Where Is Global Warming When You Need It!

Cold? Who's Cold? It was a balmy 29 degrees when we went out to feed the horses this morning. Balmy compared to the last few days when temps toped out at 10 or 11 degrees that is. Yesterday we started out with -4.

The footing was so bad that even Indy was reluctant to venture out into the field. It was so warm and so wet just a few weeks ago that the ground was unusually torn up - and then it froze that way. Indy just doesn't like it, but poor Ami gets foot sore. She always did that. I've had her since she was a yearling, and her soles always gave her problems on broken, frozen ground.

It will be better for them today though. Not only is it a bit warmer, we're getting snow. It's surprising how much cushion just an inch or two of snow can provide.

Besides, Indy especially loves snow, and not just to romp in either. He eats it. I've watched him at his outside hay feeder take a few bites of hay and then a mouthful of show. It's just like the sip of water he takes every few bites at the inside feeder. Well heck, hay is dry stuff.

We all had an interesting adventure on that -4 morning though. I was preparing the inside portion of Indy and Ami's breakfast - couple of soaked alfalfa cubes and their Omega 3 supplement - when I glanced out the kitchen window and there was a deer in the backyard! Actually, there were two deer in the backyard, just a few feet from the window. I got my Mike's attention, and we started watching them.

I know they could see us in the window, but they didn't seem to care. They just looked around, occasionally munching a bite of grass. Then one of the barn cats started coming to the house. When she saw the deer, she stopped short and hunkered down. She stared and the deer and they stared back - ah, predator and prey! Well, not exactly.

In fact, one of the deer started toward her to check her out. The deer wasn't worried, but the cat was. She hunkered down even further, but the deer stopped, distracted by something more interesting.

I peered around toward the barn to see if Indy and Ami were catching any of this. They hadn't been there the last time I looked, but they were there now, standing side by side at the fence, ears forward in interest but hardly alarm.

Finally, the deer got bored and wandered away. I'm sure this scenario has happened before, even if the dumb humans didn't see it.

Like I always say, never a dull moment!

I'm Not Making This Up - Honest

In my last post I was moaning about how cold it was and Indy getting cast - which bothered me a whole lot more than it bothered him.

Well, yesterday it was over 60 degrees. And it had been in the 50s for several days before that. It was 55 today. Yes, this is northern Indiana in January. We were even under a tornado watch last evening for heaven's sake!

All this warmth of course quickly melted the considerable snow pack we'd been accumulating - and then it started raining. Yes, rain and lots of it pouring down overnight and this morning.

Half our back field is under water, but that's a long way from the horses, and the barn is high and dry. I'm sure many of my friends can't say the same however. I think this is the worst flooding I've seen since Mike and I moved here in 1992.

I groomed Indy yesterday. You can imagine what a waste of time that was! Today he was sopping wet and looked as if he hadn't been groomed in his life. Ami was the same. Oh well. I didn't groom Indy because I expected him to stay clean. I did it because it was record breaking warm and he's in full winter coat. Naturally, he had itchy spots that he wanted scratched.

Indy directs me to the spots he especially wants taken care of. Sometimes it takes me a while to figure out where the spot is - humans are so slow to catch on - but he persists until I find all of them and give them a vigorous currying. I may have trouble finding the spots sometimes, but Indy leaves no doubt when I finally get there.









See what I mean?

Oh, and yes, these are all pictures of the same horse. The first two in the spring/summer, the second two in the fall/winter. Indy's a regular chameleon.

Worst Nightmares

After heavy snowfall throughout New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, Mike and I went slogging through the snow yesterday to give Indy and Ami their breakfast on the coldest morning yet this winter. The temperature was all of 9 degrees with a stiff north northwest wind that drove the wind chill well into minus territory.

Wearing my heaviest boots that make me look - and feel - like the Frankenstein Monster, I galumphed behind Mike along the mercifully short distance from the house to the barn. Once inside, we found Ami standing in the front stall, and Indy lying down in the back one. But wait a minute - he's upside down. He's not lying down, he's cast!

Having no idea how long poor Indy might have been trapped like this, Mike and I rushed to help him. In so doing, we ignored everything we both know about working with a cast horse - we grabbed his feet with our hands instead of using ropes. Mike took the back and I took the front. Since Indy was lying with his head almost to the back wall, there wasn't a lot of room for me to get out of his way if we did succeed in getting him free. My left brain was reminding me of all this while my right brain was screaming that Indy was in trouble and we had to help him!

Even considering our saddle fitting adventures, there are times when being round is a good thing. Indy rolled over on his fuzzy barrel as easily as rolling a, well, barrel. He contemplated the situation for a moment, then got to his feet as calmly as if he'd been taking his normal pre-breakfast snooze. Well, this is Indy after all...

I worried that he might be sore from his ordeal even though there weren't signs of a significant struggle in the stall when we found him. And, in true Indy fashion, he said, "What? Me worry?" He was fine, and nothing showed up today either. He was plowing around in the snow like his usual self, obviously enjoying the sun we had today.

All's well that ends well as they say, but I think another little homily might be appropriate as well - Do as I say, not as I do!

Bullseye!

We here in Warsaw, IN certainly dodged a bullet with the ice storms that have plagued so much of the country. We only had one day when it was really slippery, and we never lost power at all. However, we weren't quite so lucky with this last winter storm. It was snow instead of ice - thank goodness! - but little ole Warsaw saw some of the heaviest snowfall of the entire region - some 14 inches, and that's not counting the fact that there was a lot of blowing and drifting...

Even though it wasn't bitter cold, the wind continued to howl the next day, and even Indy seemed a bit intimidated by it all. Later in the day however, I saw him venture out to the gate even though he didn't go outside the paddock. They both seemed content do stay up by the barn and munch hay.

I knew Indy couldn't contain his curiosity for long though. Sure enough, today he was venturing all the way to the cross fence - and there was Ami right behind him. Some of the drifts were knee deep even for him, and he seemed to take pleasure in galloping through them. The more practical Ami just walked.



Actually, the most difficult part was just getting to the barn the first morning. The drifts were impossible to walk through, even for Mike. He couldn't even dent them with a shovel. Finally, he had to pick his way, clearing a path around the drifts. It wasn't the most direct route to the barn, but under the circumstances we weren't complaining!

The barn cats however were complaining. There was a snow drift blocking their regular "kitty entrance" in the front door of the barn. There they were - all 28 of them - sitting right behind the door when we opened it! What a cat-tastrophe!

Even when the kitties got out of the barn, the drifts were too deep for them to maneuver - they just sank! It didn't take them long to discover our path though, and they've been frolicking up and down, to and from the barn ever since.

By now of course, Indy and Ami have their weaving trails all over the pasture. Viewed from upstairs it looks like a bunch of drunks have been wandering around out there. Horses are constitutionally incapable of walking in a straight line. It must be a prey animal thing. They have been enjoying themselves, and that's the important thing. Indy - who was born in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan - says this is the first decent winter he's seen since he moved here to the southland.

Snow Day

Overnight we had our first real snowfall in this crazy winter - some three inches or so. Enough that snow lover Indy was galloping up and down the paddock, flagging and snorting. In other words, having a Total Blast. Even Ami was doing a bit of steam blowing herself.

I'd been planning to start introducing them back into the full pasture soon, and today seemed like the perfect time to start. It's been cold and cloudy for days, and they can't get nearly as much grass under a few inches of snow as they could otherwise.

After we had cleaned the stalls and given them their breakfast Mike went out and opened the gate. Since this gate hadn't been opened since we started keeping them in last spring, it took him a few moments to unfasten it through the snow and ice. Meanwhile, Mr. Indy had lost interest and besides, his hay was calling him. Then Mike got the gate to swing free.

Indy knows to follow my finger when I want to direct his attention. When I pointed he looked back over his shoulder. His ears popped forward, his eyes widened and off he went in a high stepping trot. Ami, who had stayed over nearby had already shot out into the pasture. Whoopee!

And whoopee it was. Almost every time I looked out the kitchen window, there was Indy, galloping up and down, round and round. The whole pasture was covered with their swirling trails in the snow. What utter joy it is to watch them romp and play - just acting like healthy, happy horses.

When they came up for their dinner, we closed the gate for the night. I let them stay out for most of the day, and will do the same tomorrow. If all is well after about a week, they will be completely free for the winter.

They'll have to come back to the paddock in the spring, but for now just watch 'em go!

The Stray

A stray wandered onto our property in the wee hours of Saturday morning. But who hasn't had a stray dog or cat wander onto their yard once in a while? This stray however was a horse - a very small horse.

When we examined him in the daylight, I was sure he was young, but not knowing whether he was a horse or pony made it harder to estimate his age, and I don't claim to be an expert in baby teeth. He was bigger than a mini, but not by a lot. He was a very pretty bay with four white stockings, and he was very friendly. I was worried we might have trouble catching him, but he came right up to us, obviously glad to see us.

At first, we just put him into the field, since Indy and Ami were in the paddocks. They all seemed quite chummy, but I still didn't want to turn a totally strange horse into the paddocks with them - for all kinds of reasons. He ran around a bit at first, but very soon came back close to his new found buds, and they all grazed along together with only a few pesky strands of ElectroBraid separating them.

Later however, I got worried about the amount of grass he was getting. He was already quite chubby, and I know all too well what too much grass can do to certain horses. By now, I had decided he must be some kind of pony, and they are notorious for foundering on grass.

We put Indy and Ami in the large paddock, and brought the little guy into the small one and gave him some hay.





My hubbie, Mike, was trying to put hay in the feeder, but the little guy just couldn't wait. As you can see the little fellow - he's a gelding - was so cute!

We had called the sheriff's department and all our horsy friends, hoping they would know something. No one had reported a missing horse, and none of our friends knew anything off hand, but they all said they would try to find out something. That's one of the many things I love about being a member of the "horse community." Everyone sticks together like glue, and we will do just about anything to help one another and our horses.

Naturally, it was a weekend, and we were afraid the Kid's owner might be out of town or something. We thought surely he hadn't wandered far from home, but it's very rural out here, and he could have wandered accross the fields without being seen from the roads.

I figured he was probably an "only" horse, because horses with pasture buddies almost never wander away from them. He seemed to have formed a bond with Indy and Ami, and he appeared to be perfectly happy just staying here. Unfortunately.

Don't get me wrong - I would have loved to keep the little cutie. But he belonged so someone else, someone who might be as frantic as I would be if it were Indy or Ami that were missing. Besides that, we don't have good shelter for more than two horses, and, global warming or no global warming, it gets cold and nasty here in the winter. Not to mention hot and buggy in the summer. And, last but far from least, I would not able to care for three horses the way I feel they should be cared for - the grooming, the personal attention, and for this baby, the training. Heck, I'm still training Indy under saddle, and that's about all I can manage these days.

Speaking of Indy and Ami... I was so proud of the way they handled this situation! They both befriended the Kid and neither one ever showed a trace of aggression or jealousy. They were a bit excited of course, but not nuts, and even that settled down quickly after the Kid moved into the small paddock.



Indy is only 15.0 hands, but next to this kid he looks like a giant.



Ami is only 13.2 hands, but even she looks big beside the baby.

On Sunday afternoon, Mike decided to take a drive around the "block" - out here that's about an eight mile trip - to see if there were any "lost horse" signs up. I'll bet he hadn't been gone five minutes when the phone rang. It was a guy who asked me if I were "Suzy." When I said I was, he mentioned the name of a mutual friend of ours who thought we might have his pony. He said, "Does he have four white stockings?" and I said, "He sure does!"

He and his brother were there in minutes with a trailer - in fact, they beat Mike back by a few minutes. They had been out of town, and had returned to find the pony missing. They were certainly glad to see him alive and well!

So, that's the saga of our little weekend guest. Since he doesn't live far away, I will probably have the opportunity to see him again. I hope so anyway. As for Indy and Ami, things quickly returned to normal - as you can see.



Oh yeah, Baby is three years old.