0 for 2

The other night I went out to bring the big herd in and I couldn't find them. Of course it was dark when I wandered out there (with no flashlight). I went to the top of the hill and herd a snuffle (you know, when a horse blows his nose to get a bug out or something along those lines...a snuffle!) So I tromped over to the other side but still couldn't see them. It was already dark. The neighbor a half mile away always leaves their garage door open with the lights on. All of a sudden to ears appeared in front of the garage lights (in the pasture not on the road). It was Rain. And of course I spooked everyone but they didn't do much but trot up to the other end of the pasture. It was neat to listen to the horses trot and lope through the pasture. I could barely hear the thudding of their hooves on the ground. Actually, what I heard the most was their big fat bellies making noises. I had to laugh at that too. So much for romanticizing the situation. I don't get to hear the pounding of hooves, I get to hear horse bellies gurgling instead.

Last night I had the farrier out. Of course I picked the hottest day of the year to trim. I intended on having the farrier work on Maverick. After five minutese, I realized that it was impossible to trim him. I haven't been able to work with him and when we sent him to the trainer, he hadn't worked on Maverick either. So now I'm left with a horse that doesn't know how to pick up his feet. And he's in desperate need of a trim too. I am going to have to do some serious ground work with him to get him to the right level of education. Unfortunately my time is very limited so I'm not sure how or when I'll get to work with him. My farrier gave me some really good lessons to teach so I'm going to have to really get after Maverick.  I also need to really focus my attention on Chaos too. He's taken to bucking when I ask for a lope. Going to have to do some serious ground work with him too. But where in the world am I going to find the time. If the Bear goes down as early as he did last night, I'll be able to find the time but otherwise, I'm going to have to figure out a time even if it's in the middle of the night I guess. So much for getting even four hours of sleep at night.

With Maverick out of the picture for a trim, I pulled King out. He was getting really bad again. Unfortunately the farrier didn't bring any brighter news for King. I had wanted to put easy boots on him but his feet are so flat now that there's no way. We used to shoe him but haven't in the last couple of years because he's a spare and he was lame for alittle while. We never did figure out what it was that caused him to go lame. But I don't want to put shoes on him because his outter walls are pretty thin. But without putting shoes on his feet are going to continue to separate due to laminitis. How he foundered, I have no idea. He's had the same food as the other horses and no one else is having the same issues. I'm starting to think that maybe it's genetic? So now I'm at a loss on what to do with King. The farrier used to put size 1 shoes on him. The farrier said last night that if he were to put shoes on a size 1 wouldn't fit and a size 2 would be too big. We had a similar situation when we first brought him home. He was inbetween sizes but apparently he's getting bigger instead of smaller and this increase in size is not good. I think we are going to have to shoe him from now on and pull the shoes just for winter. He'll need shoes to keep his feet from spreading apart any farther. I don't really know what else to do although it's going to be pretty tricky. I need to read up on what I could/should be doing. I'm so frustrated with the entire situation. Last night was a bummer. We were pretty much zero for two. Frustrating at best.