C.S. Wilson's Blog, page 15

Horse Master with Julie Goodnight 2015 (Cast member)

This July, as I do every July, I loaded up and headed to southern Colorado to work on my friend Julie Goodnight's RFD-tv show, Horse Master with Julie Goodnight. I first met Julie when I was a cast member seven years ago (2008) with Estes. Since then, I've gone back to work as a crew member every year.

Lord knows I can use some help with Skeeter, so I applied to be a cast member this year and do double duty. The stars lined up and I was able to work it out with Mom and Bill to haul Skeeter to Julie's and back since I was going to be working.

Skeets has tons of holes in her training, but the one thing she does well is trailer loading. When they brought Ranger down to babysit, they left the trailer, so we did a quick practice run with it. She loaded into the unfamiliar trailer like a champ, which assured me there wouldn't be a problem getting her to Julie's.

I headed to Julie's on Sunday, and Skeeter was scheduled to arrive Tuesday evening. I tried not to fret too much, but as it got later and later in the day, I started to worry. Mom and Bill drove in about 8:30, just before full dark.

"Mom? Is that you?"
Skeets unloaded from the trailer like a pro. I was a little worried that she'd want to bolt off of it after being locked in for five hours or so. I needn't have worried.

It was after she was off the trailer that things got exciting. She circled and circled, trying to take it all in. So many different things and so many different smells. I let her circle until I got dizzy and then stopped her nonsense. Walking her from the trailer to her run was like taking a kid to their first day of kindergarten - she was both excited and unsure. We stopped and soaked it all in a couple of times, but before I knew it, she was loose in her temporary home.

So many smells to check out.It was getting to be past my bedtime, so I patted her on the nose, told her I loved her and headed "home" for the night. Mom and Bill stayed at Julie's in their horse trailer, so I slept soundly knowing that if anything went wrong, they'd be there.

We had two episodes to finish up the next morning before it was Skeeter's turn, so all she got was a run-by "I love you" as I headed to the arena to work. Bill and Mom did a good job of keeping her company and getting her all pretty-fied.

Bill says, "no autographs!"One of the best things about Julie's place is the hitch rail. Since we don't have one at home, us two-leggeds were looking forward to giving Skeeter some quality time at the patience post. She did pretty well, though she tried to dig her way to China (we filled it in, Julie, I swear!).


When we finished the two episodes, I ran up to the house to get myself dolled up for the camera and thus began the process of hurry-up-and-wait.


As ready as I'm going to get - or so I thought. I got the star treatment from Cheryl, who decided to re-do my braid so it wasn't so loose.It takes time to move all of the cameras and crew to get set up in a new location, which is why the hurry-up-and-wait thing. I understand it and was thankful to have a bit of time to decompress and switch gears from crew member to cast member. Finally, the cameras were set up at the round pen and we were ready to go.


She stood so nicely outside the pen.
Getting my mic turned on. They probably should have left it off.We had a plan: I would go in the round pen and do some of our usual groundwork to show off what we've learned and how far we'd come (including sitting on her bareback and in a saddle), then Julie would come in and we'd talk a little bit before Dale Myler would work with Skeeter. That was our plan.

What actually happened: Skeeter lost her mind. Her brains fell out her butt. Everything we'd learned and practiced went right to hell in a handbasket. We managed to do a bit of circling and leading. We tried standing and taking deep breaths to calm down. We walked around some more and circled a bit more, but Skeeter was having none of it. I finally got to the point where I felt like, "well, this is the horse we've got, so let's get going" and had them bring in the mounting block.

Bill might end up on camera, since he came in to help out.She wouldn't calm down enough for me to mount up, so we just worked on laying weight across her back from both sides. I was willing to climb on up, but Julie decided to err on the side of caution. She asked what I thought of really working her in the round pen. Initially, I was afraid to amp her up even more and lose what little control over her I had, but when Julie offered to do the round penning I couldn't resist. I mean, Julie Goodnight working my horse? It was an offer I couldn't refuse.

We removed Skeeter's halter and turned her loose in the pen with Julie. I perched on a hay bale on the other side of the pen so I could see and still be on camera. It was amazing to watch.

At first, Skeeter did her level best to ignore Julie. She did what was asked, when enough pressure was applied, but made it very clear that she wasn't happy about it. In fact, she very clearly told Julie to eff off more than once. Slowly, very slowly, she began to regain her brain and focus on Julie. It was a pleasure to watch and I'm fairly certain Julie was having a good time with my challenging mare. After about fifteen-twenty minutes, Skeeter came around enough that we could move on with the episode.

Or so we thought.

Skeeter is good about getting haltered. If she balks at it, she takes fewer than ten steps before she's "caught" and then stands quietly for haltering.

My horse. My stupid, wild mustang, decided that she didn't want haltered and took both Bill and Julie dirt skiing. I heard her husband, Rich, telling her not to get hurt and all I could think of was if Julie got hurt it would be my fault. After a few minutes, they were able to get the halter on the fire-breathing dragon as I watched, absolutely horrified. Skeeter's first haltering wasn't nearly that crazy and I have video to prove it.

I should have just gone back in the round pen to halter her, but there's this whole thing about having to stay clean for the episode and Bill has haltered Skeeter almost as often as I have, so I didn't expect it to be a thing.

I don't have any pictures of the round pen work or what happened during the teaching segment of the episode, because cameras aren't allowed while taping the actual episode. All of the pictures we have were taken between shots, but I know the finished product is going to be amazing.

Dale quietly slipped a bit into her mouth and adjusted it, then taught me how to "work over the withers" with her to teach her to give to the bit.

We put her in a 3-ring combo for the episode, which seems to be the favored bit on the show. After talking to Dale, I understand why. The 3-ring combo has five points of contact: the nose, curb chain, poll, tongue, and bars. It's designed so that the horse first feels nose pressure and then the other points of contact back up the nose pressure.

In "real life", though, I'm going to start her in a Myler 04 snaffle to get her used to carrying it around in her mouth. She'll get to do her ground work and circling work while wearing a bridle for the next couple of weeks until she's ready to move into the 3-ring combo.

I brought home two bits: the Myler 04 snaffle and the Myler 04 3-ring combo. Both will be excellent bits for her. I also brought home a new set of Julie's rope reins and her bitting system. When Skeeter is comfortable carrying the bit in her mouth, I'll add the bitting system to the equation to help her learn to carry herself properly. The beauty of the system is that it's not dependent on my ability to time the release on time - the release is completely controlled by Skeeter's movement.

The 04 snaffle with pretty rope reins
It's not a "pinchy" snaffle like most are.
The 04 3-ring combo
When it was time for Mom and Bill to pack up to leave, Skeeter was over the trailer and didn't want to get in. I'll admit, I had them resort to a bit of bribery to unstick her feet. It occurred to me that while I thought the whirlwind 24 hours she was at Julie's with me was fun, for her it was a lot of work and learning. It couldn't have been easy to get trailered 5 hours each way for her first trip, and then get left alone in a pen with strange horses next to her over night, and then get tied to a patience post for hours (not exaggerating, she probably spent two to three hours standing tied), and then get worked in the round pen, followed by having to get a metal bar put in her mouth and learn about that. It was a lot of work for her busy little brain to process, but it was good for her (and me).

I'm so thankful to Julie and Dale for their help and patience with Skeeter. I'm also very thankful for the support of the rest of the crew that I've been lucky enough to work with for years: Heidi, Sharon, Cheryl, Lucy, Twyla, Mel, and Steve. It was fun to get to have my friends (and Mom and Bill) with me through the whole process.

If anyone has the opportunity to apply to be a cast member for Julie's show, jump on it! It's an experience you won't forget.

Horse Garden

While planting our garden, I decided to plant some carrots for the horses.  The carrots are doing lousy, by the way, but my carrot idea grew.  You see, I was telling my friend that I must be more horse crazy than I thought because I'd just planted food in my garden for my horses.  Specifically for my horses.  Yep, I'm definitely losing it.

But then I read an article that lettuce is okay for horse to have, too!  I'd already planted lettuce for me, but it wasn't going to be enough to share with the horses, so my brain made another big jump and said, "well, why don't you just plant a garden for the horses, in their pen, that they can graze on?"  And then the other half of my brain said, "That's a GREAT idea!".

So I dialed up Deejo, who provided me with the pallet collars for the human garden and told him I needed more because I was going to plant a garden for the horses.  Luckily, having the Bionic Cowgirl for a mother has rendered him immune to crazy horse ideas.  He didn't even sigh very heavily when I told him what I needed the collars for.

He turned up at the house with the most amazing planting boxes.  I thought the pallet collars were cool, but these were even better!


I didn't have nearly enough left over soil, so I headed to Home Depot to get more.  I picked up some sand for drainage and more soil and as I was standing there at the checkout line, there was a bag of grow anywhere grass seed!  In an instant, my whole plan changed from a lettuce bed to boxes of grass!  If I could get grass established, I wouldn't have to replant every year!  Trust me, I was feeling really brilliant at this point.

A couple of weekends ago, Jay and I had time to work on house projects and I was determined to get the horse garden in.  He set to work on making picnic benches and I started the garden.

I drilled random holes in the bottom for drainage (and only broke two drill bits)
Then I put down weed barrier to keep the sand from falling out.It went pretty smoothly for the most part.  I got the boxes prepped and then had Jay help me lift them over the fence into the pen so I could start filling them.

Random sand for drainage
Then soil and grass seedI knew that the horses, Skeeter especially, wouldn't leave it alone, so I bought some chicken netting.  I really wanted the 1cm x 1 cm wire mesh, but couldn't find it anywhere at Home Depot - I was stuck with the chicken netting.

I used a million staples to attach the netting and chased the horses away from their garden two million times.

You can see how well chasing them away worked.
They finally lost interest in the garden and I breathed a sigh of relief.  But it was short-lived.  The next morning, I found they'd "helped" me by removing the netting.

No more chicken netting They very helpfully rearranged the dirt as wellI smoothed out the dirt, watered it, yelled at the horses, and then laughed at all of us.  They were having so much fun digging in their garden with their noses, I couldn't actually be mad at them for very long.  Skeeter had dirt up her nose and Copper had it in his hooves.  They were very happy with the sandbox I made for them to play in.

Each day for a week, I went out with the rake and smoothed out the soil.  I even watered it a couple of times, because I was still determined to get a damn garden for them.  Just as I was about to fall asleep one night, I thought to use my Google-fu to find the wire mesh I wanted.  Google assured me that Home Depot sold just what I was looking for, but I had been looking for it in the wrong department.

The next free day we had, Jay and I went to spend our Jax gift certificates at the farm and ranch store.  While we were there, Jay looked at me and said, "this is a farm store, I bet they have what you're looking for!"  By jove, he was right!

I was a happy, happy girl.

Last Saturday, while Jay was at work, my sister Nebalee came over to help me with the horse garden.  I could have done it alone, but it's more fun with help.  The horses had pushed a lot of the soil out of the boxes, so I picked up a couple more bags of soil and another bag of grass seed and we started again.

Apparently, Mr. Nebalee doesn't allow her to play with the power tools.



I was surprised to find that despite all of the horses' play time with the dirt, the seeds had sprouted!  There were tons of roots growing in the rearranged mounds of soil.  That grow anywhere stuff, really is grow anywhere!

It's not quite been a week since we put the wire mesh over the top, and we've had to add another piece of wood to help anchor the mesh, but the garden is still intact and (here's the best part!) grass is growing!!!!

Real grass!
That you can see and everything!

It's Official! Skeeter's Mine!

Back in April, I received my title application.  I set up an appointment with a BLM volunteer (who I met at Mustang Days at the Rocky Mountain Horse Expo) to come inspect Skeeter and sign off on her paperwork.

Unfortunately, when the scheduled day arrived, the BLM volunteer was deathly sick, so we rescheduled.  The day of the inspection was cold and nasty; it had been raining for days and the temps hadn't been much above 40*.  The pen was a muddy, mucky mess and it wasn't terribly safe for a two-legged to go into it.  Feeding time was an exercise in core strength and balance just to make it the four feet from the gate to the hay storage.

Luckily, the volunteer said I didn't need to pull Skeeter, she just needed to take a look at her, make sure she was being well-cared for and ask a couple of questions.  It was very much like the home visit in January, only I had my title resting on this visit.

Skeeter came when called, allowed us to pet her all over through the fence then wandered off to eat.  Easy-peasy.  The volunteer signed the paperwork and I mailed it off on May 22, about one year and two weeks after I got Skeets.


A couple of weeks later, June 5, I was crazy excited to get an envelope from the BLM, but when I opened it, it was the "unofficial" title with a letter my title would be arriving soon.  Basically, Skeeter was "unofficially" officially mine.


The unofficial copy was beautiful.  Printed in color on cardstock and delivered in a full-sized envelope with a letter of congratulations.  I couldn't wait until the official-official title came.  Which it did, nine days later, printed on cheap paper, folded up and crammed into a traditional envelope.  I was disappointed that the official title was much less impressive than the unofficial one, but it really doesn't matter, because it's going to get framed with her tag and go up on the wall.


And once I get it up on the wall, I'm going to do the happy dance every time I see it, because Miss Skeeter Bang is MINE!

Copper, Copper, Copper

This morning we were woken up by a banging that we've never heard before.  I rolled out of bed to look out the window and saw Copper with his front leg in the rubber trough banging it around.  I climbed back in bed, looked at Jay and said, "this time it's your horse".  Usually it's Skeeter who is the trouble-maker, but Copper does have an odd sense of humor sometimes.  We eventually got out of bed and fed, but Copper was off his feed a bit.  He'd take a few bites, then go lay down and stretch out. 

After a few moments, he'd get back up, paw the ground, eat a few bites, lay down and stretch out.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  I wasn't entirely sure he was colicking, but I knew he wasn't feeling well.  He had good gut sounds and wasn't kicking at his belly or even trying to roll, but he just wasn't right.

Just to be on the safe side, I wanted to give him some banamine, but couldn't find any.  What I thought was banamine was bute, so I called my neighbor to see if she had any.  Luckily, she did and was willing to give me some.

Copper was pretty good about letting me shoot it in his mouth and started feeling better pretty quickly, so I thought that if it was colic, we'd caught it pretty early. I headed into town to do some errands, and about half an hour before I was about to head home I got a text from L.E. saying that Copper was laying down, but she got him back up and moving.  That's when I decided it was time to consider a vet.

I called Mom, who called her (our) vet while I was driving home.  Because the ultimate plan is to have the horses up the hill, I hadn't gotten around to finding a new one.  Our vet doesn't practice this far north, so he gave me the name of the vet he'd done his internship with, so I called that vet when I got home.  Unfortunately, the second vet was unavailable, but was willing to refer me to a third vet.

Copper didn't look horrible when I got home, but he didn't look great either and I was wavering on whether or not to have a vet come out.  I watched him for a bit and when he started wanting to roll and kick, I decided to bite the bullet and call the third vet.

And the third vet referred me to a fourth vet, because he was off to another emergency, but told me that if the fourth vet couldn't make it out, he'd be willing to come by.  Holy cow, I was getting dizzy with the run-around.  The fourth vet was out of town, so back to the third vet.  He told me to start walking Copper and he'd be over as soon as he was done with his office emergency.

Of course, the minute I start walking Copper, he started looking better.  Jerk.  It did give us some bonding time, I suppose.  I don't handle him often, other than a few minutes here and there, so walking laps around the pen was good for both of us. 

The vet wasn't exactly thrilled when he found out Copper was a mustang and (mostly) joking said that if he'd known that he wouldn't have taken the call.  You know, a mustang is just a horse.  Each horse has a different personality; some are angels, some are assholes.  Lucky for the vet, it was the angel, not the asshole, was the one who wasn't feeling well.

I wasn't sure how he'd do with being handled by someone he'd never met before, and I didn't know how he'd react to all the "stuff" that goes along with colic treatment.  He was unbelievably good.  It took some time to get the tube down his throat, but he was never mean or panicky, he just didn't get it.  Eventually, he figured out to swallow instead of cough and down the tube went.  After an initial step back or two, he stood still and let the vet pump in the water and mineral oil.  He breathed a sign of relief when the vet took the tube out, but was still pretty calm.  He took both IV injections like a pro, with just a flick of the ear. 

It came time for the palpation exam and Copper said, "no thank you".  He was polite about it, but he said nope and meant it.  The vet said that he could feel some feces, but was certain that Copper would be passing it soon.  Because the vet was so uncomfortable being on the south end of Copper, and was still convinced that Copper was going to kick the tar out of him*, I didn't have him push the issue.  I told him that if he felt he didn't need to palpate, then it was no big deal to skip that part of the exam.

I couldn't be more proud of how Copper did with a stranger poking and prodding him.  He was so amazing, like a dead broke horse.  And then it was time to go back into the pen.  That was one giant NOPE.  It took us longer to convince him to go back in the pen than the whole of his treatment.  Jerk.

Jay and I just got back in from checking on him and he's looking a lot better.  He was never as sick as Estes, but I'm fairly certain I am suffering from colic PTSD thanks to her.  It's such a fine line with colic - can it be treated without the vet and resolve, or is the horse going to go south quickly?  Ugh.  I hate it.  I'm sure I made the right decision in calling the vet out and having him treat Copper, but it was a tough decision to make since he wasn't nearly as sick as Estes - there were no clear-cut signs of colic.

I don't work tomorrow, so I'll get to stay home and keep an eye on him to make sure he's out of the woods for real.

*I did tell the vet that Copper has never offered a kick; he's an evader, not a kicker.  If he doesn't want to do something, he'll just go away.  Sometimes going away involves rearing and spinning, but I was ready for that.

It's Been A Year!

I can't believe it's been a year since Skeets came home. My heart just stopped when the trailer door opened and there she stood.  It was for real - she was really mine and we were really going to start this journey.

Surveying her new kingdom.


From the minute she picked me out in the pens she was a cheater mustang.  In the pens, she allowed me to touch her all over, including her legs and belly.  I went into this partnership confident that I could handle whatever she threw at me.  She proved herself to be fairly level-headed even on the first day home when she finally calmed down enough to approach me to say, "hi, I remember you".

I love this picture :)She even allowed me to take her tag off that day.  I know that she was busy taking everything in, and not totally focused on what I was doing, but she knew I wasn't going to hurt her and allowed me into her space long enough to cut it off. (I didn't even know until just a couple of months ago that you could un-thread the tags to get them off - I didn't look at them very carefully.)


The scratches after the tag was off felt pretty good.It hasn't always been smooth sailing, but it's been a lot easier than some people have with their wild ones.  We've had our big issues, but I can count them on one hand and still have fingers left over.

About a week after she was moved out of her gentling pen, she tried to pick up my camp chair and when I scolded her, she wheeled around and kicked out at me with both barrels.  It was a warning, and she had no intention of connecting, but it shook my confidence for a while.  She learned very quickly that she had to "face up" whenever I go into her pen.  We've not had an incidence since.

A few months later, just when I was starting to trust her again, she pawed at me while I was closing the gate and scraped the back of my calf.  I got after her pretty hard, and didn't turn my back on her for a very long time.  She wasn't being malicious in any way when she pawed at me; she wanted me to hurry up and she paws when she gets impatient.

And just two weeks ago, the bitch bit me (and Bill).  We got after her pretty hard, but I do have to take some responsibility for it because I'd let her manners go by the wayside.  Familiarity breeds complacency.  I got complacent and it bit me in the ass.  Okay, she bit me in the shin, not the ass, but you know what I mean.  We went back to groundwork and respecting space and you can believe that she'll not be allowed to turn her head toward anyone again.

Even with those three issues, we've had it pretty easy.  Easy enough that I probably should be full-on riding her, but I'm not really in a huge hurry.  Yes, I want to be on her riding, but I'm enjoying the easy pace we've got going.

I really wanted to get a pretty, one year "Gotcha" pictures.  Instead, thanks to Mother Nature and this very wet storm system, this is the one year picture I got:

The Adoption Process

I got a question on our Facebook page about the process and I thought I'd write about it here.  It can be confusing to navigate, but it's doable (obviously, since both Jay and I have done it).  I only have experience adopting from Canon City, so I have zero information about adopting from other facilities or through internet adoption (IA).

The adoption process begins with the application that you fax into the BLM office.  The application asks about the facility, trailer, food, and water.  There's nothing on the application about horse experience, which I found a bit disconcerting.

There are three options when you adopt: unhandled ($125), halter trained ($300-400), or saddle trained ($1,025).  Jay and I decided to go with unhandled, as we wanted the experience of "doing it ourselves".  If we didn't have Mom and Bill to help, I doubt we would have gone that way.

The requirements differ based on what type of horse you choose to adopt.  Unhandled horses must be in a 20'x20' pen (minimum) with a six-foot fence, while halter and saddle trained can be in any standard pen/fence.  The unhandled horse is required to stay within the six-foot fence until they are gentled (a term I never heard in the domestic horse circles).  A gentled mustang is one who can be easily caught and haltered, and leads.  It can take days, weeks, or months to take a wild mustang to a gentle one.

The only exposure to adoptions I'd had were through watching the Extreme Mustang Makeovers, so I assumed we'd have to bid at auction for horses.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  We got to go into the pens, interact with the horses and get chosen.  There wasn't any bidding, once a horse claimed its person,  it was no longer available.

Jay and I both ended up with "cheater" mustangs - they were easy to get our hands on right off the bat, for which we are very thankful.  We had our horses out of the gentling pen in under three weeks.

If you pick up your horse the day of the adoption, there are regulations about the type of trailer you can use (stock trailer with a divider), but since we chose the delivery option, we didn't have to worry about the trailer. At the time, Canon City offered free delivery of horses within 150 miles of the facility.  However, they're undergoing some staff changes and the future of free delivery is uncertain. 

Once you have possession of the horse, you're really just "fostering" it for one year.  It remains property of the US Government until it is titled.  During the course of the year you're fostering, you're subject to in-person or phone inspections.  I was worried about the inspection, because I didn't know what to expect.  Turns out it is pretty easy.  They come out to check the facility and the horse, ask a bunch of questions about how training is coming, what you're feeding, and if there have been any issues.  Skeeter had an in-person inspection in January, while Copper had a phone inspection just a few days later.  The inspections are randomly assigned, so it is possible for one adopter to never have an inspection, while another is chosen.

At about eleven months, you receive a title application to fill out and return to the BLM.  A vet, farrier, or BLM-approved inspector must fill out part of the title application, certifying that the horse has been properly cared for. I don't believe there is a training requirement for the title inspection, but it can't hurt that she's halter-broke and just barely beginning under saddle.  If there are any training requirements, I would think it would be the bare minimum, as some people adopt these horses as pasture pets.  I think they just have to be gentled enough to get vet care if they are sick or injured.

This is the point Skeeter and I are right now.  I've got my title inspection scheduled for Thursday at 9:00 am.  After the inspector signs off of the paperwork, I will mail it in to the BLM and they will choose to either assign a title to me (Skeeter will be mine!), suggest remedial care, or repossess the animal.

I'm not as nervous about this inspection since I went through one in January.  If I hadn't had an in-person inspection, I'd be fretting a lot more, but I don't think this will be that much different. The only thing I'm concerned (slightly) about is that I haven't had Skeeter's feet done.  They're a good length and she doesn't have any lameness issues, but they've not had a pedicure to pretty them up.

Scary Trucks

Chances of the horses running across radio controlled vehicles while out on the trail are pretty darn low.  However, both of my brothers and their wives race RC trucks, so I saw an opportunity to start desensitizing the horses to them.  We live in paradise (just my opinion, but I love it here) and one of the things Jay and I want to do is host get-togethers frequently this summer.  With a few acres to play on, we can easily run the RC trucks, play with dirt bikes or three-wheelers, throw knives, or shoot the crossbow.

Jay and I have shot the crossbow outside of the horses' pen before and they don't care.  They didn't care much about the knife throwing either, but the RC trucks caused a bit of a ruckus.




At one point, a truck made its way into the pen (things happen when you allow a six year-old to drive), but as soon as the truck came to a stop both horses went up to sniff it.  Monster, my youngest, managed to snatch it from the jaws of death just before Skeeter started pawing it.  Thank God for quick reflexes and the ability to climb fence like The Flash, because I don't think I could afford to replace one if Skeeter had rolled it around trying to figure it out.  Those trucks are made to withstand a certain amount of abuse, but I don't think 900# of abuse would be good for them.

We still have to get the three-wheeler up and running, along with the dirt bike, but so far, summer desensitizing seems to be going well.

Hay net update: the horses have slowed down on their hay intake, to only a bale a day.  They're still killing the bale overnight, but not *starving* to death in the morning.  Looks like Mom's not going to get our net.

Slow Feeder, My Ass!

If you haven't been following the hay net exploits on our Facebook page, let me enlighten you here.

Mom has had great success with her hay net.  Us?  Not so much.

We started on Sunday and all looked good.  We started with a full bale, which should have lasted them 24 hours according to our regular feed schedule.  We were feeding 1/2 a bale in the morning, and 1/2 a bale in the evening.



 Since they were supposed to be eating from a "slow" feeder, I was confident that there would be a bit left over on Monday morning.

Ha!

Ten hours after we put out the first bagged bale it was empty.  And I do mean empty!

It was so empty that I had to walk the pen to look for it.
I made Skeeter carry it to hay storage for me.I filled it up for a second time that day, all the while cussing at them.  Certainly they couldn't kill TWO bales in 24 hours, right?

I was wrong.  At feeding time on Monday, we had to again walk the pen to find the empty net.  We filled it for the THIRD time and anchored it to a cinder block so we could easily find it when the pigs emptied it.  By this time, I was also cussing my mom for talking me into this cockamamie idea.

Bale #3 - we're going to go broke at this rate.Not only was I cussing about it's lack of powers as a slow feeder, I was cussing at the increase in hay waste.  I mean, our horses are Hoovers - they clean up after themselves, there is very rarely a single snuffle of hay left ever.

After work on Monday, the hay bag wasn't empty-empty, but it was close.  Almost three bales in 36 hours.  We put out another bale and thought, surely they have to be slowing down.

Wait Dad!  Don't take it, there's still some in there!Bale #4 went out and we were optimistic.  They had to be getting full, right?  Right?   Jay and I went into town for the late showing of Furious 7 and when we got home after midnight those fools were still standing there eating.  Jay may or may not have told them that they were going to pop like zits if they kept it up.

Tuesday morning there was still most of the bale left.  Success!

64 hours and almost four bales to get to their "full" point.  In fact, when I looked out the window on Tuesday morning Copper was sprawled out on the ground looking like me after Thanksgiving dinner.  If he had pants on, he would have unzipped them to find more room.

They grudgingly ate breakfast when we took it out to them, but their hearts weren't really in it.

Finally!  We were getting somewhere.

Tuesday night (last night), we got home and the horses were starving.  Like, pacing and pawing the fence (Skeeter!) starving.  In went bale #5 (heavy sigh).

This morning, there was about half of bale #5 left.  Instead of letting it run out, I just added another bale to it and sent up a quick prayer that they wouldn't kill it in one day.

I swore I'd give this hay bag thing a solid week, and I will, but damn it's getting expensive pretty quickly.  If I get home from work tonight and that damn bag is empty I might lose it.  (Which Mom would like, because I told her if this bag didn't work out, she could have it.)

I Caved

Mom has been raving about her cinch net ever since she got it.  I mean three blog posts on it in four days?  Yeah, she's happy with the product.

I couldn't call her without her raving about the damn net, so I finally caved and bought one.  The horses have had it all of three hours and are still working on it.




We tried tying it to the fence, but decided that wasn't such a good idea.  Mom ties hers into her feeder, but we don't have a sturdy structure to tie into.  Hopefully this summer, we'll get a hitching post put up and then we'll see if we can tie into that.

After horse sitting for our neighbors last week and using their Nibble Nets, I can honestly say the cinch net is much, much easier and faster to use.  In fact, it was so easy that Jay and I are playing with the idea of picking up a second net so we can rotate.  It will come in very hand on mornings when we're both running late and have to be in early - we can just throw the pre-filled bag into the pen and pick up the old one.

Adventures in Horse Ownership

Hay.

The horses need it and we were getting low, so we did a quick CraigsList search and found some small bales reasonably priced at $6.00/bale.  We figured that 100 bales would get us through to the first cutting this year, plus that's all we could afford.

Jay had to work the only day that the sellers were available, so I had to call in reinforcements.  Well, reinforcement.  Okay, I called Beel.  Jay's truck's transmission isn't so hot and I didn't want to risk taking it, so I asked Beel to bring his truck down and I borrowed a flatbed trailer from a friend of mine.

I maybe should have known that all was not going to go smoothly when Bill called from the interstate and told me he was still a half hour out.  No big deal, I texted the sellers and told them that we were running a bit late.

When Bill got to the house and we tried to hook up the trailer, it didn't like Jay's ball hitch, so we switched to Bill's and finally got it to work with some cussing and persuader tools.  An hour later than we anticipated, we were off!

Now, both Bill and I have a nasty cold, so we're not working to our fullest potential and we hoped that the sellers would be able to help us load.  Turns out, it was mostly just Beel and me to load.  The seller was kind enough to back the truck and trailer down his driveway, around the house, and into the barn where the hay was (Thank God, or we'd still be there trying to negotiate his driveway).

The trailer is a big, good sized one, so we thought we could get all 100 bales onto it.  About three-quarters of the way through loading the trailer, we realized there was no way we could do it.  Stacking the bales four high was as high as we were willing to go.  We decided to move twenty bales off the trailer and onto the truck.  At this point, the seller's wife came to help us, so we could form a hay brigade.  (The seller has a wrist injury and can't lift bales).  I stood on the tongue of the trailer and took the bales Bill handed down to me, then handed them off to the seller's wife, who was kind enough to stack them on the truck.

An hour after we started loading the first bale, we put the last bale on the trailer and started to strap them down.  Only, we could only find three of the five straps that Bill usually keeps in the truck.  We needed all three straps for the trailer and didn't have any for the truck, so Bill figured a way to tie down the bales on the truck with baling twine (amazing stuff, isn't it?) and off we went.

I started firing off texts to my sibs and kids letting them know that we were running late and if they still were going to come help us unload and stack, it would be closer to six.  We were now two hours behind schedule.

A few miles down the highway, Bill decided he didn't like the feel of the trailer and pulled over to check it.  We used a step-down hitch to hook up the bumper-pull trailer.  Mom and Bill have a goose-neck trailer, so the step-down hitch doesn't often get used.  When we pulled over to look at the trailer, we noticed that the weight of the trailer had torqued the step-down.  Not a little bit, either.  A lot a bit.

I started calling my sibs and kids again, trying to find out who was already at my house and who could bring Jay's truck to me, bad transmission be damned.  Just as I was talking Digger into bringing me the truck, Bill said he thought we could make it if we moved more hay off of the trailer and onto the truck, so I told Digger to standby and we started handling they hay for the third time, this time on the side of the road.  Since we didn't have an extra set of hands, I pulled the bales from the trailer and lowered them to the ground, where Bill picked them up and stacked them on the truck.  Thankfully, he's tall.

Remember, I said earlier that we didn't have straps for the bales on the truck?  I wasn't entirely sure how on earth we were going to secure the bales we moved from the trailer to the truck, but Bill dug around in the truck and found three little straps - not the heavy-duty ones, but straps nonetheless.  Hallelujah!

He was reasonably sure that we could make it back to my house as long as we took it slow and easy, so I called Digger back and told him not to come get us yet.  We'd see how far we could make it.

We limped on back home, about two and a half hours behind schedule, but we made it.  My kids were already there (and had been for a couple of hours).  I was exhausted and over the whole thing, but the bales still needed to be moved from the truck and trailer to the hay shed.

I'd decided to put the horses in Estes' old pen so we could just open the fence and drive the trailer in.  Bless our horses, they were amazing.  Copper hasn't wanted to be caught and haltered for the past couple of weeks, so Jay's been working on it.  I think that over the winter, Copper just decided life was pretty good without being caught.  I was ready to have to move him and really work to get him haltered.  Bill got Skeeter caught in under a minute while I headed for Copper.  Copper backed away for about twenty steps before deciding that if his sister was caught, he might as well be too.  Took less than two minutes to catch and halter Copper.  Whew.  Finally, something about the day went right!

They walked nicely over to Estes' pen, where we turned them loose to graze.  There were no complaints from them about that!


I don't usually like leaving halters on them when they are unattended, but I thought that if they got the notion to jump the four-foot fence at least we had a chance of catching them if they were haltered.

I took the horses' behavior as a sign that things were finally going right with this damn hay moving day.  Digger and Ashinator's boyfriend started helping unload and stack and I was so happy.  Not five minutes after we started, my youngest brother showed up with his family to help and I was overjoyed!  It took no time at all to get it all done. 


Before we knew it, it was time to move the horses back from Estes' pen, and not a moment too soon, because the sun was setting fast!

Digger and CopperAshinator had manned the grill and had dinner ready for us by the time we were finished.  She might not have done any of the heavy lifting, but she definitely played an important role in hay moving day.  I was famished.

The hay adventure started on a bad foot, but ended with food, drinks, and laughter with some of my favorite people.

Not a bad day at all.