Thursday, February 7, 2008

Oh, and Silky

Last weekend through Tuesday, we had some lovely unseasonable weather. It was really humid and in the 70s for a few days, but we all knew it couldn't last. Tuesday a very big cold front came in. We got hella thunderstorms and quite a few tornadoes, and after the cold front rolled it the temperature dropped almost 30 degrees.

Anyway, I dithered about the pros and cons of putting the horses up vs. keeping them out, and the threats of golf ball sized hail plus the sure knowledge that it was going to pour down rain convinced me to put them up for the night. I gave everybody a big pile of hay but no grain, because I didn't want to tempt fate and have one of them colic.

Wednesday when I went out, I grained everybody in their stalls then made a point to take each one out and groom each individually. Brushed and wormed Champ, brushed and wormed and trimmed Poppy's bridle path, brushed and wormed and clipped Quinn's goat-hair* and trimmed her toes. Then I got Silky out and I was shocked.

*She looked like a goat with all that shaggy hair under her face. I didn't take off her whiskers, but I got curious about what her face looked like, so I trimmed the goaty part. She's got a pretty head!


Silky hadn't eaten all of her hay, which was unusual. Her hair was laying flat from getting wet the day before, and she looked like a walking bag of bones. She was very subdued and quiet. I was afraid to worm her. I was kind of afraid she'd die overnight - I had a friend count heads and make sure there were three dark horses in my field this morning.

Well, she didn't die overnight, and she looked a little perkier this afternoon. This is really hard. Now I understand what people say when they say it's hard to keep weight on an old horse. I can barely get her back to a decent-looking weight before she loses 50 lbs overnight again. At least she doesn't seem unhappy - tired sometimes, and quiet, but she seems content. Sigh.

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