R.I.P. Sad Elvis

R.I.P. Sad Elvis

Comments 8 comments

Sad Elvis

One of the many posts I’ve been meaning to submit these past few days is one I was going to call “Our new dog Sad Elvis”. Elvis had been hanging around our house for some time now, the unwanted dog of a neighbor who refused to restrain him. He was a hound mix with full size features on short little legs. He got along with all of our dogs and cats and although he occasionally would bark at our horses, he did it infrequently and at a distance. This poor dog was skinny but we didn’t want to keep him from going home for meals. Eventually, though, we took pity on him and began feeding him. Most days he had been laying by our front door in the morning, shivering. So eventually we opened our horse trailer and put a blanket in there for him. Last week we decided to bathe him and take him to the vet for a checkup. And since his owner wasn’t taking care of him, we decided we’d try to find him a new owner. The owner had been looking for a new home for Elvis so this wasn’t out of line. We kind of wanted to keep him but we have four dogs already. He was “ours” in the sense that we were the only ones taking care of him.

Since he was now clean and since the weather grew even colder, we invited him into the house. He was a good inside dog and mostly laid around the house all day. Then on the coldest night of the season so far, we let him out before bed so he could go to the bathroom and we never saw him alive again. The next morning we discovered he had been hit by a car on a road not far from our house. Mikki pulled him off of the road and I angrily drove around looking for his owner (we had only spoken with him on the phone and he no longer took our calls). We finally found the owner and demanded he take care of Elvis’ body, which he did.

So Sunday was very sad for us. Even though he wasn’t our dog, he had become a fixture around our little farm and we’re going to miss him.

BTW, we called him Sad Elvis because hounds look sad and because of the popular Elvis song “You ain’t nothing but a hound dog”. It seemed to fit.

We need a new barn radio

We need a new barn radio

Comments 1 comment

Old Barn RadioNo matter what kind of music you listen to, if you spend time in the barn you probably play a radio there. We have an old CD player radio with a broken CD door (nothing duct tape and an old horse shoe couldn’t fix) which worked great until a week or so ago. For some reason the CD player won’t play anymore. It might have something to do with the half inch of fur/dirt and hay pile up in the corners of the CD tray or the fact that its floor location means it gets accidentally kicked a lot. Either way, it’s dead and we need a new barn radio.

So here are the three options I have, as I see them:

1) Cheap radio – I could simply purchase a cheap new radio from Walmart and I might even be able to find one that can play MP3’s. I hate changing CD’s in the barn anyway and I can put 150 songs on an MP3 CD. Heck, I could even go low tech and tape around the edges of the CD door to keep the dust out. I might even be able to find one with an auxiliary input jack for an MP3 player. For less than $39 I’d probably have a radio that would last another two or three years.
Barn Radio Idea - Walmart
$37 on clearance at Walmart

2) Resistant car radio – I could build a box to mount a car radio so I could use a boating water/dust front cover. I actually have a car radio that would work that plays MP3 CD’s and has an auxiliary input jack for use with an iPod or something. I would have to buy speakers but this would give me some speaker flexibility. For instance, I could mount maybe four speakers around the barn. I’m not always in the tack room and I hate turning the radio to full volume just to hear it while cleaning stalls. But car radios are twelve volts to work in cars. I could use a car battery and wire a solar charger to it. This option is fun but I have a feeling it would end up costing me $100 or more and take several days to setup and perfect. But it would be neat and would probably last a long time.
Barn Radio Idea - Car Stereo
3) Durable jobsite radio – What I’m referring to here is one of those contractor radios that home builders use on job sites. I’ve seen them at Home Depot and Lowes. They’re dirt, water and impact resistant. But they’re also $200-$300. But some of them work on battery power and it would be nice for camping and other projects. But that’s a lot of money.

Barn Radio Idea - Jobsite
Bosch PB10-CD available at Amazon right now for $140

So what do you use for a barn radio? Any suggestions?

Horseback Apple Picking

Horseback Apple Picking

Comments 7 comments

One of my favorite things to do in the fall is to pick apples. Growing up, my family and I picked apples at an orchard and then made applesauce, pies, apple brown bettys and more. With limited success, I’ve been trying to make that continue that tradition but frankly there aren’t many orchards in east Tennessee for some reason. So one of our plans is to plant apple trees in the pasture. The horses will love it and once the trees grow tall enough we’ll actually be able to keep some of those apples for the humans here on the farm.

Now if I had 100 acres, I think I’d have a big orchard. And how awesome would it be to pick those apples on horseback? If I ever get that chance, I will make sure a camera is at the ready. I can see it now…one for me, two for you, one for me, two for you (where you is whatever horse is under saddle :-)).

By the way, our horses LOVE apples. We’ve fed them enough that I wouldn’t be surprised to see some apples trees growing somewhere in the pasture. The big downside to feeding apples to horses, though, is that afterward your gloves smell yummy. Too yummy, if you know what I mean.

Cash’s List of Woes

Cash’s List of Woes

Comments 1 comment

Our horse CashPoor Cash. He’s been with us since June, but we honestly don’t think he wants to be here. We were concerned when he came here on a visit and escaped, but chalked it up to his being in a new place with new horses. Since then, though, he just acts like he’d rather be somewhere else. First of all, he’s broken down the fence more than once; he’s gotten out again (but thankfully didn’t take off that time); he tried to escape between the truck and the barn when we were bringing the chipper/shredder into the pasture; and he is still afraid of the other horses. And if his general unhappiness in the pasture weren’t enough, he is apparently allergic to something out there too.

One day the week before last, Cash had a swollen eye when he came in for his grain. I mean, BIG. (Not the eyeball, but both eyelids.) So we called the vet out, and she stained it to check for scratches. There was a questionable spot, but for the most part it looked OK other than the swelling, so she gave him a couple of eye ointments and some bute. We decided he most likely had gotten some dirt in his eye while he was rolling – his favorite thing in the world. The eye was 100% better by the next day. We continued the eye ointment for a few days and everything was fine.

Then last Wednesday he had two swollen eyes. He looked like a prizefighter who’d gone a few too many rounds. So we called the vet out again (thank goodness I work for the vet!) and she sedated him again, stained both eyes this time, and found no scratches again. His eyes were all goopy too, so she thinks it’s probably an allergy. This time he got more eye ointment and antihistamines. But within an hour after she left, we checked on him to discover that all four legs were swollen from the knees/fetlocks down (or “stocked up,” in horse-speak). She sent another medication home with my friend Shari (who also works at the vet – I was off that day) for the swelling. This time it took a couple of days for the eyes to clear up. The legs went down by the next day.

We’re all pretty sure that the eye symptoms are caused by an allergy, but we’re stumped as to what it could be. The only new thing we’ve introduced recently is bermuda grass hay, but we started feeding it a couple of weeks before his first episode. Also, why was it only one eye the first time? We think it might just be something in bloom out in the pasture, but isolating that would be nearly impossible. We are eventually going to mow down everything out there and plant grass, so hopefully that will take care of it if a pasture allergen is the problem. In the meantime, we just watch his eyes very carefully and keep antihistamines and eye ointment on hand.

The poor guy. If we didn’t like him so darn much, we’d think about finding him a home were he might be happier.

Horses Are Our Life

Horses Are Our Life

Comments 10 comments

I know you’ve heard it before: “X is my life,” or “He eats, breathes and sleeps X.” Well, I’m hear to tell you that horses have actually become our life. Occasionally, work or sleep or some other mundane thing intrudes, but generally everything we do in some way relates to the fact that we have horses.

This weekend, for instance, we drove all the way to Knoxville (about an hour) to rent a chipper/shredder at Home Depot on Saturday. We spent about six hours collecting fallen trees and branches in the pasture and sending them through that terrifying, but oddly satisfying, maw of wood death. Then on Sunday, we drove the hour back to Knoxville (missing church, btw) to return the behemoth within our 24-hour rental period. We are both so sore we can hardly move and have stuffy noses from the dust, and our bank account is $150 lighter (not counting the gas to drive up there and back twice) – but about 27 tons of deadfall is now nice neat mulch. Of course we want our pasture to look nice, and that’s probably why most people would spend their Saturday clearing it out, but frankly, we could have left all that stuff indefinitely. That’s a lot of hard work, and the “natural” look is best for a pasture, don’t you think? But our horses walk through the woods out there all the time, and we’ve been concerned for their safety for months now. So once again, we devoted a weekend to horse maintenance. Last weekend…well, I don’t actually remember last weekend, but past weekends have included putting up hay, fixing fences, fixing barn stalls, clearing weeds in the pasture, driving to the city to get horse supplies – oh, and actual riding, once in a while. Our weekends coming up will include installing a new outlet to plug in the stock tank de-icer, building out the unfinished stall for Romeo, fixing up the old barn for hay storage, installing an electric fence…and that’s just what has to be done before winter.

I wish we had known ahead of time how time-consuming horse ownership really is. On second thought, maybe it was better not to know.

“Found: Large Animal, Hooves, Mane, Long Tail…”

“Found: Large Animal, Hooves, Mane, Long Tail…”

Comments 0 Comment
Not the horses mentioned. Photo by Hunter Folsom on Unsplash

Funny title, not a funny subject. We recently received the following note here at Our First Horse:

“My sister lives in Cumberland City and recently found four horses left on her property. She is not familiar with the horses and does not recognize them as any of her neighbors’ horses. They appear to be in relatively good health with a few minor wounds and they haven’t been groomed in a long time. No one has come to look for them they have been there for four days now.”

The writer was looking for information on how to find the owner or legally keep the horses. I’m not really sure about either one but the situation brings up a timely subject: how horses are faring these days, with the current economic climate and the ban on slaughter. I have to say, things are not looking good.

In addition to the above letter, I personally know of two cases locally of abandoned horses. The first one is that of a neighbor of the vet clinic where I work. A woman called to ask us to post a notice on our board – like the writer above’s sister, she had found a horse on her property and had been unable to identify an owner. The consensus around our office, staff and visitor alike, was that the owner intentionally “lost” the horse. The second case supports that theory. One of our clients, who has cattle but not horses, brought a horse trailer to a stock auction to haul equipment home. He was inside for a while and when he came back out to his trailer, he found two horses inside with a note saying something along the lines of, “I can’t feed my horses – please take care of them.” They were thin, but otherwise in good condition. So sad.

I’m sure there are many more stories like this, here and everywhere else. I know Bill has written before about the horses being abandoned in the Arizona desert. It seems to us that things will get worse before they get better. We are blessed here in East Tennessee with a good hay crop this summer, so we’ve been able to get hay this year for decent prices. Others are not so lucky. Also, while hay was cheap and plentiful for us, everything else is going way up. We are literally paying twice as much for oats as we were a year ago. We’re fortunate to be able to absorb the extra costs, so far, but we know that there are a lot of people out there who can’t do so, at least not for long. We’re concerned about what will happen to those horses.

Just another reason to hope that things will get better very soon.

A Plethora of Horses…and Not Enough Time

A Plethora of Horses…and Not Enough Time

Comments 9 comments

Our HerdWe have been SO busy here the last few weeks. We’ve been traveling, on business and pleasure; the Kid is back in school; Bill and I have both been busy with work; and countless chores (e.g., fence and barn repair – thanks, Cash!) are eating up our time.

On top of that, for about 2 months, I’ve been having problems with my right foot. It has been sore on the ball of my foot right where it rests in the stirrup. I finally went to a podiatrist and she diagnosed it as a Morton’s neuroma. I’ve had 2 shots of cortisone and it’s improved a bit, but it’s still sore enough to make riding unpleasant. So the result of all these things together is that we have four horses in the pasture that are not being ridden. And the weather is getting cooler…it’s the perfect time to ride, ever so briefly, and there’s not a thing we can do about it. 🙁 So frustrating!

So that’s where we’ve been. What’s up with you all? I’m sure you’re spending your cooler fall days and trail rides, or at the last of the horse shows of the season, getting all kinds of riding in before it gets too cold. We’re so jealous.

Cash Knows Karate!

Cash Knows Karate!

Comments 1 comment

When the weather’s nice, our horses are only in the barn for about 15 minutes a day, when we feed them grain. We let them into their stalls, they have their grain, then they go on out again. A few days ago, we were watching Cash finish up, marveling at how very dirty he is. The reason he’s so dirty is that he likes to roll, and as we were standing there watching, he did that very thing. He knelt down just like a camel, rolled on to his back, wiggled back a forth a couple of times, then kicked out his back feet to flip back over…knocking the stall door off its hinges in the process. It was really quite impressive – he didn’t kick very hard at all, but those hinges didn’t stand a chance. So we got some longer bolts, which hopefully will fare better.

I’ll tell you, whenever wood splinters around this place – and it happens too darn often – Cash is almost always behind it. Troublemaker.

Rain! And here we go again.

Rain! And here we go again.

Comments 3 comments

That’s the good news. The bad news is that one of our frisky horses broke through the fence…AGAIN. This is the third time this has happened at this spot and the second time the break resulted in an escaped horse. Apparently, horses can’t read signs. Not an exit…NOT AN EXIT! Fortunately, I work from home and my office is close enough to this section of fence for me to have heard a loud noise. I went to investigate and found Cash eating grass in our backyard. The other horses were chasing each other nowhere near the fence. It’s cooler today and raining and it seems to have made them frisky. Our backyard has some yummy grass so it was hard to incent Cash into leaving it. Oats did the trick, along with a lead rope but given our last escapee incident with Cash, I expected him to bolt at any second.

This time Cash broke through a double fence board. I image he must have kicked it because he has no marks on him. That section of fence is a little low so perhaps it was tempting to him. When we get an electric fence, we’re going to bypass this peninsula. In the meantime, I replaced the broken boards with a 2×6 and added a riser to make it seem higher. It’s not the most attractive fence section but hopefully it will do the trick until the electric fence is installed.