Dog Guests Love our Farm!

Photo of our dogs and cosine Shortcake. They were exhausted after a long day of playing on the farm!

Back when we lived in Eugene and Portland, I remember being inconvenienced and annoyed by our friends wanting to bring their dogs with them to our horse for a visit. Funny how much things have changed. We now have our own dogs and an awesome dog set up. Our dogs enjoy having friends over to play.

Late Night Carrots

Sometimes events happen that remind me how important it is to live in the moment. The kind of events that make me remember that life is temporary and uncertain. This evening I learned that one of my favorite riding buddies, young, healthy horse passed away today. The horse was a super mare that carried her on many wonderful rides through mountains, down roads and through grassy meadows. This loss is shocking, unexplained and just plain unfair and unforeseen. It reminds me of just how important it is to really enjoy the things in our lives that make us happy. It is easy to get in a routine where we go through the motions of caring for people and animals in our lives without recognizing how special each moment with them is. We describe feeding our horse as a chore rather than a pleasure. There are many days where I am guilty of this lack of appreciation and awareness. This evenings events reminded me of how incredibly fortunate I have am to enjoy the company of my wonderful horse, companion, and friend for the past 16 years. It reminded me not to take him or an of my animal or human friends and family for granted. And so, late at night I went out in the rain and brushed my horse and donkey and fed them carrots. I cuddled with my dogs and reflected on just how blessed I am; right now, right here.

Horse Blankets are for the Dogs?

After weeks of freezing weather, I grew tired of not being able to leave our short coated farm dogs outside during the day. So I set out to invest in dog blankets. After discovering that they were sold out at all the local stores, I called my friend Connie at the Tack Room in Laramie, WY. She always has hard to find items in stock, and the dog blankets were no exception. Connie promptly mailed me my new dog blankets.

Yesterday was the first day our dog Cleo sported her new plaid Weatherbeeta brand dog blanket. For all you non horse people, Weatherbeeta is one of the big horse blanket company's and is the manufacturer of most of Comet's horse blankets. What ensued surprised me.

Comet took one look at Cleo and began snorting, with his head high in the air he ran back and forth in his paddock, as to express shock and outrage. He was so worked up he would not even go in his stall to eat grain. ( He loves his grain. There are few world events that would cause him to refrain for eating it immediately) He was committed to keeping an eye on this dog in the crazy plaid blanket. Perhaps he was just jealous that I had given brand new high quality "horse" blanket to a dog.

Freezing Weather Horse Care Tips

This is a post I distributed to horse friends earlier this winter. I thought I should share it with my blog friends too.

In extreme cold weather help your horse by:
• Feeding more forage, such as hay and grass.
• Ensuring access to reasonably warm drinking water. (Use bucket or tank heater, or bring warm water out from your house at least 3 times per day.)
• Providing shelter and windbreak.
• Blanketing horse with a waterproof blanket if shelter is not available, horse is underweight, or otherwise vulnerable.
• Use a cooler blanket to properly cool down your horse after workouts so it does not become chilled.
Explanation:
Anytime your horse is exposed to severe weather the horse can develop health problems.
In colder weather, a horse burns more calories to generate body heat and maintain its normal core temperature. In the past, horse owners fed corn during the winter to help horses generate more body heat and reduce the stress of cold weather. However, a horse is able to generate more heat in the hindgut from the fermentation of forage, such as hay and grass. So increasing the amount of hay feed can help your horse more easily maintain its body temperature.


Check the food supplies in the pasture every day and make sure that the water left out for the horses doesn’t freeze. If you are concerned about your horse’s water bucket icing over, use heated water buckets available at most horse supply stores or feed stores to keep the buckets from freezing.

When the cold weather begins, horse owners can notice a greater frequency of impaction colic. One of the main causes of impaction colic can be dehydration from reduced water consumption, inadequate water availability, and eating hay (which only contains 10% water) rather than grass, which contains 80% water.

Making sure that horses have good access to unlimited warm water can help encourage horses to drink more and prevent impaction colic. When a horse drinks cold water, they must use extra energy to replace the heat lost to the chilling water, and they instinctively drink less. Adequate water intake ensures that the fiber in the digestive system stays hydrated, which allows it to be broken down by intestinal bacteria. Adding a free-choice mineral supplement or mixing salt, mineral supplements and electrolytes into a horse’s feed can also simulate a horse to drink more water. Providing adequate exercise also reduces colic by helping to aid gut motility.

Pay attention to the barn’s ventilation. Good air flow is even more vital than warmth to horses kept in a closed barn. Also, care should be taken when feeding hay to horses kept in enclosed barns. Horses that are fed hay from nets above their heads have more frequent respiratory problems than horses that eat hay from the ground or from hay nets hung low enough to allow the respiratory tract to drain down. However, be careful not to have the nets hung so low that a horse can get its legs tangled in them.
Add extra bedding to your horse's stall when it’s very cold to act as insulation
If your horse has a short coat or if it’s very cold where you are, make sure that your horse is blanketed during turnouts and that the blankets are securely and correctly fastened so that the horse will be safe. If your horse does wear a blanket, remove the blanket at least once every few days for grooming and to make sure that the horse’s coat isn’t dry or irritated because of the blanket. Wash blankets regularly.
Use a cooler to cool your horse down after riding in the winter. When a horse has been ridden and is all sweaty and warm it can catch a chill in the cold winter air or its muscles can stiffen up and cause problems. Using a cooler will allow your horse to cool down naturally without the risk of catching a chill. If you are not prepared to take time to properly cool down your horse, do not exercise it to the point where it becomes sweaty.
Horses deal with cold temperatures better than a lot of animals and many horses actually prefer to be outdoors in the cold weather rather than being stuck inside the barn. Don’t keep your horse locked in the stall all winter. Even if you are riding your horse regularly during the winter, give the horse a good amount of turn out time during the winter so that the horse can play outside and get some fresh air.

Content courtesy of http://www.horsehealthcare.info/horse-care-tips-for-cold-weather.html and http://www.horses-and-horse-information.com/articles/0102frozen.shtml

Lights, Shovel, Action

It is the season of lights. Lights on houses and trees, poles and wreathes. So it is only appropriate that we are celebrating the holidays with new lights on horse shelters, outside area and hay storage shed. Oh rejoice, the glorouis nights of feeding our animals with a camping style head lamps have come to an end. The state inspector has come and blessed our new lights. So now we go, hi ho, hi ho, hi ho, to take our shovels and fill the trenches, hi ho, hi ho , hi ho.

- And there was light and it was good!

Donkey Training 101

We have the pleasure of enjoying the company of Lucky, our cute rescue donkey and farm mascot, for just over two years. During that time I have worked with lucky on trusting people and allowing me to halter and lead him. This summer, with the help of my friend Laura and her horse Tucker I was even able to lead lucky along on a few trail rides. (This required significant patience, so I give Laura extra props for agreeing to go with me, especially the second time).

During the past two years I have certainly concluded that Lucky thinks and reacts differently than horses. However, because I know how to interact with horses,and knew basically nothing about donkeys, I kept trying to work with Lucky more or less the same way I would with a horse. Needless to say our progress has been slow.

Recently I have been very excited to find a website with some good donkey interaction and training advice. http://calkinsart.net/donkeyinfo/vldonkclinic.html In the last week, Lucky and I have been developing a new and more trusting relationship. Lucky seems to be telling me that Vicki,the women who wrote the training lessons on the website, knows what is up with donkeys. I am starting to have new found optimism that Lucky may be able to fulfill my dreams of giving rides to small children, pulling a little cart or transporting our human picnic on a long day hike. In the meantime I feel lucky to enjoy the company of an amazing and cute donkey.

Never been more excited for rain

Frozen broken pipes, water filling our garage/ shop building, trying to sweep out water from the garage as it freezes to the cement floor; these activities are not my idea of holiday fun. One of the reasons we love the northwest and put up with the rainy winters is that the winter temperatures are supposed to be moderate. So after two weeks of days where the high rarely creeped above freezing I am elated to welcome our rain back. The rain has melted all the ice. It may be wet, but I can ride my horse in the rain. Pipes don't freeze in the rain and rain makes my plants happy rather then killing them. I am still disappointed that all my winter carrots froze. I appreciate my friends informing me that in freezing weather carrots needed to be covered them with straw, leaves, or other organic material, and wish I would have known this before the big freeze. Rows of carrots may you RIP and provide beneficial soil nutrients for next years vegetables.

Breaking Ice

Waking up to freezing cold temperatures is no fun. Being out in the cold breaking the ice off of a stock tank at 7 AM makes me wish I was in Arizona. But since I can't seasonally move my farm to Arizona, other more pragmatic solutions were in order. So today I spent my lunch hour removing the icy water, bucket by bucket out of the stock tank. I was excited when I got to the bottom to discover that my little gray goldfish was still alive and swimming. ( I am partial to the gray colored goldfish because they don't seem to be eaten by what ever animal it is that caused at least 6 gold colored fish disappear this past summer.) After giving the tank a good cleaning, I acknowledged the true arrival of winter by removing the bottom plug and inserting the heater that will remain in the tank until spring. I am biased towards this style of stock tank heater for because:1) animals can't pull it out of the tank to play with/ destroy it, 2) heat rises so it makes sense for it to be in the bottom and 3) it keeps all the water warm and ice free. Refilling the tank proved challenging as I discovered the hose was full of ice ( a good reason to drain hoses and store them inside) . In excitement over the action of shaking the hose to get the ice out, both Comet the horse and Lucky the mini-donkey galloped back and forth in their the paddock. After much ado, Comet and Lucky had a tank of clean water with a happy fish and a heater. As I went out to feed my hooved friends tonight, I was happy to see a light steam rise from the water. Although the challenges of winter are just beginning I am through breaking ice.

Those big brown eyes

When I rolled out of bed at 7 AM, my whole body ached. The restless night of on and off sleep I had not served me well. I was hitting the peak of the cold bug my husband had caught a few days earlier. Wrapped in my robe I went to let our two dogs outside. My plan was to go back to bed for a few more hours and then get up, get dressed and feed my horse and donkey.

As I opened the mudroom door to let the dogs out my horse reached his head over the gate. He looked straight at me with his big brown eyes and let out a soft nicker. That was it. He stared into my sole. He knew I was awake. Not wanting to disappoint him, I put on some sweats and went out to feed him and the donkey their morning hay and grain. As I stoked his neck briefly I forgot about my aches and pains.

The a deep gaze from a loving animal is a powerful force.

Pie Pumpkin it is time to fulfill your destiny

You have made a great fall decoration. But now it is Thanksgiving. You are not called a pie pumpkin for nothing. So today I will transform you into part of our feast and I will save your seeds so that your offspring my flourish next year in my garden and continuethe pie pumpkin legacy. Thank you Jane for cultivating this amazing pumpkin!

Forget the Grocery Store

Last night I was inspired to make Mexican food and I was reminded of how lucky I am to live in the country and have great friends. I called my friends who run Zepp farm. My dogs & I jumped in the car and a drove a few miles down the road.

In the dark and drizzle we visited and walked around their farm with a flashlight to retrieve some fresh cilantro, peppers and lettuce. Then we just kept going... collecting fresh dill, rosemary, parsley, cabbage, and brussel sprouts (which have never been my favorite, but agreed to give another try). I felt really spoiled when we went into the greenhouse and they helped me search for fresh little yellow tomatoes.

We hung out in their garage and talked about our gardens, seeds for next year, our horses and our friends. They would not let me pay them for the produce. Later on I offered to share some of the acorn & hubbard squash I had harvested from my garden, an idea that they meet with enthusiasm.

I enjoyed great company and conversation. Within an hour I was home enjoying awesome tacos, which included the freshly cut cilantro, lettuce and peppers. Truly a level of freshness in food and friendship I have never found at a grocery store.