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Done Playing Rodeo? My friend Dennis tells a wonderful story about his Grandfather. Dennis and his wife were trying to load her very high strung arabian into a horse trailer. They had been at it for awhile. Finally going so far as to run a rope from the front of the trailer around the rump of the horse, and back to the front of the trailer, so one could pull on the halter, while the other pulled on the rump rope. All to no avail. At this point Dennis' 95 year old grandfather pulls up, gets out of his truck evaluates the situation and hollers out, "So, you don't playing rodeo?" He then proceeds to walk up to the horse, grabs it's halter, gives it a shake, tells it to knock it off, and calmly leads the horse right into the trailer. So now, whenver one or the other of us is struggling with horses, or ponies, or tack, or fencing, or just about anything, the other will often say, "So, you done playing rodeo yet?" |
Cornfest Pony Rides I have been having such a great time out at the stables, and enjoyed being around the horses, learning so much every day. When Melissa mentioned she was providing the pony rides for this years cornfest I eagerly volunteered our services. What an adventure. Ponies are mean, malicious, and I think, fundamentally evil. Between the 12 hour days in 100+ weather, strange equipment, uncontrollable kid helpers, unforseen attempts to kill small children, and irate customers, it was hard to keep focused on the amazing look on a childs face when they have their first pony ride. What a blast. |
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The New Recruits Just before the Cornfest, due to circumstances beyond her control, Melissa was short ponies for the pony rides. The week before the festival Melissa was finally able to procure 4 new ponies, three of which she bought and one which was on lease. The biggest one was Oreo, and he was the one she leased rather than bought. The smallest one was Romeo, and he is actually a minature horse. Well, Oreo, being a pony is, as I mentioned earlier, a breed with the unfortunate characteristics of being mean, malicious, and basically fundamentally evil. Not taking into account he'd just traveled multiple thousands of miles to his new home and may have been a little out of sorts, he earned my dislike instantly by kicking, biting, and continuously bullying the littlest guy, Romeo. Because of this I begged Melissa not to buy him, but to send him back from whatever rock he'd climbed out of in Oaklahoma. I was overruled by the majority (novel experience), and now that Oreo and Romeo are no longer penned together may even be on the verge of forgiving him, and starting to tolerate, okay maybe even like, him just a little. |
The Epidemic Unfortunately, one of the new recruits, Rusty, was sick when he came to live at Cedar Creek Stables. So he and Romeo were quarantined to the back 40, to keep the others from getting sick, and to await diagnosis. The diagnosis was Strangles, a sort of horse pnemonia/strep throat cross. Highly contagious, and very high drama inducing. Melissa has 12 horses and ponies that were all living in close proximity and now they all had to be quarantined. There are another 30 horses at Cedar Creek, and their owners have been pretty insenstive and dramatic about the whole thing. The owners, Jim and Jan, have been very supportive and helpful. To treat this the infected horses and ponies have to be given antibiotics and cough syrup twice a day. Being the sucker for the underdog that I am I volunteered to help, and dismantled stalls, moved them to the far side of the property, helped rebuild them, move the horses, water troughs, tack, salt licks(50 lbs) and assorted horse accessories, rebuilt the stalls, and attempted to stucture shade tents for all the stalls, a daily undertaking because bored horses are hell on shade tents. And add the attempt to not cross contaminate any of the pens and it's a pretty exhausting day. |
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St. Jude - Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes Coming home late Sunday night from the Cornfest we found that one of the bunnies had given birth to a litter of kits(what baby rabbits are called I've recently learned). Only one survived so I offered to take it home and try to nurse it through. I named it St. Jude after reading up on caring for orphaned baby rabbits. Everything I read said it was a hopeless cause. I had to try anyway. And I fell in love with a little runt of a bunny. He fought the good fight for four days, and then went on to baby bunny heaven, maybe he joined Eugene O'Neills Blemie. Rest in Peace, St. Jude. Most People think that St. Jude is the Patron Saint of Children because of St.Jude's Childrens Hospital, sadly, that is not the case. The bunnies name was only half attributed to the Saint. The other half was inspired by the Sinner, but he was a hopeless cause too. |
Sunny's Miraculous Recovery Melissa called late Thursday night to say that Sunny was laying down and wouldn't get back up, and she'd called the vet to see if it was time to put Sunny down. Sunny has been with Melissa a long time. The world record holder for longest lived pony is 41 years, Sunny is 37. Because Sunny is so old we were all quite pleasantly surprised that he was one of the few that didn't catch Strangles. So when Melissa called I was very sad, and wanted to say, "no, no, not yet!" But Sunny has always been sweet and shy, a tireless worker, enduringly patient with my inexperience, never complaining about the endless line of children he had to carry around, and I wasn't ready for him to go yet. I was pleased that circumstances would have it that I had groomed Sunny thoroughly just the day before, feeling good that Sunny's last day had included an all over brushing and rubbing that all the horses and ponies, well except for crazy, evil Oreo, seem to love. I called my mom, and she helped like she had with St. Jude, explaining that it was time for Sunny to go to pony heaven where he wouldn't suffer, and he wouldn't lose weight because his teeth were no longer strong enough to eat. My mom is a great comfort to me in these times, and I'm always grateful she's there for me in times like this. The next morning as I was driving out to the stables I was giving myself a pep talk about the great cycle of life, and the end of suffering, and how there's a time for everything. Imagine my surprise when I pulled into the drive, and there was Sunny standing in his usual spot, eating his breakfast and looking just fine. Ends up Sunny had just gotten really hot and tired, decided to lie down and rest and didn't feel like getting up the night before, just because he was scaring people and they were calling to him. But he did eventually get up, had a late night soft mushy snack, some horse aspirin, and seems to be feeling fine. (I'm writing this on the BART train and crying and people are starting to stare. ;) |
