Lying Down…

The horses, that is.

I went out just now to check haynets because it’s damp again and the horses have come in, and as I walked in, Poppy was standing quietly in her favourite place (what was originally George’s stable) while Dancer was lying down under the haynet. Young horses need lots of rest and sleep compared to older ones and I sometimes get the impression she still spends as much time flat as upright in the field! I spent a few minutes petting Poppy, then crouched down and talked to Dancer, making sure she wasn’t feeling disturbed by my presence – it takes time and effort for a horse to get up and they won’t stay down if they don’t trust you, so I always take care not to rush in and force them to get up when I find them down. She didn’t mind as I stroked her nose and even pulled a few bits of bedding out of her hooves, and then I gave Poppy more attention before going through to see Abe, who was snoozing on his feet in his old stable. He was quite amenable to being talked to and scratched under his mane (he’s the most easy-going of horses, really!) and after a bit of that I looked through into the barn, where George was lying down, scowling at me.

Fair enough. He does have security issues and he’s a very big horse to have to heave himself up and down hurriedly, so I crouched down in the doorway and talked to him quietly for a few minutes, until he stopped frowning and looked the other way. I crept a little closer and eventually he allowed me to hold out my hand and he rested his nose on my palm for a few seconds. I crept away again and raided the fibre nuggets.

Poppy’s still ribby (that’s because Dancer is still sucking every couple of hours!) so I gave her several handfuls of nuts, which she liked very much. I went through and offered George nuts, and he accepted them without getting up. After he’d cleaned my pockets out of nuts I went back for a refill – again, some for a delighted Poppy and then the rest for George – and as I was holding out a handful of nuts to George, Abe walked in and poked George in the bum with his nose, quite hard. George grumped a bit and got up, but I gave him the rest of the nuts once he’d had his stretch (they always want a stretch when they get up!) and then left them to it for a while.

On the subject of Abe, he’s managed to catch his face on something and taken some fur off his cheek in a long line. It looks terrible, of course, since he has the black Arab skin under his grey coat, so he has this very obvious four or five inch long line that looks like a gash across his cheek under his left eye. I have looked at it carefully and it hasn’t broken the skin so I’m not doing anything with it. He’s made sure it’ll get in the way of his bridle, however, so it’ll be a few days before I do anything more with him – his headcollar’s probably alright but there’s some bruising and he’s better just taking a few days to get over it.

Marley the ferret has had a trip to the vet this morning – I noticed last night he was carrying his head tilted to one side, so he’s been in to check for mites and infections – the two most common causes of head tilting. We didn’t find any signs of mites, though he has a bit of wax in both ears, and there was nothing obviously wrong so  I’ve come back with flea, tick and mite drops for the lot of them plus some antibiotic drops for Marley, to be put into both ears twice daily for the next week. He’s not enthused, though he’s being polite about it. He also only escaped from the carrier twice – once a hundred yards from the vet’s and again in the carpark in the spar shop when I paused to post some stuff! While I was at the vet’s I booked Dancer in for her next flu jab as well as paying for the last one so that’s happening on Thursday.

Also on Thursday I should get a broadband router and the engineer will be out on Friday to hook up the phone line! I will then have a landline and internet at home, which will make life much easier. I will have left the Stone Age, as my daughter likes to put it…

The strimmer arrived last night and has now been assembled and battery charged, so I’ll get going on clearing the goose garden of weeds from Sunday morning, weather permitting.