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How The Kid feels about Valentine

How The Kid feels about Valentine

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The Kid looking towards the pasture

I’m a little bit afraid of my mom’s horse Valentine because he keeps staring at me, but mostly because he’s big, fast and his legs are strong. I might like to have my own horse if it’s small and obedient (a little weak). I’d like my horse to be gray or black. I’d like to pet him and ride him around but I wouldn’t want him to jump, stand up on his hind legs or think that he’s the boss.

Things I like about Valentine: he’s shiny, smooth, black and he’s calm. When he’s in his stall he doesn’t try to grab my shirt or anything. I’ve fed him carrots and some hay that was spread out on the ground for him to eat. I also did that with the horse named Blaze that we used to have in our barn. I might ride Valentine but I might be reluctant and a little afraid because I’ve never controlled a horse by myself.

I drew a horse picture that I’ll show later.

The Kid is a man of few words sometimes…Bill

The Horse Tax Deduction

The Horse Tax Deduction

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1040 Tax Form

Sigh, it’s April 15th as I write this, a day I don’t look forward to every year. For some, however, it’s not as financially painful as it once was thanks to the ability to deduct certain expenses associated with horse ownership. Now as simple and nice as that sounds, deducting horse expenses is not something most horse owners will be able to do. In fact, there is no “horse tax deduction” unless you can prove ownership and maintenance of your horse is a business pursuit. An internet search revealed the following general rules:

  • You must maintain a separate checking account for business expenses. The IRS will look carefully at whether or not you’re running your “business” in a business-like manner. Save receipts, create profit and loss statements, write everything down.
  • You cannot operate at a loss indefinitely. The IRS will likely want to take a look at the profit/loss trend over time to make sure you’re trying to make a profit. Otherwise, it looks like you’re trying to write-off your hobby.
  • How pleasurable is your horse business? One article I found (linked below) noted two tax court cases where deductions were disallowed because owners referred to their horses with affection. This doesn’t seem fair, I know, but it sets some precedent.

I’m sure there are more “rules” out there but those should be enough to make us all wonder whether or not we really want to try and consider our horse expenses as business expenses. However, if your horse ownership venture really is for profit, best of luck to you saving on taxes! Legitimate horse businesses (according to the IRS) seem to be: breeding operations, equine camps and workshops, boarding, riding lessons with a horse that’s not your personal pleasure horse and horse racing. Apparently, if you give occasional lessons to the neighbor kids on your own personal pleasure horse, it’s not advisable to deduct your horse expenses from your personal income tax.

But remember, I’m far from a tax pro so don’t necessarily make any life decisions based on what I write. 🙂

Some information for this post is from here (not affiliated): http://www.horses-and-horse-information.com/articles/0399horsebusiness.shtml

The Dreaded Thrush

The Dreaded Thrush

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Hoof ThrushThe farrier came out this morning, and it’s official: Valentine has thrush. I’m actually relieved, partly because I know for sure now, and partly because the farrier didn’t seem all that concerned. Whew!

If you remember from my earlier post, Valentine had foot issues. He’d been sort of limping, he had stinky feet, and over the last few days, he wouldn’t let me clean his feet. I decided it was time to call in a professional. So Gabe came out and took a look. His diagnosis was that Valentine’s right front hoof has thrush, and that’s why he wouldn’t let me touch his other feet – it hurts him to to put weight on the right when I lift up the left. Gabe suggested we use Kopertox, but approved what we’ve already been using (Hooflex Thrush Remedy). I told him the pasture was pretty muddy, and asked if we should keep Valentine stabled while he’s being treated. He thought that was a good idea. He also suggested that, once the mud has dried, we trot Valentine up and down the road in front of our house to knock the mud loose, since Val won’t let me lift up the feet for cleaning.

So the plan for the next week or so: keep Valentine in the stall to keep the feet dry; treat with thrush medicine at least twice daily; graze him on our lawn (which is desperately in need of mowing anyway); and amuse the neighbors by “walking” my horse up and down the road.

Gabe also told us that thrush is very common here, because it’s such a wet place – it’s a fungal infection, and as you probably know, fungus loves wet. I also may have mentioned that it’s very muddy here. The mud is actually clay (I’m sure I could get a potter’s wheel and a kiln and have a nice pottery business on the side), which means that once it’s up in that concave hoof, it’s there to stay. Along with anything that gets mixed in with it – hay, rocks, the omnipresent poo. So once this thrush is cleared up, we will dose Valentine’s hooves with thrush medicine once a week to prevent a recurrence.
Have I mentioned that I really hate mud?

Barn Shoes…Make That Barn Clothes

Barn Shoes…Make That Barn Clothes

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Barn shoes

When I thought about writing this post, I was planning on discussing the fact that every horse owner who does their own horse management duties is quickly going to learn they need an old pair of shoes for working in the barn. That, of course, is true, though I might add that if you don’t already have a pair of barn shoes, worry not as the barn will claim the first pair you wear. This past Saturday, Mikki, the Kid and I spent time catching up on chores since it was warm and sunny outside. By the end of the evening, we were sore and our clothes were pretty dirty. If you haven’t already done so, plan on setting aside a pair of old shoes, some old T-shirts and yucky jeans. Heck, we’re thinking about buying some overalls, too, since, you know, we live out in the country and all. Dogs will run through the mud and then jump up on you, your horse will take a drink and then slobber buckets of dirty water on your clean shirt, a glob of fresh horsey poo will surely drop off the manure scoop onto your hat (get a hat!) as you’re cleaning a stall and even more glamorous things you’ve never thought of will happen, so trust me on this one. Your barn shoes will be subjected to corrosive ammonia and stinky mud, some of which may never come off. You should also consider investing in a decent pair of mucking boots. On those rainy days, your feet will stay drier and you’ll thank me when that large pile you haven’t cleaned up yet doesn’t ooze onto your socks. Some people opt for steel-toed shoes or boots but I’m not planning on cleaning Valentine’s stall when he’s in there so I’m going to skip those.

Spring Arrives in TN; Flies Rejoice

Spring Arrives in TN; Flies Rejoice

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It has been so nice in East Tennessee this past week. Think 70’s during the day with a few light sprinkles. A week ago today it was SNOWING, for goodness sakes. The forecast for the foreseeable future, according to the local Dopplercast 9005 Weather Watch Storm Center (I made that up), is 70’s during the day and possibly even 80. Yeah! Mikki and I enjoyed Valentine this past week, as well as just being outside in general. As I walked across the yard in slow motion (just like the movies) with some springtime song playing in the background, I noticed the dogwoods in bloom (I don’t know what they are really but let’s call them dogwoods because that sounds nice), pretty purple flowers, bees buzzing about, wasps wasping…around me…get it off, get it off, GET IT OFF!

Flies on Valentine

Just today, this very day (well actually since it’s after midnight, technically yesterday now) Mikki and I noticed a ton of flies bothering our expensive investment large family pet. We knew the flies would come. The flypaper hanging from every beam in the barn warned us of that. Now that the little critters are hatching, it’s time to get serious about a fly control strategy. Up for consideration: better manure control, evil fly-eating but horse-friendly parasites, fly strips (hung outside the barn since they are an attractant), on-feed fly larvae killer (such as Solitude IGR from Pfizer, containing cyromazine) and a solar fly trap (not sure what that is yet). Poor thing (the horse, that is) is being pestered something fierce and it’s only going to get worse. We’ll try a few of these “fly control” systems out and report back what’s working and what’s not working.

Oh, by the way, today is Parenthesis Day (in case you didn’t know). Okay, I made that up too but I did use parentheses 8 times in this post (in case anyone is counting). Oops, 9 times now.

I no longer associate ammonia with cleanliness

I no longer associate ammonia with cleanliness

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I’ve heard scent is the strongest trigger for memories. Mikki’s been under the weather the past few days so I’ve been cleaning Valentine’s stall. These past few weeks a childhood memory flashes to my mind every time I enter his stall. I don’t know why but I keep thinking of my mom cleaning our house when I was a child. She must have been cleaning glass or something because I don’t think ammonia is used very often in cleaning these days. Apparently equine urine contains a lot (cough cough) of ammonia. As I was laying down some straw to soak up the horse urine I realized I can no longer associate the smell of ammonia vapor with something being clean. Just the opposite!

I’ve read that ammonia vapor is one of the reason you need to be diligent about cleaning your horse stall at least every day, especially if your horse sleeps there. Your horse will lay down in the stall to sleep. If you don’t clean up the urine regularly, he/she breathes the ammonia gas and that can be harmful or in some cases even fatal.

Incidentally, dry straw doesn’t soak up urine very well. I’ve heard about some kind of fluffy wood pellet thingies you can use to soak it up better than straw and I’m thinking we should start experimenting. More on that later.

Bill takes over horse duties for the day

Bill takes over horse duties for the day

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Mikki is sick today and it’s cold and wet outside here in East Tennessee. So today I’ll be handling horse duties. All bundled up, I went out to let Valentine out of his stall. I would have preferred to open the barn gate to let him out that way but it’s muddy by the gate so I decided to halter him to let him out by our yard gate. Now Mikki does this every day, something about it being better for training your horse about your leadership role, despite the fact that the barn gate would be far faster and easier. I don’t have a lot of experience with the halter since I usually opt for the lazy, quick way – through the barn gate. So today I grab the halter and spend the next 10 minutes trying to figure out how to get this stupid thing on Valentine’s face. I was amazed how patient he was even though I bent his ears a couple of times. I lead him out to the pasture and slowly remove the halter and this is when he became impatient and shook it off. That was followed by a push by his nose…head…the long thing at the end of his neck. “Hey!” I’m not afraid of him and I won’t let him push me around without responding but it’s pretty clear to me that we need to spend some time on this leadership role thing. But he’s a fine horse and we’re happy to have him.

On a technical note about the website, I’ll changed the login requirement so you don’t have to register and login to post comments. I personally hate having to login everywhere to make a little comment. We’ll see how this goes. Hopefully we won’t be inundated with spam. If you see spam in the comments, we’ll remove it when we notice it.

Also, we’ll be changing some of the links around a little and probably adding a discussion forum soon for better online discussions. Someday you might see a few tasteful ads around here. We’ll keep them relative to the topic at hand. We’re billed for the web space and all so we’re going to try to recoup some of that expense.