Perfect Spring Day

I thought it would be a perfect spring day, this first day of spring in 2008. Boy was I wrong. Oh it started out OK, or so I thought. Although I did have to get up an hour earlier than usual as the propane truck was to deliver our 6 months load of propane. But I didn't think to much of it. I heard him pull in but didn't even go out as it usually isn't necessary and they are done in about 10 minutes. I heard him leave and went out to feed the horses to discover he had not been much of a driver as there were truck tracks all over the drive way. Many of them with in inches of the fence posts that support our front gate. All right, he didn't knock down a post so I let it go. Fed the horses, dogs, and cats, had my own morning feed, and spent a few minutes on the computer., and did a little housework. Then it was out to move the two ponies into the big turn out pen for a good run, as the farrier was coming that evening to trim hooves on all the horses. I let the boys play while I cleaned pens. Then I grabbed my camera to take photos of them while I encouraged them to run around and let off excess energy so they would behave better while having their hooves done. They were good and ran and played and I got some half way decent photos. Finally they were getting tired and so was I. I put them back in their smaller pen and attempted to clean their hooves as a way of preparing them for the evening event. They had only had their hooves trimmed once before. We have really been working with them to pick up hooves, and have them cleaned but for the past week they had forgot all they had learned. Travey was real good but Stormy wasn't about to let me pick up his hooves. Well that was all right. I knew that between myself, Lee and Stuart we could do one little mini pony's hooves.
I then let BlackJack, Nita and Star into the big pen for their run. With in minutes a good day went bad. Not as bad as it could have been, but certainly not fun. First the wind started blowing. Not as bad as over the weekend but it's never good. Then the two mares, Nita and Star got into a slight kicking match. BlackJack was just watching but then the mares were right beside him. Nita kicked again and landed a good hard kick on poor Jack. One hind hoof on his right side in his ribs and the other back hoof on his shoulder where in slide down his leg. Or I think that is how it went. I saw it happen but it was real quick. Jack lit into Nita and she ran off, then Jack realize he didn't feel good and started limping worse than I had ever seen him limp. I yelled at the horses, ran out of the pen, into the barn, put the camera in a sort of safe place, and grabbed a halter.
By then Lee had come out, and we caught Jack who had quit limping by then, and ran cold water over his ribs, and leg. I found a small scrape on his shoulder and he didn't want me to mess with his leg all the way down. Thankfully it is just bruised, and I haven't seen him limp since. I had really been concerned for his knee as he had ripped it open fairly deep a few years before.
But that wasn't to be the end of it.
With the fight and Jack's injury I decided to keep all the 4 big horses in separate pens for the rest of the day. Jack off on one side of the yard. Sunny down in the east pen and I put Nita in her small feed and shelter pen and Star was left in the big turn out pen. I didn't think about Nita's feed pen being right next to the turn out pen.
Lee and I went into the house for lunch, and when we came back saw that those two idiot mares had had another kicking contest through the fence. We have wire fences because we can't afford the heavy metal welded pipe fencing that would be better for us and the horses. So they had put big hoof print size holes in the wire fencing and loosened a half dozen fence posts, two of which were 6 x 6 railroad ties set in cement. Thankfully neither of them got caught in the fence. Idiot mares. Part of it was me not thinking about how easy the two of them could get right up next to each other again. I should have put Sunny in the big pen and Star in the east pen. Or even put Star over with Jack where she stays most of the time anyway. She and Jack are best of friends. Nita wants to be Jack's best friend, and he does like her but he likes Star better. Sometimes it seems like a horse soap opera.
Stuart came and trimmed hooves on all 6 horses and none of the bunch were as good as they normally are. It did take Lee and I both to hold Stormy while Stuart trimmed. And the little guy can't weigh more than 250 pounds. (an average horse weights about 1000 pounds.)
As we all agreed - it might be the wind, or the full moon, or spring fever, or the fact the mares are coming in season, (they stop coming in season in usually about September or October, and start again in about March, depending on the weather and length of the days). Or maybe it was just one of those days.
Today we just fed, checked water, and decided it and pen cleaning could wait another day. And made sure we did the two by two turn out. Nita and Sunny in one pen, Jack and Star in another, and the little guys in another. No horses showed signs of limping or hurting. So Lee and I just goofed off and watched a movie, and ate pizza.