<![CDATA[Hidden Falls Farm - Horse-husband Blog]]>Sun, 19 Mar 2023 11:05:24 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Horse Kisses]]>Sun, 19 Mar 2023 15:58:37 GMThttp://hiddenfallsfarm.net/horse-husband-blog/horse-kissesSeriously, why? gross. Ewww. Just lick your dog if you want that. Ewww.]]><![CDATA[Puppies]]>Tue, 13 Dec 2022 05:16:06 GMThttp://hiddenfallsfarm.net/horse-husband-blog/puppies​Yep, we got a puppy. Doesn’t every farm need a puppy? Of course they do, those little Jack Russels are so darn cute I cant hardly stand it. Not a Jack Russel? A lab, naturally, everyone loves a lab. Nope. Protection, that is what we need. Maybe a livestock guardian dog of some sort. Again, nope.  What we did get is a bloodhound. You read that right. Where do you even get one of those? Beats me, but my wife has a way of finding anything she really wants. Gee, if she put the same effort into matching socks…
So, a bloodhound is none of the above. Sure it is cute, for now, but then it becomes a ginormous slobbering beast. It isn’t dainty or even particularly graceful, and honestly, I am not seeing it’s potential for a guard dog (see aforementioned comment about slobber, hmm, on second thought). However it does have the potential to fulfill my greatest goal in life; to lay beside my rocking chair on my front porch while I drink crap beer and yell at kids to get off my lawn.
Did I mention the pee. A bloodhound doesn’t actually drink water as much as pump it through it’s body. More like a straw. There is no stopping in  between. I am not sure exactly how it hydrates as it seems to pee more than it drinks, usually on the carpet. Apparently, once the constant pee stops, it uses the liquid to make slobber. I cant wait for that turn of events.
In the end of course, there is the idea that people look like their dogs. Now, it has actually been shown that people’s dogs actually tend to look like their spouse, and this is not my dog.
Couldn’t we have just gotten a kitten?
]]><![CDATA[Covid Time]]>Wed, 24 Feb 2021 04:06:14 GMThttp://hiddenfallsfarm.net/horse-husband-blog/covid-time​What can a horse husband say about Covid? As usual, not what you would probably expect.
 
Apparently horses cant catch Covid. I can only assume that this is a good thing. I have seen the hysterics when a horse gets the tiniest tummy ache, and worse if they get something as bad as an actual colic. Can you imagine a horse with a headache? Now don’t be going off on me if horses can actually get headaches. Sounds fishy to me.
 
How would we get a mask on a horse? And how would we keep it on. They can get wraps off of their legs while being tied inside a horse trailer, I am not sure what kind of dark magic that requires, but a mask would surely be no problem. Social distancing? If we size it up for horses, I figure that at about a ¼ mile, maybe we are onto something.
 
Horse shows are a whole new world. I get it, as I have mentioned before, I am a car guy, and all the car shows have been cancelled. But we can get in our car and drive it around aimlessly, which I guess is like trail riding. But, I have seen quite a few guys decide this was the time to take their cars apart for major repairs, let’s see you do that with a horse.
 
Now that horse shows are starting to happen again, my wife just got back from Scottsdale, maybe we need to rethink what those look like. Apparently at Scottsdale you had to wear a mask any time you were not riding. I guess that if the football players can play without masks, from a horse there is much more social distancing (hmm, full contact costume classes?). Suddenly that guy that gets on all those crazy horses and gets bucked off all the time looks really good, until he takes that mask off and he only has half his teeth.
 
Dressage is pretty much the ultimate social distancing sport. One horse at a time, if you’re early, you’re out. If you’re late, you’re out. Heck, most of the time it looks like the rider isn’t even touching the horse, let alone other competitors. And NO ONE dares talk to the Dressage Queen while she is warming up, except of course her trainer who is quietly whispering into the microphone which transmits only to the ears of the chosen one. Even the judges stay apart, and their only action is the quiet tinkling of a crystal bell at the beginning of each test.
 
So…get your vaccine as soon as you can, wear your mask, keep your distance, and we will all be back doing what we love soon.
]]><![CDATA[Barn Cats]]>Wed, 19 Sep 2018 17:54:58 GMThttp://hiddenfallsfarm.net/horse-husband-blog/barn-cats“Can we get a cat for the barn?” Easy enough question. Even logical; need a cat to take care of the rodents and other creepy crawlies in the barn. In practice, not so much.
 
There are basically two types of barn cats. The first, and arguably the easiest to deal with is the totally feral beast child cat that wanders into your barn from a neighboring field where it has been raised by coyotes, howls like a cougar and has claws nastier than a black bear. Why easy? You only have to catch it once. Trap it, take it down and have it fixed and get it some shots, bring it home and turn it loose. Problem solved; Anything smaller than your average Black Lab is toast. You don’t have to feed it, water it or ever catch it again, unless you really want to get it annual shots, but probably not necessary as it will scare off most diseases with a nasty stare. Chances are you will never see it again, but will know of its presence by the various carcasses it leaves in the aisle.
 
The second and ultimately higher maintenance is to get a friendly cat that cant live inside a house. You can go to your local cat rescue place, here locally we actually have a barn cat rescue that for fifty bucks you get a cat that is fixed, has all its shots and has been microchipped. There are numerous drawbacks to these types of cats though. First and foremost is that they are friendly. They will wander into the middle of a half-pass with no apparent concern for their own, the horse’s or the rider’s safety. After all, it is THEIR barn. As soon as anyone sits down in the barn, they will have a cat on their lap. Some people don’t care, but there are an astounding number of people who are allergic to cats, and these cats will find them every time. They will bring you treats, usually something alive. Ours prefer snakes. I am ok with snakes, but once again, it is astounding how many people are not. Then they need a litter box, even though the arena appears to be the worlds largest litter box outside of the Mojave. AND, they apparently need fed. But not meow mix. Our barn cats hate meow mix. Who would have ever believed that. Isn’t that the kitty equivalent of McDonalds?
 
There are some things that all barn cats have in common. First, and possibly the most disturbing is their ability to walk across the rafters in the barn with apparently no care for the potential of imminent death. 30 feet up, without a net, stalking a bird. Fortunately, we have never had to come in and deal with kitty bodies after a failed attempt. Our fat lazy house cats could never pull off this feat.
 
They love to sleep in the hay. Nothing is as much fun as when you are getting hay out of the loft and you suddenly have a freaked out vampirical cat trying to attack your face because you disturbed his day sleeping spot and now he has to take a chance of melting in the sunlight.
 
We have to continually save creatures that we don’t want them to kill. We had a Maine Coon that hated dogs. Had to pull him off the face of a certain Aussie a couple of times. Then the aforementioned birds. While I am not a fan of birds in the barn, you don’t have to kill them. And bats, leave the bats alone, they eat bugs. We have already discussed the snakes.
 
Barn cats don’t always get along. The satan infused cat mentioned earlier has nearly brought us one of the friendly barn cats as a fresh kill in the past. Fortunately, it is two against one and we haven’t had the attendant vet bills for that yet.

​Next time: Dogs
 
]]><![CDATA[Scottsdale]]>Tue, 07 Mar 2017 04:46:21 GMThttp://hiddenfallsfarm.net/horse-husband-blog/scottsdale​Just got back from the world’s largest horse show. It may not technically be the world’s largest, but most likely the largest one I will ever go to. Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show, or some name that sounds similar to that (which is probably like saying a Camaro is similar to a Mustang in the car world). I didn’t get to spend much time there, but after my second time to the show, I feel I have enough info to make some accurate observations.
I am just wondering, with about 2500 horses on the property, why is the primary mode of transportation a golf cart? After 5000 years of being used as basic transportation (until about a hundred years ago) you would think that people would at least use them for that at a horse show. But no, I actually saw someone hand off a horse that they had just been riding to someone else to walk next to it, while they climbed in a golf cart and rode it back to the barn. Or, better yet, the people leading a horse while riding in the golf cart.
Let’s talk about vendors; You can buy things that I didn’t even realize horses needed. What, exactly, is the purpose of a magnetic sheet? Last I checked, horses weren’t made out of iron. How about a treadmill for your horse? For those horses that want to binge watch Mr. Ed while they work out maybe? We haven’t even gotten into the things for horse people, everything from a horse doll to a new truck and trailer to haul your pony around in, special deal, just for the show. Then there are the bangles and bling. You can get anything covered in sparkly stuff, coats, hats, blankets, some of the booths looked like an Elton John concert with special guest my little pony.  I even found one booth with lamps made from the tail-lights of a ’57 Chevy, this was my favorite booth, but still not sure how it relates to horses (maybe a gift for the hubby after he figured out there was one more brown horse in the pasture).
I think I have decided that the costume classes are my favorite. These are amazing, the horses and people have flowing silks, bangles, bells, colors and a multitude of looks. It is quite a spectacle. My only question is how? A lot of the horse that I have seen spook at the idea of a rabbit running across the field two paddocks away from them. How in the world to you tie a bell to its mane? And how do you get in that saddle?
Of course, being a car guy, anything with wheels is interesting. The tow rigs are nothing short of amazing. There was the standard collection of Fords and Dodges, with the occasional GMC or Chevy, but that was not surprising in the least. Now, when we have a Kenworth conventional  with a twenty-five foot sleeper with a pop-out pulling a 10 horse aluminum slant trailer with its own living quarters…I guess that is when you know you have “made it” in the horse world.
Now, if I could only figure out how to get her to go a month early.
 
]]><![CDATA[Clinics, clinicians and workshops]]>Sun, 14 Aug 2016 03:25:45 GMThttp://hiddenfallsfarm.net/horse-husband-blog/clinics-clinicians-and-workshops​Now don’t get me wrong, I am a social worker. I can appreciate a good clinic, workshop or conference when I see one. On another note, I am a car guy, we also like to learn new skills. So, when my wife informed me we were having a “bodywork” seminar, I was all over it. Saturday morning rolls around and they are setting up chairs in the arena, while an odd place to work on a car, at least there is a lot of space, and we are not doing paint, so I guess the dust wont bother us. But there is not a car, a welder, a sanding block or most of all ANY bondo anywhere in sight. When I mentioned this, I only got a quizzical look from the clinician, as they brought in a horse to look at.
This was not my first serious misunderstanding with these clinics. And I am not even talking about the individuals with accents that give some of these clinics. We have to bring them from other countries? What, the horses don’t speak English? No, I am talking about seemingly straightforward things, like massage; I am all in for that, they weren’t impressed when I took my clothes off and laid on a cot in the arena. How about gates, that cant be anything else; no one even showed up in the fields, once again they just rode horses around in the arena at seemingly random speeds.
So I have decided that if they want to have a truly useful clinic, and they insist on having horses involved, that I need to put it on. Let’s do the “teach the horse to stand to one side of the stall while I clean it” clinic. Or how about the “We are not going to chew on the door” clinic. Or, best of all, the “it is Sunday morning and I am going to let the people sleep in instead of kicking the side of my stall until they feed me” clinic. I am sure there is a professional out there somewhere who can help me with these, please?
]]><![CDATA[Horse Shoes]]>Sat, 12 Sep 2015 18:34:44 GMThttp://hiddenfallsfarm.net/horse-husband-blog/horse-shoesWe all know that many of the things that go with the equestrian sport are expensive. So much so, that a wise horse-husband doesn’t ask any more. After you find out that a few strips of leather held together with a few metal rings that looks like a 12 year old’s home depot shop project (aka a bridle) goes for nearly a grand, it is best to not even know more. Over all, it has worked out for my lovely wife and I, and in addition, she doesn’t ask how much those car parts for my hotrod go for.

However, when her prize horsey loses a shoe out in the paddock, seeing the girls in the barn out their combing through the grass looking for the proverbial glass slipper, I realized that they were nearly literally looking for a needle in a haystack. So, in a total lapse of judgement, I ask, how much does a shoe go for anyways? Her: “about 60 bucks” me: “EACH?”, What are they made of, Unobtanium? and they have to change them?  yeah, their feet grow. Now, I don’t know about you, but my feet quit growing when I was about 12. I can wear a pair of shoes for three years before I have to replace them, and they are less than 60 bucks, for the pair.

So, I decide that I am going to help out, and save a few bucks in the process. It is going to take at least a day for the farrier to get here, so I can help search, but we are going to do this my way. I head down to the pawn shop, and sure enough, they have a metal detector. I test it out, and it appears to work, so I plunk down $50.00 and think I am pretty smart, I can not only save 10 dollars on this one, but unlimited numbers of shoes in the future. I get home with my new prize, and with a knowing look, my bride says, yeah, go for it.

Away I go, wandering the paddock, looking for a horse shoe, how hard could it be? About 10 minutes in, I get a strong signal, bingo, done and done…no, a hunk of old farm equipment about 6” down. After about 2 more hours, several tiny bits of old steel, and one close call with a buried power line, I walk back into the barn, and without another word, hand her 60 bucks.

]]><![CDATA[Horse Husbands]]>Fri, 14 Aug 2015 03:24:39 GMThttp://hiddenfallsfarm.net/horse-husband-blog/horse-husbandsWe had a bbq the other night for some of the people from our barn. Surprisingly, some men actually showed up, and not the mamby pamby guys that ride either, we are talking real-live horse-husbands. I have to admit, it was a fairly surreal experience having other guys around who understand the trials and tribulations which I go through, rather than just my venting to an unknown audience of folks who read blogs about horses.

Men at a horsey bbq don’t at first seem to be any different than men at a football bbq or other conventional food or sports oriented event. We all stand around and stare at the random hunks of beef and other critters on the grill and make fun of the vegetarians in the group. We all stand up straight and drink appropriate things to impress the women like Red Hook ESB or a local microbrew like skookums (shameless plug).  While this is happening and while eating, we all sit quietly and listen while the love of our life talks about things that we would otherwise consider disgusting at best or downright offensive. Most of these involve what goes in or comes out of a horse, or worse yet, breeding.

At the completion of dinner, when the conversation degenerates to something completely nonsensical such as the potential quality of the piaffe of a three year old, I make the suggestion that if any of the guys are interested, I have a 33 plymouth in my garage that I am working on. Suddenly, as if the transporter beam from Star Trek has finally come to reality, we are standing in a garage surrounded by car parts.

This is where the true nature of the horse husband is revealed. We are talking about the truly important stuff in life, like cars we had as teenagers, horsepower, and rear end ratios. We are drinking PBR and making football references. It is a wonderful and rare moment. This is male bonding at its best.

After an hour or so, we do start to miss our significant others. The cheap beers are finished off, dinner has settled, and someone mentions cheesecake. So we go back and sit on the deck and talk of mundane subjects which fit the theme of the night which we may know something about like the proper way to set the trailer brake for the horse trailer, and smile, and remember when.

]]><![CDATA[Championships]]>Mon, 01 Jun 2015 03:38:37 GMThttp://hiddenfallsfarm.net/horse-husband-blog/championships1I just got back from the Arabian Horse regional championships, and thought I would share some of my observations with you;

Just what exactly can you see on a horse that is different when it has a saddle on it and when it doesn’t? There are numerous classes which appear to be incredibly repetitive. There is adult amateur sporthorse under saddle black horse with white spots, and adult amateur sport horse under saddle white horse with black spots. Then there is the adult amateur sport horse in-hand brown horse with a saddle but no one is riding it class. I am going to slip a zebra in and see if anyone notices.

Then there are the classes that have like 17 horses in them all at once. The judge stands in the middle and somehow not only picks a winner, but picks second place and three others for good measure. I am getting dizzy watching this from the outside.  I don’t know how they possibly do this.

What is a reserve champion? As an old Navy guy, I am thinking “one champion isn’t enough, so we have to bring up the reserve”. Why cant they just say second place? I spent a lot of years racing cars, and I never got a reserve winner, but I got a lot of seconds.

Congratulation to all who participated in the Region V championships. There were some great competitors out there, and I got to meet a couple more horse-husbands. You make a great post.

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]]><![CDATA[World Cup Dressage 2015]]>Tue, 21 Apr 2015 03:24:17 GMThttp://hiddenfallsfarm.net/horse-husband-blog/world-cup-dressage-2015As a horse husband it is occasionally our duty to accompany our significant other to various horsey events. In this case I rode along (pun intended) to the 2015 World Cup Dressage competition in Las Vegas.

 On this world stage, we really get a chance to shine. Yes, that means that we get to carry  random items of unknown origin around an even larger group of people we don’t know. The worst part is that this is actually the better option versus her carrying some of these items. If you have ever seen a dressage rider carry a whip through a crowd, they carry it as if they are riding. In a crowd this involves whacking small children in the head and anyone who happens to be walking behind them in the thigh. Seeing as I don’t know how to passage, I decided it was better to carry the whip myself.

The other observers at this event are a delight to be around. Actually, for the most part this is true. We met some really fun and nice people while there. However, everyone knows everyone else, and if they don’t they know someone that knows them. You can hear this repeatedly throughout the event as you walk around and hear the familiar high-pitched squeal of “BECKY…IS THAT YOU? I AM SO GLAD TO SEE YOU” followed by niceties which usually involve a parting sequence of “we have to get together sooner next time” and my bet is that would be at the next event exactly like this.

So, here is my advice to make this a much more palatable event for the casual observer in the future:

First; We need color. Make them all wear different colors of jackets, hats and saddle pads, preferably with large numbers and names. Sorry, from 20 rows up, you can’t even usually tell if it is a guy or a girl riding, this would save a lot of embarrassment.

Second; Musical Freestyles. These could be improved immensely with music that was tolerable. Enough of the classical. I only heard one freestyle with anything that was done in the last 15 years. And quit using the musack version of the songs that are songs we know, even if they are older, that is worse than the classical.

Third; Get some of those guys from the baseball games out there selling peanuts and popcorn. Tossing a hotdog thirty feet across a crowd and yelling “get your cold beer here” would definitely add some excitement to the event.

Fourth; Introduce betting. Anyone can guess a score with a little education, but if you could have 10:1 odds on the black gelding missing the two tempi’s, that would be awesome. It is Vegas after all.

Fifth; take a hint from the car-shows where they are bringing in some fun things for other family members to do. We could have the men’s corner and have go-kart races. How about a bouncy house for the kids, you could put it right outside A so that the horses have to pass it on the way into the ring. That would make this all more entertaining for everyone. 

Lastly, Make the beer cheaper. How is anyone ever going to get in the mood for the aforementioned changes on ten dollar beers.

Congratulations to Charlotte and Blueberry (Valegro) on their big win. Whoever they are.

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