Life With Archie: midlife with horse

Horse (Poop)

Archy poops--a lot. When he first came his excuse was: new to stalls, new to rings, victim of  that caged in, 'bread'n butter, bread 'n butter' feeling after a few months on the distant plains. Four months later it has become his signature mark.  Archie fails to look even mildly embarrassed when he leaves a pile (or piles) as we circumnavigate the ring in trot, or walk down a country lane. He has developed a favorite under -saddle  dumping spot on the lawn in front of the neighbor's swimming pool.  He has thoughtfully taken substantial amounts of high quality fertilizer directly to farmers' fields we ride through, and his stall requires constant attention. In the morning, it is a disgrace. 

Every day's ride means a retracing of our steps as I scoop and skip each of Archie's artful leavings from the ring, the lawn and the barn. Of late he has taken to raising his tail suggestively when he is being tacked up in the barn aisle. I run for the skip bucket and he lowers his tail. I go back to the business of attending to his visage, the tail goes back up and--splat.  What is the meaning of all this equine defecation? Apparently it means one of two things. 

1. This is just Archie's (annoying) way
2. He has issues

As I am completely responsible for his well being and desire nothing more than his being well, the matter needs looking into.  Archie has  been temporarily immunized against rain rot, flu, and a host of other expensive potential illnesses, including rabies, an equine encephalitis, and ingrown toenails. Here's how many immunizations I have had this year: none.

  Step number 1--Count the Worms.  We wormed him when he first arrived (five days of a really foul tasting paste--don't ask me how I know that-- that gets squirted on Archie's tongue) and wormed him again three weeks ago (he was a 2 out of 3 on the worm-to  horse infestation scale).  The nice people at the vet's office had a hearty guffaw when I brought an entire bag for examination, rather than a wee spoonful. Archie, I told them, is a very generous horse. He has not gained enough weight, the prevalence of  mushy green, smelly poop increases, and three dogs (including ours) allegedly get ill from eating it. I feel the pain of people who have to clean up after dogs with intestinal complaints, but really, I can hardly be held responsible for the strange (and rather revolting) diet of dogs.  

Step number 2--look to holistic support. Horses are vegans and can't eat yogurt (we all know yogurt is good for everything) so I serve Archie an expensive daily portion of  keep- in -a -cool,-dark- place probiotics with his beetroot, which he slurps up. Archie is enormously in favor of big portions of everything, and manages a convincingly mournful look that has me and the army of little girls at Heather's bringing him armloads of hay which is almost immediately turned into--poop. The pasture he is in during the day, now requires daily cleaning.

Step number 3--back to the vets with a small baggyful (dumb the first time, fool the second) and it comes back 1 on the poop scale of 1-3 which apparently means we are aiming for 0.  Given Archie's suspected Failure to Thrive (a condition he seems hardly aware of as long as the meals are delivered on time),  the vet prescribes Daily Wormer called C2X (sounds like a skateboard) which is available at Farmers' Supply for $58. He will re-evaluate him in a month's time. I look at the Before and After ads for C2X--Archie looks like Before (the rain rot spots don't help). I look forward to After, which, in the pictures, shows super shiny ponies with plump quarters and sleek coats, blue rosettes on their bridles, and happy riders with nice hair. I pledge to send Archie's now and then pix in to our friends at Pfizer if their miracle cure comes through.  

 I have no idea what Step 4 is, should we still be looking green in a month's time, other than having his Tarot cards read. I cruised the shelves at Farmer's Supply, nearly bought an antidote for sandeaters (I saw Archie try to eat a toxic  MAPLE leaf ) and lugged home a  huge pasture block of super mineral salt block which might take care of any selenium, copper, magnesium, iodine, molasses,phosphrous, calcium. cobalt, zinc,manganese, potassium, magnesium, iron, flouine, sulphur, or sodium mineral deficiencies he might have. 

I had a lick, not bad.

      

Big Horse-small child

Archie isn't really that big, at 15.1 hands high (4 inches to the "hand") he is--average. I am, at 5' 3", possibly a bit less than average, but we seem to suit each other. I can reach his back to curry and blanket,  reach his head to bridle and could, if desperate enough, climb on board from flat ground, if the stirrup leathers and Archie's mane were long enough. At this point, they're not.

I wear my stirrup leathers (I ride "long") at hole number two from the bottom, a fact I thought incredible and amazing-my legs had finally grown as I had known they always would, even if it had taken 40 years--until I realized I had purchased "junior" leathers--or leathers for short people.

My granddaughter Aquinnah, 4, although tall for her age, is...still short. When she rides Archie, I have to double wrap the leathers and still buckle them in on the top hole. My fancy easy -on- the- knees stirrups are too big for her small feet but she doesn't mind. In fact, she quite likes being on top of the world and orders Archie around very much the same way she does her little brother. When she gives Arch a small thump with her heels to get him moving on, her boots (much like my crop) land on his saddle blanket rather than his sensitive sides, but Archie moves on anyway.

He stretches his nose to her when she stands before him, buckles his brushing boots, or curries his belly with her small- hands pink curry comb. He reaches gently down to politely accept a few peppermint pony treats from her carefully flat, pony feeding palm. I remind her not to offer her fingers as snack. We both lead Archie from his field to the barn or barn to the field, I hold the leadline closest to Archie's nose, and Quinnah holds the "bight" of leftover line. She proudly marches with huge pony steps to keep up with this gentle animal who is nearly three times her size. 

Last week when Quinnah was riding Arch, she demanded I lead over the flat caveletti and then asked when she would be jumping the fences in the far field.

Tomorrow?

Pony DeJa Vu

Life With Archie: Mid Life With Horse

 Welcome to my world--which seems to be shaken up a little. I  have acquired a horse. Again. There was the (great)big grey horse (Hobbs) who outstayed his welcome by walking through fences and eating the house-- and the home. In a stunningly deft bait and switch, grey Hobbs moved out and red Archie moved in. Archie clattered into the barn, selected the  biggest corner stall-with-a-view, decorated it with pictures of his favorite rock bands and hung out a shingle, "The Dude Is In." 

Despite our generational age difference, the therapeutic  benefit of having a ready made combo stairmaster, tread mill, free weights and Pilates all rolled into a furry creature who doesn't yak your ear off and works for hay, is hard to beat.

I don't need a horse, we don't need a horse, we really can't afford a horse, there's not enough time between work, life, kids, their kids, and all the stuff we do when we don't have a horse-- but I am on Cloud Nine. 

This is all about me--and recovering that delight and connivance that is horse and girl. We are going to ride bareback through the fields, I will whisper my deepest secrets in his soft, furry ear and I will cater to his every whim. We will be Velvet and Pie.  My grown  children are NOT going to understand--but their children will.

Now if I can just make sense of the directions in that owner's manual...   (Note-this story begins...HERE)

BlogCatalog

Meeting Mom

Archie arrived as an orphan of the storm, a mysterious Kansas cow pony who knew little about cows, and less about how to catch them. He seemed obliging but mystified by neck reining, ground tying and western saddles, but then, so am I.

What Archie did have--were his American Quarter Horse Papers, which are akin to our birth certificates. It shows who his dam and sire are, and three generations back, but not what hospital he was born in. Knowing nothing about quarter horses, but mindful of the Connecticut Cowboy's boasting about Archie's genetic heritage, I used a google search for his sire and found his sister, a supercilious looking barrel -racing palomino who was for sale for $15,000. She kind of looked like him around the ankles.

Finding his human mother was a little more challenging. I googled his breeder's name (a Louisville basketball coach came up) and sent a daring e-mail to his school account, which was forwarded to the farm he'd sold Archie to when he was a weanling, and bingo--Elise, who'd raised him from a baby, e-mailed me back. I love the internet.

Archie (or "Snip")grew up on Elise's Louisville farm with two stable mates who found new homes when they were three, and grown, but Archie stayed. And stayed. He became a family pet who preferred humans to horses. Elise waited until he was three to ride him as he was growing fast, and only managed to squeeze in a couple of "backings" before he was four, when he went to auction at the Stockyards.

So how did he get to Kansas? By auction and by truck with a bunch of other midwestern hopefuls, but apparently Kansas did not take to Archie,  nor, given his dramatic loss of weight and general state of neglect, did he.  Arch was sold again (at a Kansas auction) to Connecticut and The Cowboy-- who sold him to me for what Elise and I figured out, was profit,profit, profit. Elise, who raised him, fed him, nursed him through a terrible disease called  Strangles, had him wormed and vaccinated and taught him how to lead and have his feet cleaned and brush his teeth, and trained him to run around the Pirelli ring (his report card said 'good at games') of course, saw none of that. The horse business is not, apparently, one for those with an appetite for financial security.

Elise and I have been exchanging  photos and e-mails (that's Archie aged 3 right side of palomino) as we have agreed to an open adoption, and I have promised that I will keep her informed about Archie/Snip's progress and she will let me know how his brother, still back at the farm, is doing. She remembers Arch as one of the sweetest horses she has ever known. Me too.

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Archie's Pop

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Stallion Record

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Toms Investment

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2469720; 1986; Palomino; Height: 15.2; N/A; (The Invester x My Elegant Lady);

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