Farrier and Fencing

Last night our farrier came out. I wasn't sure who all needed to be trimmed honestly. I am sure people will think I'm being lazy. But our farrier works hard to keep costs down and because we dont' use our horses, they don't need to have their feet in prestine condition. If they have a bit of flare to a hoof, it's not a big deal. catch it on the next go round if it's bad.


So I had caught Zeke, Lightening, Ivan, and Jim at first. We looked at Lightening and Ivan and concluded that they didn't need a trim. That although ugly, structurally, everything was good to go.


Zeke stood like a good old champ that he is. Then we tackled Jim and our farrier fell in love with him and couldn't say a bad word about him. Jim is Jim but for our farrier, Jim was a sweet old guy that had the old school Tennessee Walker build and for being 30, he looks fantastic. The vet said his teeth looked awesome and our farrier said his feet look awesome. So Jim could very well live into his upper 30s at this rate. And to think, had we not purchased him privately, he was headed to auction and would have been sent to slaughter. Because in this area, no one wants a walker and no one wants an old horse.


After Jim, we looked at King. He's still off. We trimmed him last month but we are still working on him because he's still so ouchy. I think every couple of years he comes up really ouchy for a full six months. We are going to try putting shoes on him next month to see if that helps. He used to have shoes and the previous owners insisted that he needed shoes on all the time. Yet they didn't believe in pulling shoes in the winter. So I've been watching an eye on King and he's been good up until just recently. So we'll put shoes back on and see if that keeps him comfortable.


When I'd gone out to get the herd from pasture, I could tell that they'd taken the temporary electric fence down. I was furious! So I went out this morning at 6am to put the fence back up and secure everything. By the time I was done, my pants were soaked. The dew was so much, that the water collected on my jeans and had started to run down and collect inside my muck boots. I'm glad for the moisture but I was irritated by the time I finally got out to let the horses out. That's the reason why I didn't do a live video this morning. I didn't think anyone wanted to hear my cursing at 6AM.


So hopefully everything is on the up and up for the fence and I'll have to walk it every day to make sure they don't keep taking it down. They have plenty of grass in their sectioned of part of the pasture. They just want the bottom part because it's more lush.


Mike is headed to Tea to pick up a load of hay. He'll pick up a load today and another tomorrow and we'll have to regroup to get the rest. We bought 23 or 24 bales from an older gentleman and the rest we have to have delivered. I'm still not comfortable that it's enough but the money is a lot tighter than I would like so we'll have to wait and see. If I could find a deal on hay, I would certainly buy it. But for now, there's no deals anywhere.