Equine infrastructure improvements

This one's just a little roundup of Stuff I've Had Done to make endurance easier, in a general sense.

So when we went to Sunriver, I stopped for gas (in Weed, CA, and if you think they're not capitalizing on that name, you are sorely mistaken).  I was prodding at things while I was waiting for the tank to fill, as one does, and when I shoved at the spare tire mount on the tongue it fucking broke off in my hand. Oh. Shit.

So I threw the spare on top of the rest of the shit in the truck and away we went. But throwing the spare on top of the rest of the shit is really, really irritating, so I wanted to get a new spare tire mount installed, plus I wanted some attachment points to tie a bale of hay in the horse compartment.  I asked my semi-local endurance group (Quicksilver Endurance Riders) but their recommendations, universally, were for this one dude in Morgan Hill.  That's like 60 miles of shitty traffic from where my trailer lives, so I turned to Yelp and found Barstadt & Donitch, like a half a mile away, and talked to them about it.

They did lovely work!  I got the spare tire mounted where I'd originally wanted it mounted, above the fender on the driver's side.  (Yes, that's a shitty place if I have to change a tire on the road, but mounting it on the passenger side would interfere with the hi-tie/horse care, and I hi-tie a hell of a lot more often than I change tires on the interstate.  Plus that's what US Rider is for.)

They know what they're doing.  The problem with trying to DIY it was that the perfect attachment point is between two of those metal studs, and I really wanted it attached to the studs.  They bolted horizontal metal straps down, attached at each stud, with the actual mounting rings positioned in exactly the right spot to snug the bale down as smoothly as possible.

 Works with the divider in use...

 And with the divider open.

The shitty bungee is for photo purposes only, and after I took those I went home and found a nice new racheting tie-down.  Nothing is impossible where horses are concerned, but it would be very difficult for Dixie to get a foot in that strap.  

My hay stayed put for the whole Tahoe Rim trip - with just Dixie, riding backwards, to Lucy's, then we popped Roo in the front stall and put Dixie riding forwards in the back stall.  It's out of the way for her and much, much easier for me than loading and unloading a huge Cali bale in the back of the truck.

Mel and I persuaded her brother to weld me a homemade hoof stand too.  I picked it up on the trip to TRR and OH MY GOD NO ONE TOLD ME HOW AMAZING THEY ARE.  I had become gradually confirmation-biased over the years - I knew a hoof stand would be nice to have, but a mass-produced retail hoof stand costs as much as a ride entry!  I'd done ok trimming without one, and that just proved that I didn't really need one.  I still think you don't need one but lordy mercy they're nice to have.

Anyway, T said I had to paint it so it wouldn't rust.

 Black was boring though.

 I made a bunch of stencils and did it up in my usual tasteless style.

You'll know it's me when I come through your barn

I'm gonna trim that horse in style

I'm gonna drive everybody wild

'Cause I'll have the only one there is around.

(Thanks, Johnny!)

Blink of an eye

I was making coffee this morning when I heard a tremendous crash, like a horse double-barrelling a metal gate or something. I ran out to see if it was Dixie, and she'd left her morning hay and was trotting toward the back fence very alertly. I ran far enough in the pasture to get a good view of everything and my heart about stopped. The neighbor's old skinny horse was down, awkwardly on his side, with a fucking hog panel wrapped around his legs.

I had a brief moment of panic. I couldn't remember the neighbor's names and I didn't want to take the time to get the truck, drive around the block, and bang on their door. I didn't want to leap into their pasture and spook the old fellow. After a moment, I remembered I had her cell number listed in my phone. I decided surely I'd know it when I saw it and bolted back to the house for my phone. YES! I did, in fact, remember exactly who it was when I saw it. I called and left a message and went back outside.

Armed with her name, I stood in my pasture and bellowed at the top of my lungs "D! Your horse is down in the fence!" She popped right out, half-dressed, took one look, and said "Be right there." I hustled up to my fence, turned it off, and slipped through my electric. I said reassuring nonsense to the old fellow. Thank god for old horses who know when you're trying to help. Once she came out, I stepped over her fence and met her at him.

Somehow he had slipped his rear right leg through the hog panel, up over the hock. He was laying on his left side, looking fairly panicked. D was trying to figure out how to cut the panel off, but I thought if he cooperated I could just slip it back off his leg. She stood at his head and kept him calm, and I carefully manipulated his leg and the panel and slipped it off.

I won't lie, I was terrified. If he'd freaked out and started thrashing it would've been very bad for all three of us. I don't like handling other people's horses, and I don't like trying to untrap horses, but it needed to be done. He stayed calm while I got his leg free and dragged the panel back, and he stood up promptly on all four legs.

He's limping on two legs - front left and rear right, IIRC - but he's weight bearing. I know she doesn't have the money for a vet. I gave her some Bute for him and suggested buting him for two days and if anything swells cold hosing it.

Their fencing is a disaster, and they've been really lucky so far. I have also kept horses behind disastrous fences. Never again, now that I've learned just how easy it is to pop up some hotwire. For $200 you can put up a couple rows of highly visible hottape or polywire to keep your horse off the shitty fencing you can't afford to replace. It's cheaper than a vet.

Lecture over! Look, I did brush Dixie's mane yesterday.


So much lovely fluffy hair.


I also got four tons of hay delivered.


And here is Bambers. Note how there is not a single flicker of intelligence in that eye. He is crazier than a shithouse rat, but he's my buddy anyway. :)

Hay feeder update

Here's the pictures of my slow hay feeder.


The white mesh is hockey netting. It's extremely sturdy and the holes are a good size to slow down a horse, but not frustrate it completely.


My attachment system is so ridiculously ghetto, but I can't figure out a better way to keep the hay in the net without starting over completely. Sigh. It's a piece of PVC woven through the top squares of the net, then that's clipped to to the lip of the backing with Romex.


I think the backing is a shelving unit. There were a bunch of wire mesh L-shaped things in the barn when we bought the place, and one of them ended up in my hay feeder. It looks like something from a closet organizer kit to me. But there are no sharp ends and it doesn't trap water!


The rest of the feeder is just scrapped together. The legs are 2' long - because I could cut four legs out of one 8' 4x4. There are plywood ends and some 2x4s bracing it all together. I tried various things, but ended up tying the metal shelf in place with more Romex. No sharp ends, easy to reposition if you have thumbs.


I went ahead and Romex'd the whole damn thing to that telephone post in the pasture. It's not a live wire post, it's just a very sturdy 12' post standing in the pasture. Obviously I didn't put it there, and taking it out seemed like way too much trouble. But it keeps frustrated Dixie from knocking over her hay feeder, so it can stay.

Hay, house, horse

I got a ton of grass hay delivered today. Same stuff I've been feeding, from the same farmer. I traded back four of my five bales of alfalfa mix, too - I'm saving one bale for rides, but there's just no way I'll ever feed up five bales of alfalfa in a year! Much less in three months.

The farmer was perfectly happy to take it back and gave me full credit for it. He's got a real love/hate reputation in the horse community - I've met several people who can't stand him and swear they'll never use him again, but I've had nothing but good experiences with him and his hay. There's one moldy flake about every 10 bales, which seems like a fine ratio to me.

I still had this fall's receipt laying in the barn. My hay went up $.25/bale (100 lb bales) over the winter. Seems fair - if I'd had the money to buy a full year's worth (and wanted to take up that much space in the barn) I'd have saved a little money; as it is he kept it barn-stored all winter and I paid an extra $5. (I'm pretty sure the delivery charge went up, but that's to be expected with $4/gallon gas.)

I also had a realtor/property manager come look at the house. We should be able to rent it out for a tiny profit or a tiny loss, which is ok either way. There aren't a lot of small rental horse properties in Reno, which will help. I need to finish what I'm working on and do a few things I hadn't thought of, but nothing enormous. I'm painting the Dr. Seuss room, and I've primed the trim in the cat room. I need to replace the broken double gates with some new fence, and do something about the deck above where the pool used to be - which will lead to repairing/replacing a section of very rickety fence by that corner of the deck. Right before I vacate, I'll get some carpet cleaner guys in here - they can clean the carpets, stretch the lumpy den carpet, and patch the little hole by the door in the blue bedroom. Of course I have to get the bent garage door panel replaced. And the PM said, gasp, that I should replace the closet doors in the master bedroom!

When we bought the house we were appalled at the 8' sliding mirrored closet doors. We immediately referred to them as the Porn Doors and I had those things down and out before we even moved in. (Redneck admission: they are still leaning up against the side of the house. Keep forgetting to offer them for free on CL or take them to the dump.) I know I took the tracks to the metal recycling place, so there's really no way to reinstall the Original Porn Doors. What a pity. :rolleyes: I will measure the gap and price out sliders or folders at HD and install whatever sounds easiest in a couple months.

So what do you prefer? It's a wide shallow closet, not a full walk-in or a deep narrow closet. Mirrored doors, plain doors, folding doors, no doors - what would you do? We prefer having no doors at all, but maybe that's unusual!


Horse: Dixie is fine fine fine. She is getting curious about why I'm ignoring her. I haven't told her that we're going to try the 50 at High Desert this weekend! She's mostly shed out, and I have a Ride Slow Electrolyte Heavy plan. HD has an away vet check, which might help us - the 50s ride out for 30 miles, eat lunch and vet, then ride back for 20. I think that might work better psychologically for her than riding quite far enough thank you, coming back to camp, and then being expected to leave again. I'm going to keep an eye on my lap speed on the GPS and try to stay around 5.5 average and shoot to get to the lunch check no earlier than 1 pm - there's a shorter hold at 15 miles but I'm not sure for how long.

Since it's all away from camp, Cersei gets to stay home. It would be a very very long boring day for her - she might as well be bored on the couch. M will come by and feed her and check on the rest of the critters.

I have an equine nutrition video to review, but I just haven't had time. If it's cool I'll do a giveaway. I will probably be in the perfect mood to watch it on Sunday!

I have gone back to glamorous work to fuel my extravagant lifestyle of e-rides and broken shit around the house. Yesterday I folded 432 sheets of paper in a very precise fashion. (I didn't actually count, but I was so bored that I did the math to figure it out.) Tomorrow I get to fold more paper! Then a month long paralegal temp thing which I somehow landed even though I refused to work on Friday. Look, money's nice and all, but I have priorities.

Canada, floor, etc

Too tired for pics so you must suffer with just words. (Hey, at least Mel isn't getting shorted - she can't see my blog pictures at work, so she's usually left imagining what weird shots I posted.)

Last week jme put up a slow feeder post with a link to an online vendor for hockey nets! I do not know why it didn't ever occur to me to google for hockey nets instead of just looking in the sporting goods section of every store in town, but I didn't think about it. Oh well. G ordered me a net that day, and it arrived Friday or Saturday. I took down the old makeshift hay-string net and tied the hockey net up last night. Stuffed it with three flakes of enticing hay.

Dixie did not approve. I thought this was pure foolishness, because it's a white net exactly like the old white net (except with smaller holes and it smells new) so I didn't give her breakfast. By dinnertime she had changed her tune and she and the goats had nibbled down the hay in the new net. Yay! Now, of course, the net has horse/goat snot all over it and it's not nearly as pretty looking as last night. Sigh. Oh well, snotty pictures tomorrow maybe.

I got half the hall floor nailed down today. It's awesome. More details than you ever wanted to know at the other blog.

I still have not gotten the egg cave cleaned out. Siiigh.

Banders, the crazy white-and-grey longhaired cat, has become an inside-outside cat, mainly because I do not care if he lives or dies anymore. He spent the whole of last week howling at the doors for 10 minutes of each hour, every single hour I was awake. I do not mean hyperbolic 10 minutes, I mean TEN ACTUAL MINUTES OUT OF EVERY SIXTY. He was relentless in the face of the squirt gun. He drove me to tears. I finally decided if he wanted out that bad he could go out, and if a hawk eats him good riddance, I'll get a new kitten. Now when he howls at the door I fling him outside. So far he has come back every time. He is going to live to be 20 and torment me every day, I'm quite sure of it.

The Kitten, the "helper" in most of my photos, doesn't have any desire to go outside. There are no couches outside, and there are no woodstoves, and there is nothing in her life better than laying on the couch basking in the fire's heat. This is good, because she's G's favorite cat and I have been sternly warned to not let his Kitten out under any circumstances.

Nyaaaah, it only got up to like 45 today, but it was sunny and not windy. All of yall non-west-coasters are suffering under horrible weather. Just wanted to point out how much nicer your lives would be if you'd up and move to Reno.

Hay dammit!

Dixie is trying to drive me insane. She ate half the bale of Lemmon Valley hay, but now ehhhhhh not so much. She's picking at it. I just bought a bale from the feed store across from the Bonanza (apparently THAT'S Green's, not sure what the name of the one in LV is) and tomorrow I will offer some to my princess. I predict she'll eat half a bale of it, then decide she hates it. It's like having a very large cat.

We had a lovely long ride today. Averaged 6 mph even though I kept stopping - once to pee, and twice to offer water to Cersei. Hungry Valley is such a pretty place to ride! I promise, I'll get brave and strap the camera on the saddle and take pictures next time we go out there.

We rode up the valley to the little mini airport for the RC planes. Found a cattle tank on the way - of course Dixie didn't want to drink, but Cersei was glad to see water. It's too high for her to drink out of, but I brought a gallon ziplock bag for a collapsible bowl. I hopped off, filled up the gallon bag with water, and held the bag on the ground for the dog. I think if we went all the way up the valley and did a 20 mile ride, when we hit that tank on the way back, Dixie would drink. I'm not too worried if she doesn't want to drink at 5 miles.

It took right at 7 miles before Dixie settled down and really got serious about things. She's such a fun, tough, honest horse. I judged all three of us fit to continue when we got back - Dixie was still bright-eyed and willing, Cersei wasn't exhausted, and I was ok. Well, I was really regretting wearing jeans, and my knees aren't happy, but nothing too terrible. Do they have Adequan for humans? ;)

Hay baby

So the last time I fed my own horses was in Memphis, where everybody bought local bermuda hay. If you wanted, you could buy overpriced alfalfa in the feed stores, but very few people did that. I became a pretty good judge of good bermuda vs. shitty moldy cow-hay bermuda. My horses always ate their hay cheerfully, and I never really understood yall in other parts of the country talking about your weird hay.

In Ohio, the barn owner fed pretty hay that the horses liked. Then out here, S fed half grass and half alfalfa - I didn't pay a lot of attention, but the grass hay wasn't bermuda. It was some of that mystery non-southern hay. Dixie liked the alfalfa better, but she ate the grass hay pretty fast too. When I moved Dixie to Lemmon Valley, I got to re-enter the world of hay buying.

So I went to a hay yard (Mendez, for the locals) and bought a $10 bale of mixed grass/alfalfa hay. I thought it was really pretty hay, and there wasn't much alfalfa in it at all. It was green and leafy, not dusty or moldy or full of tree branches or kudzu or blackberry canes.* Dixie kind of picked at it, but she ate it. I went back and bought two more bales... and she decided it was horrible. She nosed it around and sulked for two days - there's a really impressive pile of rejected hay in her pen.

I decided she wasn't just being picky and bought her different hay today, from the feed store in Lemmon Valley. (Greens?) I got an even bigger bale for $11.50, and it's completely different. There's like five different species of grass in it! It smells better, and most importantly - my horse is eating it!

*Actual things included in hay in Tennessee.

improvement

Cersei is way better today. She's acting like she feels about 97% well. I know dogs hide pain well, but I still think thats a good sign.

Went and hauled hay, then went to work for a couple hours, then I picked a horse and let him graze loose around the barn. I was going to let Champ out, but he refused to come out of evil horsey stubbornness. Poppy said he'd go with me. So Poppy got a halter on his head, then he got to eat grass for two hours while I sat near him with a lead rope. Champ hollered and stared EVIL DEATH RAYS at us. I laughed at him. It was 70 and sunny and lovely.

My wrist is 100% in the brace but still wants to hurt when I take it off, so I'm leaving it on like I'm supposed to.

I hate typing like kd lang so I'm going back to capitalize all the proper words.