Life With Archie: midlife with horse

Horse Makes Divots

  We had a nor-easter last night and it rained. A lot. Archie spends his days in Pasture Six, a lovely long field with good grazing--which gets muddy in rain. There are clear farm expectations that the field will remain grass and not succumb to mud. When it rains (a  lot) Arch has to stay inside to avoid churning up the turf with his Archie-sized hooves.

The rain stopped pretty much by mid morning, so Archie went out.  I wasn't sure, given the ground saturation, if it was okay for him to go out, but he insisted that out was where he wanted to be and that he planned only to hang out and sun bathe. Some days there are two horses in the field next to him, one wears a bell, and they parallel graze across electric fences. Some days Archie is all alone. He's good at alone, but  far prefers friends.

When I returned to the barn later in the day, and headed out back for a wheelbarrow, I gazed down for a glimpse of  grazing Archie.  The wind had risen and the sky darkened with threatening clouds. A gleam of red, raised tail fanning his muddy legs which propelled him circle after circle, Archie galloped fueled by some demonic force.  I looked and listened to try to see what he saw: barking dogs, cheers from the high school two fields over, passing geese, a leaf blowing across the field? I watched as he tore around twice more, waiting for him to calm--but he didn't. Calling ,"Yo Archie! Woah!"from my clever vantage point up the hill near the muck pile, he slowed, looked up as he always does, but not for long. Off again, he churned up grass divots the size of old fashioned LP record discs, alternated with long, grass shearing mud slides as he braked at the pasture boundaries.

Trudging down to rescue both horse and pasture, Archie trotted up to me, head alert, sniffing wind; high on ionic change. Still  dancing at the end of his lead rope, he suggested a quick green grass fix on the nice lawns between pasture and barn. His barefoot hooves sank into the sodden turf, leaving  island-like dents which created a whole network of tributaries and ponds. 

Arch pawed in cross ties until he had his pre-ride Maalox -laced snack  and then settled
down while I sorted the good from the bad in his stall bedding. By the time he was girthed and bridled, he was more himself but his contribution to a lively ride was seriously compromised by the exhausting 20 furlongs he'd indulged in an hour previously. Yawning and claiming hunger, he called it quits early and walked himself back to the crossties to be dis-robed,brushed down and blanketed against the cold air blowing in with the back end of the gusty storm. Impatiently ushered into his stall, he fell into a face- full of  hay, followed by an agressively consumed chaser of  grain.

While Archie munched, I went down to survey the pasture damage. Not good, it looked like a herd of large pigs had partied heartily, inviting guests from the elephant and rhinoceros clans as well as a 14 year old with his first 4x4.   We were in Big Trouble. Nothing shows up brown mud as clearly green grass.  Humps and bumps of scored pasture looked like a battlefield of horse poop. Disaster. Solution? Iron out the divots.  Available tools? Feet.

An hour later, I had literally followed in Archie's thousand footsteps, pulling, coaxing, stamping turf back into holes created by  churning quarterhorse feet. The long slides were out of my control and remained mud, albeit flattened mud. My jodphur boots squelched  muddy water through my toes.  The wind raged as the nor-easter chased itself out of town; gray skies, a shudder or two of rain and wild trees shedding autumn leaves at rapid rates. The sun sank. By the time the pasture had stopped screaming train wreck, I was late for everthing else, and my feet were un-pleasantly un-warm.  The pasture looked a little more peaceful. Would we get away with it?

So I covered the evidence. Would I have done so for one for our boys when they were teenagers? Car dents remained to be ironed out by the perpetrators, and  racing around the house and punching holes in the wall,  no matter how elequently explained away ("I punched the wall instead of my brother--you mean you'd rather I punched my brother instead of the wall ?") resulted in Loss of Privileges.  Does this mean I have subjugated my moral standards for my horse which may eventually come to No Good? Quite, quite possibly.  So it goes.

Horse Gets Stuck

 

Archie and I moved stables at the start of September due to Heather's burgeoning school pony herd,  and he is now berthed at a curiously combo classy co- op barn. Co-op is all the rage out here--it means you rent the facility, you supply the food and bedding and do the daily upkeep for your horse.  Our barn,very wisely offers breakfast and turn out as part of rough board so that no one is hollering for a nosh when everyone else is chowing down.

The transition wasn't easy for Arch. Even though he was moving only a mile from his old 'hood, and never seemed overly fond of his paddock mates, he was rattled by his new surroundings. New stall (Arch was turned out all summer), new mates (the big morgan down the aisle lunged out and  bared his teeth whenever we passed his stall), new paddock and no familiar territory, Archie was not brave. He is five, has been  auctioned once in Kentucky, been  to Kansas, auctioned again, came back from Kansas very, very hungry, and spent who knows how long at the Cowboy's before he whickered at me.  If change was under Archie's control it would consist only of more meals. Two months on, with two squares, grazing and summer hay, he seems to be reconciled to the change and his new equine family.

13 year old Katie's Appaloosa Sugar is Archie' s next door neighbor in the barn  and despite their shared  and somewhat competitive enthusiasm for food, Archie lets  peaceful  Sugar play alpha mare. I'm not sure Sugar needs him, but he needs Sugar. So, we said a delighted yes when Katie's father Charlie  generously offered us a ride in his rescued trailer to the  organized hilltown trail ride. Charlie's pickup is a shiny half ton and  the circa 1982 trailer has been painstakingly restored, much like an old wooden  boat, with solid planks underfoot and excellent tires. Small and dated compared to the huge vessels other barn dwellers park at the yard, it goes and so did Archie. Led after Sugar and before an apple, he hesitated for a nanosecond, loaded right into a stuff- your -face haybag opp, and off we went. Up into the hills, past old homesteads, farms and new swamps, we came to the  meeting  site, backed out Sugar and expectantly waited for Archie to do the same. He didn't.

There are horse whisperers who speak horse talk. Archie does not require a whisperer as he is usually unashamed to be heard by the whole neighborhood.  In this case he said, "What are you nuts?Me step into a black void? I am SO not getting off this trailer." Kindly people came to our aid. Here is what they offered as tried and true cures to unstick horses:

1. Pressure the horse to back (I think that means pushing steadily in his sternum) and when he takes a step release. Rationale--the horse is yielding to pressure and encouraged to comply when it is released.
2. Dangle a bucket of grain under his tummy and make him bend his head down impossibly far to get it so that he has to Step Back. Rationale--he will take a greedy step too far and fall out.
3. Pull his tail. Rationale--beats me?
4. Wait--Rationale--Got another idea? 

After a combination of  Good Ideas 1-3 and many helpful hands, Archie clomped out.  We saddled up and mosied off to a great day out which included fording a busy river (twice) and stopping with the group for a meadowy lunch where I realized I'd forgotten a halter and leadrope so ate my sandwich with Archie (he is fond of 8 grain bread and salt and vinegar chips) looking enviously at the ponies who ground tied.

Several sunny hours later we trotted back to the parking lot and reloaded, heading downhill to dinner. Horse dinner. Archie had not had any water (he turned his nose up 
at the idea of drinking it while it rushed past him in the river) and snorted no at the  bucket that was not His Bucket. When we got back to the farm Sugar happily backed out and went off for a lovely massage and warm meal. Archie (neck u- turned back in his trailer stall) and I looked longingly at her. Charlie waited patiently for Archie to follow suit. He was still waiting 40 minutes later when I suggested he drop the trailer and pick it up tomorrow when surely Archie would have disembarked?

Archie insisted he was not getting off. I sat thinking positively that he would; shaking a bucket of grain every now and again, hopping on and doing pressure which was supposed to yield movement and release and sitting glumly wondering what else to do in between takes. I tried pulling his tail but we both thought that seemed dumb.  Finally I just sat on the hood of the car  playing with my iphone and figured Archie would eventually figure it out on his own.  He kept craning his head around to look at me, and his part of the conversation was  an effronted, "Get me out, you idiot."

After an hour  or a year or a decade or so had passed and people had done evening stables, they amused themselves by driving by and calling out, "Want us to bring you dinner?" "Need a flashlight?" "Want a lift?" Ha Ha. Two strong men stepped up and "exerted pressure" on Archie's chest .  Archie counter-exerted.  As far as he was concerned there was a 100 foot cliff  and shark infested waters right behind him.  Someone  suggested making a pile of shavings behind the trailer. Someone else said that given Archie was going nowhere any time soon, I had plenty of time to  build him a ramp. All good ideas if Arch would just take one teeny tiny step backwards...

Eventually no-nonsense Annabel who runs the stable and has the kind of confidence Archie and I wish we had,  drifted over and within two  head straightening, treat soothing minutes, magicked Archie out. He was fairly dramatic about his exit, waving a foot in the air over the six inch chasm, but once released, pranced to his stall and was extremely put- out to discover that  while I was twiddling my thumbs awaiting his exit, I was not simultaneously cleaning his stall and preparing a tasty evening meal. He stood snorting his annoyance in cross ties until all was in readiness.

So what did we learn? Well, Charlie is a good friend. He doesn't ride but escorts his daughter and her pony where they would like to be. He also shares pasture poop cleaning duty with me which we do even -steven, even though we both know that Archie's share of droppings is twice that of Sugar's. My guess is though, that he won't be offering us any trailer rides in the near future.

We also learned that even though a super smart Quarter Horse can tie his shoelaces and drive a golf cart, he can be terrified of stepping down sight unseen backwards. It goes against all his smart common sense and even though it's all about trust, there are very few people in the world we might trust to lead us down a cliff backwards. What I learned is that should I ever come into the 'I can afford a truck and trailer' horse owning class, I will think wisely about ramps. Ramps make sense, although I believe they cost about a million dollars more than no ramp.

Addendum: two weeks later, Archie found himself once more incarcerated in a trailer, yielded to Patty, our local horse whisperer's pressure on his shoulder and her 'being in his moment' and stepped back.  Here's how much of the ride we missed: nada.  When we got back to the barn after a lovely day out, he thought about the cliff theory for a moment, gave an impressive sigh, and stepped off. He has lived to tell the tale. With any luck we'll be asked out again.