Our First Horse

Someone once said “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I’m chock full of good intentions but apparently not always very good at seeing them through. What you don’t see when you read this blog is all of the posts we’ve started but not finished. Mikki has a couple but I have 38. Thirty-eight! I know this because WordPress, the software we use to maintain this blog, reminds me every time I write a new post. So I thought it might be fun to list my unfinished posts to give you an idea what I’m working on. I plan on finishing every one, even though some of them are outdated already. For instance, “What Valentine is Getting for Christmas”. But maybe, just maybe by listing them here I’ll be just a little more likely to finish them soon. I can only hope.

So here’s my list of posts I’ve started but not finished, in order from newest to oldest:

1) Daily barn clothes – we all have them and some of us have good clothes that ended up becoming barn clothes the hard way
2) What Valentine is Getting for Christmas – I was going to share a secret with you guys about what I was getting Mikki and Valentine for Christmas.
3) Quick tie knot – years ago we saw someone tie this cool knot with a lead rope. It’s quick and easy to do and is easy to untie for the human but not for the horse. I want to explain the know and I think we even have a video showing how to do it.
4) Cinch tying – there is probably some fancy equine term for this but when you tighten the cinch, there’s a special “through the rabbit hole” technique. If you don’t do it a lot, it’s easy to forget. So for your sake and mine, I’m describing it here.
5) Horses – They’re Just Like Us! – this is a horse-owner spin on a feature one of the celebrity magazines does called “Stars – They’re Just Like Us!” I realized one day there are a lot of similarities between horses and humans.
6) Salt Lick Art – one day while watering the horses (why do we call it that, anyway?) I saw an interesting shape in the salt lick. Maybe I should have tried to sell it on eBay but instead I decided to write something about it. Since then I’ve discovered some other salt lick “artists”. You can find anything on the internet.
7) Miniature guide horses – I believe this was inspired by an article I saw about miniature horses being used as guide animals. We normally think of dogs in this role but why not a miniature horse?
8) Horse starved to death – owner arrested – an article about this sad case in Arizona made me wonder what would cause someone to allow their horse to starve to death. As terrible as it sounds, I wonder if the owner just became overwhelmed and didn’t really intend harm on the animal. Not an excuse, just a possible explanation.
9) We have a round pen! – A horse friend had an extra one and is lending it to us for an extended period of time. This opens up some great training opportunities.
10) Dead horses in the streets – A morbid title, I know, but I read an account about how common this sight was 100 years ago and it struck me how things have changed in 100 years. It also reminded me of how people sometimes view animals differently than others.
11) Horse decorations – we bought a neat horse decoration for the barn at the World’s Longest Yard Sale last year and it made me wonder how prevalent horse decorations are in homes and barns.
12) Cross fence – It’s time to restrict grazing in our pasture. This is a discussion of our options for fencing.
13) Junkyard Horse – We often pass by a fenced lot filled with junk parts and apparently repossessed mobile homes. Inside the fence is not a doberman but a horse.
14) Stock Tank Secret – With warmer weather comes green fuzzies in the big water buckets. Does this product help keep the water fresh?
15) Using Shredded Newspaper as Bedding – Inspired by an article I saw on the subject. Could this be a good horse bedding alternative?
16) The wisdom of pranking horse friends – The locally infamous story of how I pranked a good horse friend. It involves bigfoot.
17) We need a slide pole – After building a hay loft in our main barn, it occurred to me a fireman slide pole might be fun.
18) Adding a hay loft – With hay seasons being unpredictable each year, we find it wise to store hay when the price and quality is good. So we added a hay loft.
19) Mane length – We’ve seen short and long manes and wondered why.
20) Uses for hay bale twine – We have so much hay bale twine around from feeding square bales, there must be something we can do with it.
21) Trauma from horse injury – A neighbor fell off of her horse and experienced head trauma that could have been avoided.
22) My first saddle – I went with a cheap saddle to start off with, mostly because I was short on cash at the time. I’ll discuss whether that was a good idea or not.
23) Manure Management System – Part 1 – With two and sometimes three horses, we need a way to manage all the manure daily, weekly, monthly. Includes info on aerated composting.
24) New Shoes? No Thanks – One of our horses isn’t always keen on shoeing time.
25) Barn Music – What we listen to and a request for feedback on what you listen to in the barn.
26) Hobby Farms Magazine – A review of one of the horse/farm magazines we receive.
27) Horse Feed Storage – Protecting Your Supply – How do we keep bugs and varmints away from expensive horse feed?
28) Selecting Oats – Supplemental Feed – What do our horses need besides hay to keep them healthy
29) All the Pretty Horses – The book, the movie and…the song
30) Managing a hobby farm without a tractor – We don’t own a tractor so here’s what we do instead
31) Getting ready for winter mud – Started just before winter, a look-forward to the months of yucky mud and how we planned to deal with it.
32) Annual Vaccinations for Horses – Why it’s important, how much it costs, etc.
33) Who’s the Boss? – Establishing pasture boss…every day.
34) Drought and our dry, brown pasture – Last year was rough. The drought hit our pasture hard.
35) Tack Room Security – How do we keep thousands of dollars in tack secure.
36) New Product Idea: Horse Snorkel – A fun idea I had upon observing Valentine drink.
37) How to Make Horse Toys – Horse toys don’t have to be store-bought or expensive.
38) About Our Barn – Some info on our three-horse barn.

Whew, that’s a long list! So you see, I have plenty to write about, I just need to finish these posts and find appropriate photos to go with them. Thanks for your patience and for continue to checkout ourfirsthorse.com!

Stupid horses. I get too attached to animals and I thought this day might come. Sinbad was a loaner horse and from the beginning I realized he wasn’t mine. In fact, I called him my backup horse since Moonshine is my main horse. Sinbad is old, reliable and super easy to ride. But by the time most of you read this, he’ll be gone. His owner had promised him to a girl who didn’t have a fenced pasture or run-in barn yet. She finally finished those projects and now it’s time for Sinbad to move there.

On the positive side, some girl is probably having trouble sleeping tonight in anticipation of her new horse. Perhaps he’ll be ridden more and will enjoy all the attention. And we’ll never get to see him die. But we’re really going to miss that old horse and we’re all feeling pretty sad today.

I took about a million pictures of him in the past few days. Most of these won’t mean anything to anyone except us but in case you’d like to see my little Sinbad retrospective, below is a small slideshow.

SLIDESHOW TO RETURN IN THE FUTURE

So now what, you might ask. Well, we’re on the lookout for another backup horse. One we would actually own so he/she doesn’t have to leave someday. There are some good candidates in the area. Time to make some phone calls, set up some appointments and test drives. Maybe a gaited horse would be a good idea since Valentine is gaited as well. And maybe a gelding this time, so I can avoid some of the mare-related problems we experience with Moonshine.

Have you ever had to give back a horse you got attached to? Please share your story. BTW, we always read every comment, even though we don’t always reply.

Thanks for sympathizing.