Sunny days!

I am so happy that Spring days are finally upon us. We've had terrific weather for a whole week! Sunshine with temps over 5C. The crew is doing fine. They are now out and about with the horses and Nabisco. I am pleased to say, that everyone is putting up with the other. The cows aren't impressed by Peg and Pearl, even though those two tend to run right through the cow herd. Pisses me off!!!!! But what can you do. For now, they will have to make with what they have!

We went for a ride on Friday (I had off from work!) with Dandy and Peg, my SO and I. Dandy went good, even with her blind eye... I'm saying that because I am now noticing it, she was probably the same way last year. She did good. Peg is always splendid when it comes to riding. Her only flaw, she hates water puddles, streams, lakes, rivers... anyway, you get it! Nothing else is even likely to spook her. So she did fine on our ride, even putting her hooves in small water puddles!!! On the negative side... she came up lame after our ride. I hate this, I get really angry and blame myself for her pain. She was limping a little bit, not too much, but it is still noticeable and it bugs the heck out of me. In the meantime, one of our cows (one that is in-calf) has sprained her rear left pastern... we found her limping accross the field too. She probably ran from a horse and slid on the ice that's... EVERYWHERE! I hate Spring!

So I will be looking into buying horseshoes for Peg and Pearl. I am not looking at conventional metal shoes, but polyurethane shoes. They allow the hoof to flex, are durable and can be installed in the same way a regular metal shoe can. After much reading and studying the process of putting shoes on, I think I could do it myself. If I don't feel confident comes the time to nail them, I will just get a farrier to do it... with my close supervision. I know farriers, and they have a bad rep with me. Most of the ones around my area do a quick, not necessarily good job just to get paid and go trash another horse hoof for an unsuspecting owner that puts all their belief in them. Honnestly, I'd rather do it myself. I'll be taking their measurements this weekend and probably ordering as soon as possible. On the other hand, Dandy's feet are just awesome! She walked on pavement and gravel the whole time and never flinched. On Sunday, I took her out again to lope around the yard and she did great. She can lope on gravel without blinking an eye, she used to live almost exclusively on gravel and is used to running full out on it. I will not push her that much on gravel while riding. Oh yeah, Dandy has now stopped coughing entirely. She had been coughing pretty much all winter, got treated and still coughed occasionally. I've taken her out twice at WTC gallop and she did fine, not even a sign of coughing! I was very pleased!

On another happy note, we've started to see signs of a coming calving in Nabisco. We expect the calf to be born in a week or so. I will, of course, provide a gazillion photos of the newborn when he is born. So stay tuned!