Friday, December 12, 2008

A Deep Subject

Animals are, in some ways, no different than people. Some are big, some are little. Some are slobs, some are very neat. Jorgen and our new pony, Phantom, are in many respects alike. Both are geldings and about the same size, 13 and a half hands. That's where the similarities end.

Jorgen is a boss horse. In fact, he is often the boss of horses much, much larger than himself and fights to protect his herd. As a Swedish Gotland, he is of a very cool temperment and is mostly quiet in his stall. He is the Felix Unger of horses as you see here. He makes a tidy pile for us each night, and sometimes, will even not wet the stall. As far as horse stall cleaning goes, his is a pleasure to clean.
Phantom, on the other hand, is at the bottom of the herd social stratus. For whatever reason, he's a bit nervous in his stall. As a result, he is the Ocscar Madison of horses.
This photo actually is quite neat compared to the way he usually leaves it:

We use pelleted bedding, basically compressed shavings. You add a bit of water to it, and it swells and becomes very nice sawdust bedding. Jorgen's stall will rarely need much added to it. Phantom, on the other hand, will likely need two bags a week with each bag weighing in at 40 lbs. It is nearly impossible to not waste a good deal of the bedding as he grinds the manure up into the good bedding by his constant pacing. My luck to get another horse that isn't potty trained.

Notes:

Snow today, if you can call the light dusting we get snow.

I had giclées made today of some of Anna's paintings. If they turn out well, we may offer a limited number of them for sale. What is a giclée you ask? You take a scan or digital image of a painting and have it printed on a canvas. If well done, you can hardly tell they aren't original paintings.

6 comments:

That Janie Girl said...

Okay. That's a horse perspective I've never noticed.

And I've had horses!

But they never had to be kept inside in a stall...they had outside stalls.

Verrrrry interesting!

Jenn Jilks said...

That is a hoot!
My husband lived on a farm in the early 50's, with no running water or electricity. They had Belgians.
He never complains about cleaning the cat litter!
BTW
We have TONS of snow. When we deliver Meals on Wheels, we wade through hip-deep snow as clients cannot shovel. Pretty difficult for them. I feel grateful for good health.

Kristina said...

What about postcards or notecards? I would love to have some notecards of some of her paintings.

debra said...

#1 daughter's horse, Pete, was a stall walker. Ground manure was an everyday event. He was such a sweet, gentle horse...

Barbara Martin said...

Your story reminds me of two half-brother Quarter Horse geldings I had. The fancy gelding, Piggy, had a dominant personality over Ed, the not so fancy brother. Piggy, for a good horse laugh, would somehow communicate to Ed to go over to the hotwire on the top of the fence to see if was turned on: "live". Ed got zapped so many times its a wonder he never caught on. And Piggy, ever the entertainer of himself, would either spit water or horse crunchies at the stable help when they passed by. It got so Heather would walk on the far side of the 8foot aisle to avoid his projectiles. I didn't believe her stories until I saw it myself. I could swear the horse was laughing afterwards.

pita-woman said...

Glad to know it's not just "Luci's" horses that have particular stall-pottying habits.
One horse, Emray, I swear he holds his bladder all day 'til we bring him inside. I kid you not, within 5 minutes of being stalled, he empties that bladder and continues to empty it for what seems an eternity.
Some of them poop in the same spot all the time, while others go wherever and then lay in it. blech!

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