand.  At first, she was skittery.  But I learned a lot by doing it.  And I took her three times, the theory being, the more often she goes down there, the less she’ll be bothered under saddle.

Then I started walking the colt down there for the same reason.  He’s really not been out of my place often – just to the vet and down to Rachel’s a couple of times.  He was squirrely too, but brave.  When the little calf ran up the dung hill just beside us, the colt threw his head up and re-set his feet, but he didn’t pull back, and he didn’t try to bolt.  This is good.  

Everytime I finished the walk, it was in Bob’s big arena.  Just a little work out to break up the walk home so we don’t get too silly when we’re heading that way.  I told Geneva about that, but she said the real workout – trotting till we’re tired – should be on the way out, so the actual ride down the lane is an escape from work, a rest.

I walked Zion down there a couple of times, then decided it was time I got some guts, that it was time for me to take a ride instead of a walk (Geneva had twitted me about it, and she was right).  So I went to the field, fed them all, and then worked him on the ground for a while.  After I had him saddled, I called Guy and called Rachel – just so somebody knew where I was going.  Then my battery started to run down.

Off I went, down the road on my Zi, who was pretty sure he didn’t want to go.  I waved at Bob, who was working in the arena.  So one more person knew I was out there all by my lonesome, just in case my horse pulled something on me.  But it turned out, he did as asked, just a little nervous.  And mostly well behaved.  Of course, he did the drunken sailor thing – I guess he feels that, if he can drift far enough to the side, he’ll finally just sneak his head around so he can change directions.  But it didn’t work.  At the very end, he really got querulous, calling and calling.  So I forced him to finish, then turned around before I lost him for real.

After that ride, I was ambivalent.  I’d handled him.  But barely.  So days went by.  Then I decided I’d better do it again.  So I saddled him up the next week, and called Rachel – but this time, she came with me, she and Jaden on her cruiser bike.  I was worried the bicycle freaking him out, but he wasn’t bothered.  

I worked him on the line under saddle.  Then I trotted and cantered around my little arena for a while.  Then we went across the street and worked out in Bob’s big arena.  Zi was breathing hard, and Rachel, who made me keep trotting around – I was worried I was pushing my welcome with her.  But no – a woman of infinite patience.

She rode down the path with me, and I think Zi thought the bike was some odd kind of horse, because he seemed much more comfortable.  And I was tons more confident, not being all alone back there.  In fact, I was nearly euphoric – I was safe, and he behaved beautifully.  Well, better, anyway.  We went down to Harold’s gate and back, and he was quiet.  But maybe that’s because Westin had just trimmed him and his feet were ouchy on the rocky lane.

The next day, I decided to saddle up Sophie.  I never expected to be so scared about that.  But danged if Rachel didn’t come again.  And we went through the same routine.  And Sophie was fine.  No weirdness.  No misbehavior.  A good ride.

The only thing was, I couldn’t get her to canter on the line, and I wasn’t about to ask her to under saddle, not after she hump-jumped a couple of times under Rachel.  I needed to know her better, make sure the respect was there.  But the walk was good.  Last week, I worked her on the line, went through the games, and got a nice, brisk canter when I asked for it.  So all’s right with the world.  Maybe.  We still need to do it under saddle.

There was a hitch when I walked the colt down the lane the third time.  I took a detour and walked him through the neighborhood there – nice houses and asphalt.  He’d never done any such thing before, and he was head up, nose scanning, snort, snort.  But he was so fine, I relaxed my vigilance, and didn’t see the sideways shy till it hit me from behind.  

He hit me and I was sure I was going to do a face plant on the road, but things were very confused – like he’d stepped sideways into me and gotten his legs tangled with mine – I was falling, but did not fall.  Then he pushed me again, and I still didn’t fall.  Later, one calf hurt and the opposite heel hurt – and I’m guessing he was standing on my heel and my legs were locked.  Anyway, it was a little miracle that I didn’t end up losing all the skin off my face.  After that, he did fine.

Now all I have to do is ride the colt (very scary) and keep riding Zi and Sophie – and maybe the other two too.  I have to admit, this is a little overwhelming.  Five horses and the family has vanished, all the children grown up – something to think about before you buy a helpless animal that will depend on you for twenty to thirty years.

Still, this is my dream.  And if I age well, I will thank them for getting me outside and keeping me flexible and fit.  Assuming they don’t throw me and break my neck.

I haven’t written because I’ve been doing my head off.  I have to post the thing about our first ride down Boardman’s Lane this spring and Sophie coming un-glued, because that freaked me out: my gentle, boringest, most trustworthy horse freaking out about – what?  A ditch?  An electric fence buzz?  And running backward across a newly staked out for landscaping yard, tearing up the stakes and string and leaving divots in the level dirt big enough to store an alligator in.

Yes, it’s spring.  But I did ride her for at least five or so minutes over the winter, and she nearly bucked Rachel off, which Rachel definitely didn’t need.  But as I say, there is a post about this. What I really want to write about is this spring’s anti-founder strategy. 

I did what I always do, start off like Geneva taught me: feed the horses in the morning so that their stomachs are full before you put them on the grass.  The first day, I turn them out for ten minutes, rewarding them for coming back in with a dessert- a handful of alfalfa.  The second day, it’s fifteen minutes – I just shovel manure and work around the barn till it’s time to bring them in.  

This year, I set up the first fence all along the east side of the pasture, a long, maybe thirty, forty foot strip that ran the length of the grass north of the barn.  The grass is always longest there, richest, and gets oldest first.  So I wanted them to eat it down.  I left all the gates open when I put them out there, so nobody’d be trapped in that narrow run.  And they ate it down well over the course of almost two weeks.  The first week for the fifteen minutes, then twenty, finally half an hour, with hay in the morning.

When I felt like it was good to go past fifteen minutes, I started cutting down the morning alfala for everybody but Sophie.  I’d keep Sophie in the jail at night, or Jetta – in the morning, I’d run Jetta out through the barn, then put Sophie in the jail, or keep her there if she was already in there.  Then I’d run everybody else out on the grass, feed Sophie hay, work a bit, then let her out the last fifteen minutes.

I meant to do exactly what I did last year, but I was moving too fast – couldn’t take the time to remember to check the blog, didn’t even check the calendar.  I keep re-inventing the wheel, which is just stupid.

But it worked.  I checked her digital pulse often, sometimes finding it, sometimes not.  Once it was hot.  But the next morning, it was gone.  She’s doing fine.  Still has a little pulse, but no sore feet, no stiffness of movement.  So whatever I’m doing, we seem to have dodged the bullet again this year.  I’m keeping Jetta in the hot jail during the day – Jetta is my tank, and putting Sophie in there at night, just in case the heat is part of the problem.  But so far, so good.

I have re-defined the pastures.  I started with the three in the back and the four out front.  But when Rachel had to give up her horses, she gave me back my gate, which gives me one more to work with.  So that huge middle pasture is now two.  We’ll see how that works.  I ended up grazing out the back before the front – the grass was just too long there, and I had to get to the weeds to spray them.

Always an experiment.