Today was a gorgeous day. A little breezy, in the 70s, the sun shining. I got to the barn around noonish.
I groomed Dusty first, giving him a long workover with the rubber mitt, really massaging his withers and shoulder and butt. He made the horse faces of appreciation.
I also wormed him, and he made the horse faces of disapproval: tense lips and chin, ears half-back, the hairy eyeball... completely disgusted. As usual, he would sniff but refused any and all treats for about 15-20 minutes afterwards. Shuffling carrot bits and Kashi Bar crumbs around in his grain bucket, he was a pitiable picture. But he got over it - they were gone when it was time to be turned out.
Tico'd been doing his usual jealousy faces at Dusty while I'd been giving Dusty attention, seesaw bucking in his stall: butt up, shoulder up, butt up, shoulder up, ears back, threatening to kick the wall (he's been seriously screamed at when he DOES kick the wall so he doesn't do it that often anymore).
He got growled at a bunch of times today, and each time - my attention now on him - his ears would go forward and he'd give my his angelic face, "Who, me? Wha?" and poke his nose out through the hole by the grain bucket, mugging for a treat. Brat. Sometimes, he got them. OK, most of the time. I'm a sucker for a cute face.
I put Dusty away and got Tico out. I brushed him, cleaned his feet, put on his leg wraps, saddled him up, coated him in fly spray, and headed outside. Of course, this all took more than an hour - I'm a slow groomer, and easily distracted - I like to play with him: tickle and kiss his nose, scritch his ears, make him move his legs by pointing at them, have him do silly tricks, for which he earns carrot bits, so he's a more than willing participant.
I mounted up in the indoor and we headed out the back door. About 5 steps out, he stopped.
Sometimes I indulge him. He likes to sight-see, so I sat still in the saddle while, head high, he gazed fixedly to the right. One of the trailers usually parked there was gone, maybe he was noticing that, I'm not sure. Then, turning to the left, he looked over in the direction of some of the turnouts, where horses were standing around, heads down, ignoring each other. Then again, to the right; then straight ahead.
I was getting a bit tired of the view, so I nudged him. He didn't budge. I nudged again. Nothing. I poked with the spurs and he woke up and started walking, just as Elaine, one of the other boarders, was walking towards us. "He's practicing to be a statue today", I said to Elaine, and she chuckled.
We wove on down the path between the turnouts, heading to the gate to the back field. The clover along side the turnouts was calling to him, I was preventing him from eating it, and so we sort of oozed along from one side of the path to the other, eventually making it to the back ring. Once there our path was a bit straighter - no grass to tempt him, and he knew that in that back field there was a lot of taller grass he could snipe a grab at walking along.
Have I mentioned that he's a pig?
Anyway, we got out to the back field finally, and started walking along. There are paths out there that go alongside the power lines, I was heading out to follow them. I had no other plan in mind - I considered going on the trails in the woods but I'd done that yesterday. I thought I might just take it easy - the view was wonderful, with some trees already turning red and yellow, and the taller golden stalks of grass waving with the easy breeze, the sun shining down... a perfect early fall day.
When we got to the part of the path that paralleled the power lines, I thought I'd ask for a trot. Tico willingly went into it, then up into a canter.
The wind was whistling by my ears, almost deafening, as he went into a full gallop. Wheeee! We galloped from the far end of the field up to where the path gets gravelly; that's where I asked him to stop. He did, eventually - my fat boy whose favorite gait is usually "whoa" had his head up, ears pricked, and actually pranced! He'd enjoyed himself.
I turned him around and we galloped off again, down the same path, until we got to where someone had dropped a tree across the path. I pulled him up (him still reluctant to stop), and we did it again. And again. Up and back.
I felt both afraid (he was, after all, the horse who helped me to invent the Superman Emergency Dismount) and super-alive. The wind whipped my face, stinging my cheeks. I know I'm 54 and shouldn't be riding like this. I know it's crazy and it's dangerous, and most importantly I know I'm mortal. The last time I rode a horse like this, I was an indestructable teen. And Dusty, in sedate hand-gallops, never felt this wild, this close to untamed.
On the final gallop, from the graveled area to the downed tree, I thought "I wonder if he's tired?" He's in better shape than he used to be, but if pressed to describe what kind of shape he was in, it's still pretty much "round".
I reached forward with the reins, midway up his neck, and leaned a bit forward. I never touched him with my legs; just the opposite, I was trying Very Hard NOT to touch him with the spurs at all.
He shifted into Sixth Gear. I could feel him both coil up and stretch out, close to the ground, flying. Oh. My.God. OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD!!!!!!! Yeah!!!!
About 20 feet before the downed tree, I started to yell "whoa" and sit back. He galloped on. I sat back more, really trying to grind my butt into the saddle, and took hold of the reins. We turned off to circle to the right, at a *slightly* slower gallop. I finally got him stopped about 20 feet from the gate back to the barn.
He walked a couple of steps, then jogged, and tried to go faster again. "No, no, we're done for the day", I said, and walked him on past the gate to the track on the other side of the field, to get him walked down a bit.
I let him stop and nosh a few times, too. He'd given me an incredible adrenaline rush, it was the least I could do. :)
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Bats
This is not a story about horses. I've just had my memory jolted recently in regards to some close encounters of the bat kind, and I thought I'd write about them.
My parents (and after the divorce, my mother) owned an old, large, three-family house. The house had been built in the mid-eighteen hundreds, and had some decidedly old "features". Ceramic knobs on the beams in the basement were an integral part of the wiring, for instance.
We grew up in the first floor apartment; the other two apartments were both accessed on the second floor, with third floor rooms in each. In one of the apartments we inherited tenants with the house, and they were there almost until my mother passed away - one himself passing away, and the other moving into a nursing home just before my mother died.
We went through a number of tenants over the years in the other apartment. That apartment had a door in the ceiling of the third floor hallway right at the top of the stairs. It gave access to the attic - a regular door, not your typical attic door. In order to access it, you needed to place a ladder at the top of the stairs, beneath the door. If the ladder toppled, you'd go down about 20 stairs and end up sprawled in the bathroom.
Both apartments also had little crawlspaces into the attic with half doors up in the third floor rooms. When I was a kid I loved those little doors - they were like Munchkin doors.
We also had another set of tenants: bats. Quite a few of them. In the summer, in the early evening, we'd see them circling around, diving, veering, catching their mosquito supper.
Anything that ate mosquitoes is all right by me. I liked our bats.
Over the years, various tenants would report bat sightings. Once, the very-pregnant wife got a shock when she went to open a window, only to find a bat hanging from it. Our first inkling that the bats were active again would be panic-filled tenants pounding on our side-door which accessed the stairway to the upper apartments. Screaming in fear or anger or both, demanding death to bats - I always thought it was funny. Miserable brat, I was.
The attic was off-limits to tenants, so my father, the delegated bat-executioner, would climb up a ladder at the top of the stairs, open the door in the ceiling, and haul himself up. The attic space was maybe five and a half feet high, and my father 6'1", so he'd always have to crouch over. In some places, there wasn't any real floor, just cross beams.
He would open the hatch to the widow's walk to get some light in, as well as bring an electric torch. Beaming the light into all the nooks and crannies, he would try to find the bats (he claimed, though he never found any) and any holes where the bats got in and out; and if he found anything that looked a likely access point, he'd patch it or stuff something into it and declare victory. He'd tell the tenants again to not leave the Munchkin doors open, and not to go up into the attic or even open the door to it.
As far as he was concerned, if they ignored his warnings any bat visitations were on their head.
And the next night we'd still see the bats coming out of the eaves at dusk to feast on the mosquitoes.
Fast-forward a number of years. A tenant had been a problem, had been trying to intimidate and threaten my now failing mother. I'd had to get involved with the jerk - sometimes I would be there and he wouldn't know it. When he'd start hammering on my mother's door and screaming obscenities I'd whip the door open and snarl at him and he'd run up the stairs so fast you'd think I'd held a gun on him - the asswipe was too much of a coward to confront a young woman, only had the balls to harass an elderly one. After finally getting them out, my mother decided she didn't want another tenant.
But she was sick and getting frail, and I decided to move into that apartment to keep an eye on her, take her to her doctor's visits, and be close by if she needed help. I didn't give any thought to the bats - we hadn't had a report of a visit for a few years.
One hot summer night, asleep with nothing on me but the bedsheets, I woke up terrified: something had just gone from my knee to about my chest, a soupcon of a touch, a flittering, a tingle... and then was gone.
"Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit!!!" I thought to myself as I jammed my eyes closed, pulled the sheet over my head, and lay there trying to not move at all, straining to hear my attacker.
The room had gone ominously quiet. I lay perfectly still, too afraid to move. Then I heard it: scritch scritch scritchscritchscritch scritch...
Thoughts going through my mind: "What the hell is he doing?? Where is he? I really need to turn on the light! There's no way I'm going to move! Hello, stupid: he knows you're here, it's not like not moving is gaining you anything! Get a grip! Turn on the fucking light! It's probably a mouse!"
Finally, I managed to pull the covers down off my face and look around. The scritching noise abruptly stopped when my sheets rustled, and I turned my bedside lamp on. I sat up and saw no one.
Boy was I glad no one had been around to witness what felt like hours spent cowering under the sheets. Relieved, feeling a bit sheepish, but still with a little niggling fear that whoever it was was standing in the living room around the corner, out of sight, but there... I forced myself to move, to get up and look - to face my arch-nemesisisis.
Just before I put my foot to the floor, I looked down. There, almost completely camouflaged on the dark brown section of the rug at the foot of my bed was a small bat trying to act nonchalant.
I had no experience dealing with bats in my bedroom. Little did I know that I would live to acquire that experience... but I digress.
I didn't have any gloves handy and didn't want to touch him bare-handed. Going out to the kitchen, I grabbed a paper bag and a tennis racket.
I'm still not quite sure why a tennis racket, except that it gave me a couple more feet to put between my hand and the bat. Using it, I tried to coax it into the paper bag.
The bat was having none of that: he clung onto the rug for dear life.
I nudged a bit harder. He clung a bit more desperately.
Finally, I managed to dislodge him and quickly closed the top of the bag, hoping that he was in the bottom and not squished in the folds. I threw a robe on and flew downstairs, opened up the door, and with the opening facing away from me shook the bag.
No bat. I shook it again. Yup, something's in there. I tipped it over, nothing. I tapped the bottom of the bag, and finally, the bat flopped out. He seemed alive, but wasn't moving.
I left him on the porch, and checked the next day. He wasn't there anymore, and I really hope he survived.
That was the first visit. I got a few more through that summer, sometimes finding them clinging to curtains, even walking around (I think they were juveniles - they didn't appear to be able to fly).
Once, as I was cooking up a batch of chili and had just lifted the cover to check on it, one flew down from the stove fan and landed on my jeans pocket.
After I got over my surprise (it isn't every day a bat uses you as a perch), I started to head out my back door and down the stairs. As I was going down the stairs, the bat started to climb. Up my shirt. Slowly, inexhorably.
"Stay THERE! Stay THERE! Stay THERE!!" I was chanting with each step. My mother, sitting in her kitchen on the other side of the stairway, called out "Who are you talking to, hon?"
I didn't answer, I didn't want to make any extra noise and startle it. I stepped out onto the stoop, grabbed the bottom of my shirt and started to dance around, flipping the shirt madly around, jumping up and down. I can only imagine what that looked like to a casual observer.
Finally he got the message and let go. He also ended up on the porch, a bit more violently than I'd intended. When I went back to check after telling my mother what had happened, there was no sign of him.
When thinking about these bat visits and my dumping them on the stoop unceremoniously, I sometimes wonder if maybe they all were really too young to be outside. I hope Miss Kitty, our calico cat, wasn't responsible for them dying a horrible death after I tried my best to "save" them...
Odd that I dredged up this memory today - it's the 17th anniversary of my mother's death.
My parents (and after the divorce, my mother) owned an old, large, three-family house. The house had been built in the mid-eighteen hundreds, and had some decidedly old "features". Ceramic knobs on the beams in the basement were an integral part of the wiring, for instance.
We grew up in the first floor apartment; the other two apartments were both accessed on the second floor, with third floor rooms in each. In one of the apartments we inherited tenants with the house, and they were there almost until my mother passed away - one himself passing away, and the other moving into a nursing home just before my mother died.
We went through a number of tenants over the years in the other apartment. That apartment had a door in the ceiling of the third floor hallway right at the top of the stairs. It gave access to the attic - a regular door, not your typical attic door. In order to access it, you needed to place a ladder at the top of the stairs, beneath the door. If the ladder toppled, you'd go down about 20 stairs and end up sprawled in the bathroom.
Both apartments also had little crawlspaces into the attic with half doors up in the third floor rooms. When I was a kid I loved those little doors - they were like Munchkin doors.
We also had another set of tenants: bats. Quite a few of them. In the summer, in the early evening, we'd see them circling around, diving, veering, catching their mosquito supper.
Anything that ate mosquitoes is all right by me. I liked our bats.
Over the years, various tenants would report bat sightings. Once, the very-pregnant wife got a shock when she went to open a window, only to find a bat hanging from it. Our first inkling that the bats were active again would be panic-filled tenants pounding on our side-door which accessed the stairway to the upper apartments. Screaming in fear or anger or both, demanding death to bats - I always thought it was funny. Miserable brat, I was.
The attic was off-limits to tenants, so my father, the delegated bat-executioner, would climb up a ladder at the top of the stairs, open the door in the ceiling, and haul himself up. The attic space was maybe five and a half feet high, and my father 6'1", so he'd always have to crouch over. In some places, there wasn't any real floor, just cross beams.
He would open the hatch to the widow's walk to get some light in, as well as bring an electric torch. Beaming the light into all the nooks and crannies, he would try to find the bats (he claimed, though he never found any) and any holes where the bats got in and out; and if he found anything that looked a likely access point, he'd patch it or stuff something into it and declare victory. He'd tell the tenants again to not leave the Munchkin doors open, and not to go up into the attic or even open the door to it.
As far as he was concerned, if they ignored his warnings any bat visitations were on their head.
And the next night we'd still see the bats coming out of the eaves at dusk to feast on the mosquitoes.
Fast-forward a number of years. A tenant had been a problem, had been trying to intimidate and threaten my now failing mother. I'd had to get involved with the jerk - sometimes I would be there and he wouldn't know it. When he'd start hammering on my mother's door and screaming obscenities I'd whip the door open and snarl at him and he'd run up the stairs so fast you'd think I'd held a gun on him - the asswipe was too much of a coward to confront a young woman, only had the balls to harass an elderly one. After finally getting them out, my mother decided she didn't want another tenant.
But she was sick and getting frail, and I decided to move into that apartment to keep an eye on her, take her to her doctor's visits, and be close by if she needed help. I didn't give any thought to the bats - we hadn't had a report of a visit for a few years.
One hot summer night, asleep with nothing on me but the bedsheets, I woke up terrified: something had just gone from my knee to about my chest, a soupcon of a touch, a flittering, a tingle... and then was gone.
"Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit!!!" I thought to myself as I jammed my eyes closed, pulled the sheet over my head, and lay there trying to not move at all, straining to hear my attacker.
The room had gone ominously quiet. I lay perfectly still, too afraid to move. Then I heard it: scritch scritch scritchscritchscritch scritch...
Thoughts going through my mind: "What the hell is he doing?? Where is he? I really need to turn on the light! There's no way I'm going to move! Hello, stupid: he knows you're here, it's not like not moving is gaining you anything! Get a grip! Turn on the fucking light! It's probably a mouse!"
Finally, I managed to pull the covers down off my face and look around. The scritching noise abruptly stopped when my sheets rustled, and I turned my bedside lamp on. I sat up and saw no one.
Boy was I glad no one had been around to witness what felt like hours spent cowering under the sheets. Relieved, feeling a bit sheepish, but still with a little niggling fear that whoever it was was standing in the living room around the corner, out of sight, but there... I forced myself to move, to get up and look - to face my arch-nemesisisis.
Just before I put my foot to the floor, I looked down. There, almost completely camouflaged on the dark brown section of the rug at the foot of my bed was a small bat trying to act nonchalant.
I had no experience dealing with bats in my bedroom. Little did I know that I would live to acquire that experience... but I digress.
I didn't have any gloves handy and didn't want to touch him bare-handed. Going out to the kitchen, I grabbed a paper bag and a tennis racket.
I'm still not quite sure why a tennis racket, except that it gave me a couple more feet to put between my hand and the bat. Using it, I tried to coax it into the paper bag.
The bat was having none of that: he clung onto the rug for dear life.
I nudged a bit harder. He clung a bit more desperately.
Finally, I managed to dislodge him and quickly closed the top of the bag, hoping that he was in the bottom and not squished in the folds. I threw a robe on and flew downstairs, opened up the door, and with the opening facing away from me shook the bag.
No bat. I shook it again. Yup, something's in there. I tipped it over, nothing. I tapped the bottom of the bag, and finally, the bat flopped out. He seemed alive, but wasn't moving.
I left him on the porch, and checked the next day. He wasn't there anymore, and I really hope he survived.
That was the first visit. I got a few more through that summer, sometimes finding them clinging to curtains, even walking around (I think they were juveniles - they didn't appear to be able to fly).
Once, as I was cooking up a batch of chili and had just lifted the cover to check on it, one flew down from the stove fan and landed on my jeans pocket.
After I got over my surprise (it isn't every day a bat uses you as a perch), I started to head out my back door and down the stairs. As I was going down the stairs, the bat started to climb. Up my shirt. Slowly, inexhorably.
"Stay THERE! Stay THERE! Stay THERE!!" I was chanting with each step. My mother, sitting in her kitchen on the other side of the stairway, called out "Who are you talking to, hon?"
I didn't answer, I didn't want to make any extra noise and startle it. I stepped out onto the stoop, grabbed the bottom of my shirt and started to dance around, flipping the shirt madly around, jumping up and down. I can only imagine what that looked like to a casual observer.
Finally he got the message and let go. He also ended up on the porch, a bit more violently than I'd intended. When I went back to check after telling my mother what had happened, there was no sign of him.
When thinking about these bat visits and my dumping them on the stoop unceremoniously, I sometimes wonder if maybe they all were really too young to be outside. I hope Miss Kitty, our calico cat, wasn't responsible for them dying a horrible death after I tried my best to "save" them...
Odd that I dredged up this memory today - it's the 17th anniversary of my mother's death.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Buzz and Jetty
Buzz died after falling down the shit hole. Not immediately, but it was the beginning of the end.
He'd always warned us: "Watch your step, don't fall down the shit hole!"
I suppose I should explain. The barn he was renting was a real New England old style, and really old, barn. It was built in such a way that the main entry was level with the drive while one side of the barn faced the street. The other side faced the field, and on the field side there was a whole other level of the barn evident - a basement of sorts. In past years it had been retrofitted by the owners for I think pigs; before that it probably had had stalls on that level.
The barn was old enough that the upper floor, though the planks were thick and solid and worn so smooth that they almost seemed to be one big plank, sagged quite a bit. Buzz was constantly vigilant about checking the joists he had put in in the basement that were holding the floor up; but where joists weren't, dips were. It was a floor with character.
There was a trap door in that floor, right outside the tack room - about 2 1/2 ft square and about 6" thick, with a big iron ring to lift it up with. In the winter, when the snow piled up so high that trucking wheelbarrows full of manure out to the back of the field became impossible, Buzz would lift the trap door and dump the manure down that hole. In the spring, with the snow gone, he'd spend weeks traipsing it all back out to the back of the field.
That was the shit hole. In the dead of winter he'd hoist the heavy trap up with a hay hook looped through the ring, to dump the brimming wheelbarrows. It seemed as if he was opening up a portal to the pits of hell: the malodorous steam would billow up in the cold air, the warmth of it hitting our faces as we giggled nervously, trying from a few steps back to see down through it to the manure mountain below. We were all a bit afraid of and fascinated by the shit hole.
So it's kind of ironic that Buzz himself fell down the shit hole. It must have been late winter, since he didn't fall too far, but he did scrape his leg up badly. He didn't take care of it, it got gangrenous, and he ended up in the hospital. He delegated care of the horses to Karen, since she lived so close it only made sense, I suppose. My memories of this time are a bit hazy; I think I also had a new boyfriend at the same time, my first, and so my attention was elsewhere. A typical self-involved teen.
I don't have a good sense of the time line: I think he was in the hospital for a couple of months before he finally died; but I also seem to remember he came out for a bit, then went back in. He had lost a lot of weight before he died, so he probably had more wrong with him than that he'd fallen down the shit hole, but I don't think anyone ever told us (or at least me) what the whole truth was. His was the first wake I'd ever attended, and I remember thinking how that body wasn't Buzz at all - it was too tiny, and too waxy, and too wrong.
After he died, his family and Karen argued about the horses. She said Buzz had told her she could keep them; I don't know if he did or he didn't, but he never put it in writing and they were his family so they had the last word.
They had the oldest ones - Little Dick and the little gray pony Smokey - trucked off to the killers, and I suppose must have sold most of the others, though I don't know that for a fact. I do know that they ended up keeping Jetty and a little white welsh pony named Jessie.
I don't know why they kept them - they had no love for them - unless it was just because Karen had been such a pain in the ass they did it for spite. And because I was Karen's friend, I wasn't allowed to see Jetty either.
I don't remember how it happened - I think I just got up the nerve to try again, and stopped at Buzz's ex-wife's house where they were being kept - but about a year later I was allowed to see Jetty.
They'd almost killed him. He was so thin, I could see all his ribs, and his hip bones jutted out like wire coat hangers. I begged them to let me start bringing food, and they said "Sure, it's your money". So I started bringing food for Jetty and Jessie.
For about a month, I'd bring over grain and some hay. I'd gotten maybe a hundred pounds back on Jetty - his condition wasn't great, but he wasn't quite so skeletal any more. For the first time in over a year I climbed on his back for this photo -
I'd thought the photo in the previous post was my only one of Jetty; I'd forgotten this one, which I just found recently looking through an old photo album.
He seemed so frail, at first I wasn't sure if he could support my weight, and I didn't want to ask him to move. But he knew he had a rider up, and he arched his neck and tucked his head in, proudly. I got off him quickly but I was encouraged: he seemed to be rallying. I went home happy that day.
A few days later, I brought over some worm medicine for them. I mixed a bit in Jetty's and a bit in Jessie's grain. Jetty ate it hungrily, but Jessie was suspicious. I left it there, hoping she'd eat it later. Neither one of them had been wormed in a long time.
After I left, Buzz's family saw that she wasn't eating her grain and, even though I'd told them that I'd mixed wormer in it, fed that to Jetty as well - they didn't want any to go to waste - as if they'd been the ones to actually put up the money for it.
Jetty colicked that night - the double dose of worm medicine (and it was very harsh stuff back then) was too much for his already stressed system. They called me, and I walked him for hours, and I called Billy Cash, Buzz's friend, who came over and got mineral oil into him, and whiskey (these were the things the old-timers did for colic), and we walked and walked into the night.
I went home exhausted; he didn't seem as stressed so they told me to go home. The next morning they called to tell me he'd died.
He was a good horse.
He'd always warned us: "Watch your step, don't fall down the shit hole!"
I suppose I should explain. The barn he was renting was a real New England old style, and really old, barn. It was built in such a way that the main entry was level with the drive while one side of the barn faced the street. The other side faced the field, and on the field side there was a whole other level of the barn evident - a basement of sorts. In past years it had been retrofitted by the owners for I think pigs; before that it probably had had stalls on that level.
The barn was old enough that the upper floor, though the planks were thick and solid and worn so smooth that they almost seemed to be one big plank, sagged quite a bit. Buzz was constantly vigilant about checking the joists he had put in in the basement that were holding the floor up; but where joists weren't, dips were. It was a floor with character.
There was a trap door in that floor, right outside the tack room - about 2 1/2 ft square and about 6" thick, with a big iron ring to lift it up with. In the winter, when the snow piled up so high that trucking wheelbarrows full of manure out to the back of the field became impossible, Buzz would lift the trap door and dump the manure down that hole. In the spring, with the snow gone, he'd spend weeks traipsing it all back out to the back of the field.
That was the shit hole. In the dead of winter he'd hoist the heavy trap up with a hay hook looped through the ring, to dump the brimming wheelbarrows. It seemed as if he was opening up a portal to the pits of hell: the malodorous steam would billow up in the cold air, the warmth of it hitting our faces as we giggled nervously, trying from a few steps back to see down through it to the manure mountain below. We were all a bit afraid of and fascinated by the shit hole.
So it's kind of ironic that Buzz himself fell down the shit hole. It must have been late winter, since he didn't fall too far, but he did scrape his leg up badly. He didn't take care of it, it got gangrenous, and he ended up in the hospital. He delegated care of the horses to Karen, since she lived so close it only made sense, I suppose. My memories of this time are a bit hazy; I think I also had a new boyfriend at the same time, my first, and so my attention was elsewhere. A typical self-involved teen.
I don't have a good sense of the time line: I think he was in the hospital for a couple of months before he finally died; but I also seem to remember he came out for a bit, then went back in. He had lost a lot of weight before he died, so he probably had more wrong with him than that he'd fallen down the shit hole, but I don't think anyone ever told us (or at least me) what the whole truth was. His was the first wake I'd ever attended, and I remember thinking how that body wasn't Buzz at all - it was too tiny, and too waxy, and too wrong.
After he died, his family and Karen argued about the horses. She said Buzz had told her she could keep them; I don't know if he did or he didn't, but he never put it in writing and they were his family so they had the last word.
They had the oldest ones - Little Dick and the little gray pony Smokey - trucked off to the killers, and I suppose must have sold most of the others, though I don't know that for a fact. I do know that they ended up keeping Jetty and a little white welsh pony named Jessie.
I don't know why they kept them - they had no love for them - unless it was just because Karen had been such a pain in the ass they did it for spite. And because I was Karen's friend, I wasn't allowed to see Jetty either.
I don't remember how it happened - I think I just got up the nerve to try again, and stopped at Buzz's ex-wife's house where they were being kept - but about a year later I was allowed to see Jetty.
They'd almost killed him. He was so thin, I could see all his ribs, and his hip bones jutted out like wire coat hangers. I begged them to let me start bringing food, and they said "Sure, it's your money". So I started bringing food for Jetty and Jessie.
For about a month, I'd bring over grain and some hay. I'd gotten maybe a hundred pounds back on Jetty - his condition wasn't great, but he wasn't quite so skeletal any more. For the first time in over a year I climbed on his back for this photo -
I'd thought the photo in the previous post was my only one of Jetty; I'd forgotten this one, which I just found recently looking through an old photo album.He seemed so frail, at first I wasn't sure if he could support my weight, and I didn't want to ask him to move. But he knew he had a rider up, and he arched his neck and tucked his head in, proudly. I got off him quickly but I was encouraged: he seemed to be rallying. I went home happy that day.
A few days later, I brought over some worm medicine for them. I mixed a bit in Jetty's and a bit in Jessie's grain. Jetty ate it hungrily, but Jessie was suspicious. I left it there, hoping she'd eat it later. Neither one of them had been wormed in a long time.
After I left, Buzz's family saw that she wasn't eating her grain and, even though I'd told them that I'd mixed wormer in it, fed that to Jetty as well - they didn't want any to go to waste - as if they'd been the ones to actually put up the money for it.
Jetty colicked that night - the double dose of worm medicine (and it was very harsh stuff back then) was too much for his already stressed system. They called me, and I walked him for hours, and I called Billy Cash, Buzz's friend, who came over and got mineral oil into him, and whiskey (these were the things the old-timers did for colic), and we walked and walked into the night.
I went home exhausted; he didn't seem as stressed so they told me to go home. The next morning they called to tell me he'd died.
He was a good horse.
Monday, May 11, 2009
A Tale of Two Slushes
Sent to the younger sister of one of my partners in crime at Buzz's barn. She'd posted about just watching True Grit again, and that her favorite scene was where John Wayne puts the reins in his teeth and charges at the villains with a rifle in one hand and a pistol in the other.
I don't know if Karen ever told you about the time we went to the variety store on 129 (Mike's Corner Variety, right?) for slushes, against Buzz's direct orders to stay off the road.
She and I think it was Cherry Berry went in for the slushes, while I held the horses. When they came back, Karen handed me my slush and hers, so I put the reins in my teeth (on Jetty) and she went to climb on (I think Heidi).
Heidi started to move off, so Jetty thought we were going home, and turned and started trotting/prancing off (remember how he never walked)?
My reins-in-my-teeth ride ended less than stellarly: I fell off, still clutching the slushes, right on the only hard part of that mostly dirt parking lot: a big slab of concrete. Karen and Cherry raced off to get Jetty who was running down the middle of 129 (we didn't want him running into the barn riderless, or Buzz would have banished us) while I lay on the concrete moaning.
They caught him, and brought him back, and I rode him home (really wishing he'd just friggin WALK for a change). I'd bruised my tailbone, and it was probably the most painful injury I'd ever had.
Here's a photo of Jetty - the only one I have, sadly. He was much more handsome than this Polaroid made him appear; he had lovely proportions, not a huge head and small butt. That's Karen on Honey, behind us.
I don't know if Karen ever told you about the time we went to the variety store on 129 (Mike's Corner Variety, right?) for slushes, against Buzz's direct orders to stay off the road.
She and I think it was Cherry Berry went in for the slushes, while I held the horses. When they came back, Karen handed me my slush and hers, so I put the reins in my teeth (on Jetty) and she went to climb on (I think Heidi).
Heidi started to move off, so Jetty thought we were going home, and turned and started trotting/prancing off (remember how he never walked)?
My reins-in-my-teeth ride ended less than stellarly: I fell off, still clutching the slushes, right on the only hard part of that mostly dirt parking lot: a big slab of concrete. Karen and Cherry raced off to get Jetty who was running down the middle of 129 (we didn't want him running into the barn riderless, or Buzz would have banished us) while I lay on the concrete moaning.
They caught him, and brought him back, and I rode him home (really wishing he'd just friggin WALK for a change). I'd bruised my tailbone, and it was probably the most painful injury I'd ever had.
Here's a photo of Jetty - the only one I have, sadly. He was much more handsome than this Polaroid made him appear; he had lovely proportions, not a huge head and small butt. That's Karen on Honey, behind us.
Friday, April 24, 2009
A Recent Day at Crystal Farm
It was late morning. When I got there, I was told that Tico had already been turned out and Dusty hadn’t gone out because the turnouts had been too wet in the morning.
No big deal - I figured, switch Dusty for Tico in that turnout, Dusty will get to stretch his legs and I can ride Tico.
When I saw Dusty in his stall, I changed my mind: he was coated in mud and loose hair. I decided I’d vacuum him first (I have a Shop Vac just for that use) and get the dead hair and mud off him, then I'd switch them around.
There was a LOT of loose hair and dirt, I had to empty the vacuum after doing one side of him, then again after the other.
Of course a few carrots and Kashi bars were passed his way all the while, and praise for being such a good boy, just standing there. Then I picked his feet and we started to go out.
It was then that I saw Tico in all his muddy splendor.
I hadn’t recognized him at first – he was so coated in mud I wasn’t sure if it was Tico or the appaloosa Comet, another boarder, I was seeing. But there was a blue halter on the muddy face, and when I called his head came up and he came running over.
The switch went well - Tico can sometimes be a twit with Dusty, he's very jealous of any treats Dusty gets, and has been known to act out about it in his stall. I didn't want to see any such bad behavior with them out in the turnout, so I made sure to give Tico a treat, switch the lead line, and keep a good hold of his halter to make him pay attention - and he did.
The amount of dried mud on him, I didn’t want to just move it around and have it end up crusting on his skin so I decided to vacuum him too.
This was not a decision I made without some trepidation. He’s not good about being vacuumed and we've had some cross-tie breaking incidents involving the vacuum.
The vacuum has never done anything to deserve this kind of attitude.
While I've been accused of being a bit of a fluffbunny in my dealings with horses, I don't have a lot of patience with a horse who was good about something *once*, and then not. He'd apparently come to the conclusion after some thought that he didn't care for being vacuumed. Breaking crossties and going on walkabout on the property was definitely the option he preferred when the vacuum was presented.
Not being vacuumed was not an option as far as I was concerned. Still, I just didn’t feel like having to fix broken crossties again; so Tico, the vacuum, and I (with a pocket full of carrot bits), all went into his stall together.
I turned the vacuum on. He eyeballed the vacuum and cowered against the wall. He did a little tippy-hoof dance, and shot me the stink eye. I produced a carrot, and approached, vacuum nozzle in hand. The carrot reached his face as the nozzle touched his skin. His skin jumped, but he stayed put.
We continued this approach, for a bit - he'd get a piece of carrot if the eyeball was too buggy, but the vacuum was relentless. When he'd start to really get himself wound up, turning, or backing up, I'd growl "Whoa!" and he'd stop - he'd listen. Which makes me even more sure that it was all an act: if he was truly afraid he'd have knocked me down and gotten the hell outa Dodge.
I had to get him turned around to get the other side, and it all started again of course. The equine brain is a wonderful thing: things they see with only the left eye are completely surprising when they're turned around and catch their first glimpse - again - this time with the right eye.
With the continued application of well-timed carrot bits, we got through the ordeal. By the time I was done, he was still standing against one wall, but with his head down, relaxed.
So I took him out onto the crossties, and noticed a big nasty streak of black on the inside of his back leg. Crap! Out came the warm water, and he got a quick cleaning *down there*. :)
Of course this all took some time and I had things to do. I debated not riding at all, but decided I’d just do 15 minutes. I brought him out back, and we trotted and cantered a bit, and he was pretty good – a bit high headed, but moving up and not doing anything really naughty. There were gusts of wind, and everyone knows they carry horse-killing monsters, but all in all he was pretty well behaved.
I was just about to go back to the barn, but I thought I’d try something.
One of the other boarders had set up some jumps out back, including a tiny thing – basically they’d taken a couple of the X-shaped bottoms from some jump standards, turned them on their sides and set a rail across them. It was about one foot, maybe a foot and a half high.
Since this is a horse who doesn't like lifting his feet up all that high (and so every so often trips over things real or imaginary) I decided I’d have him walk over it, to get him to lift his legs.
We walked up to it. I gave him a chance to really look at it.
The first time, he bumped his front legs, not lifting them up high enough. He stopped for a moment after getting his front legs over, then tried his backs.
With his back legs again, he rapped against the rail. I think he was hoping he’d knock it down with one of his back legs and wouldn’t have to step up with the other, because he kind of ended up almost standing on it on the way over, and then getting a bit tangled in it. It stayed right where it was.
He didn’t like that at all.
I asked him do it again. His front legs he lifted right up and over, quite handily.
Then we stopped. You could almost hear the gears grinding in his head.
I didn’t do anything, just sat there waiting to see what he’d do.
He started to move... sideways. As nice a sidepass as you’d like to see. Until we got to the X, which was of course wider and higher than the rail itself.
He stopped again, thinking. He must have stood that way another 20 seconds, before I gave him a little nudge.
He *very* carefully lifted first one back leg, then the other, up over the rail, not even a tap.
For that, he got to grab some grass on our way back to the barn.
No big deal - I figured, switch Dusty for Tico in that turnout, Dusty will get to stretch his legs and I can ride Tico.
When I saw Dusty in his stall, I changed my mind: he was coated in mud and loose hair. I decided I’d vacuum him first (I have a Shop Vac just for that use) and get the dead hair and mud off him, then I'd switch them around.
There was a LOT of loose hair and dirt, I had to empty the vacuum after doing one side of him, then again after the other.
Of course a few carrots and Kashi bars were passed his way all the while, and praise for being such a good boy, just standing there. Then I picked his feet and we started to go out.
It was then that I saw Tico in all his muddy splendor.
I hadn’t recognized him at first – he was so coated in mud I wasn’t sure if it was Tico or the appaloosa Comet, another boarder, I was seeing. But there was a blue halter on the muddy face, and when I called his head came up and he came running over.
The switch went well - Tico can sometimes be a twit with Dusty, he's very jealous of any treats Dusty gets, and has been known to act out about it in his stall. I didn't want to see any such bad behavior with them out in the turnout, so I made sure to give Tico a treat, switch the lead line, and keep a good hold of his halter to make him pay attention - and he did.
The amount of dried mud on him, I didn’t want to just move it around and have it end up crusting on his skin so I decided to vacuum him too.
This was not a decision I made without some trepidation. He’s not good about being vacuumed and we've had some cross-tie breaking incidents involving the vacuum.
The vacuum has never done anything to deserve this kind of attitude.
While I've been accused of being a bit of a fluffbunny in my dealings with horses, I don't have a lot of patience with a horse who was good about something *once*, and then not. He'd apparently come to the conclusion after some thought that he didn't care for being vacuumed. Breaking crossties and going on walkabout on the property was definitely the option he preferred when the vacuum was presented.
Not being vacuumed was not an option as far as I was concerned. Still, I just didn’t feel like having to fix broken crossties again; so Tico, the vacuum, and I (with a pocket full of carrot bits), all went into his stall together.
I turned the vacuum on. He eyeballed the vacuum and cowered against the wall. He did a little tippy-hoof dance, and shot me the stink eye. I produced a carrot, and approached, vacuum nozzle in hand. The carrot reached his face as the nozzle touched his skin. His skin jumped, but he stayed put.
We continued this approach, for a bit - he'd get a piece of carrot if the eyeball was too buggy, but the vacuum was relentless. When he'd start to really get himself wound up, turning, or backing up, I'd growl "Whoa!" and he'd stop - he'd listen. Which makes me even more sure that it was all an act: if he was truly afraid he'd have knocked me down and gotten the hell outa Dodge.
I had to get him turned around to get the other side, and it all started again of course. The equine brain is a wonderful thing: things they see with only the left eye are completely surprising when they're turned around and catch their first glimpse - again - this time with the right eye.
With the continued application of well-timed carrot bits, we got through the ordeal. By the time I was done, he was still standing against one wall, but with his head down, relaxed.
So I took him out onto the crossties, and noticed a big nasty streak of black on the inside of his back leg. Crap! Out came the warm water, and he got a quick cleaning *down there*. :)
Of course this all took some time and I had things to do. I debated not riding at all, but decided I’d just do 15 minutes. I brought him out back, and we trotted and cantered a bit, and he was pretty good – a bit high headed, but moving up and not doing anything really naughty. There were gusts of wind, and everyone knows they carry horse-killing monsters, but all in all he was pretty well behaved.
I was just about to go back to the barn, but I thought I’d try something.
One of the other boarders had set up some jumps out back, including a tiny thing – basically they’d taken a couple of the X-shaped bottoms from some jump standards, turned them on their sides and set a rail across them. It was about one foot, maybe a foot and a half high.
Since this is a horse who doesn't like lifting his feet up all that high (and so every so often trips over things real or imaginary) I decided I’d have him walk over it, to get him to lift his legs.
We walked up to it. I gave him a chance to really look at it.
The first time, he bumped his front legs, not lifting them up high enough. He stopped for a moment after getting his front legs over, then tried his backs.
With his back legs again, he rapped against the rail. I think he was hoping he’d knock it down with one of his back legs and wouldn’t have to step up with the other, because he kind of ended up almost standing on it on the way over, and then getting a bit tangled in it. It stayed right where it was.
He didn’t like that at all.
I asked him do it again. His front legs he lifted right up and over, quite handily.
Then we stopped. You could almost hear the gears grinding in his head.
I didn’t do anything, just sat there waiting to see what he’d do.
He started to move... sideways. As nice a sidepass as you’d like to see. Until we got to the X, which was of course wider and higher than the rail itself.
He stopped again, thinking. He must have stood that way another 20 seconds, before I gave him a little nudge.
He *very* carefully lifted first one back leg, then the other, up over the rail, not even a tap.
For that, he got to grab some grass on our way back to the barn.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Jetty
I'm going to be skipping around a bit, I guess. I was just reading a post from mugwumpchronicles.blogspot.com about an old horse named Annie, and she reminded me of an old horse who taught me a lot, when I was growing up.
He was one of Buzz's horses, and named Jetty.
I've found the only photo I have of Jetty, me riding him. Karen is on Honey, the palomino.
He was actually much more handsome than this Polaroid makes him look. His head was not that huge, and his butt not that small. I remember being appalled at this when it was taken, but I'm glad now that I saved it.
Jetty was not in the usual string of horses we little girls were allowed to ride. To ride Jetty, you had to earn the privilege. I worked my way up the ranks, first with Zero the sociopath pony, then Oscar the ugly palomino (who taught me that a horse will ALWAYS run back to the barn), then Little Dick the hackney stud pony (who helped put me on Buzz's good side, winning him 6-packs of Schlitz from unsuspecting patsies), until I reached the pinnacle: I was Jetty's rider. No one else was allowed to ride Jetty but me.
Jetty was beautiful. He was about 16H. A big red bay with black mane and tail, his coat shone dark copper in the sun. He was also pretty old - Buzz said he was about 25, 26 years old. When you looked at his back, you could believe it: he had a prominent wither with a bit of a swayback. He'd had a bowed tendon at some point in his life but it was now fully healed; and though it didn't bother him, he would twist his left foot out to the side in a little flipper-like movement when he moved.
Leading him along, he looked like a regular old horse, but once I clambered onto his back, he become the quintessential "noble mount", head tucked, neck arched, flaring nostrils - bigger than life, awe-inspiring. This horse never walked. His slow speed was "prance", and after that we had trot, then an incredible extended trot, then canter and gallop.
And then there was the "canter in place": if I held him back and asked for a canter with my leg, he would - only we wouldn't go anywhere. He'd also switch leads at a touch of my leg, every stride if I asked.
Idiot that I was back then, I didn't realize that a lot of what Jetty did was dressage - and higher level, at that.
What Buzz told us of his history was this: he'd been a lead horse at the track, and had been owned by Billy Cash, a track blacksmith at Suffolk Downs (I think it was Suffolk, not Rockingham). Buzz said he'd bowed the tendon there, and Billy Cash was going to have him put down because it was a bad bow and he didn't think he'd be able to get him sound.
But Buzz, who'd been trying to get Billy Cash to sell him for a long time, persuaded Billy to give Jetty to him. He wanted to try to get him sound.
And this is what he did: he set up a big sling, and supported Jetty in that sling for weeks to keep the weight off his leg, while wrapping it every day, until finally Jetty walked off sound. And aside from the flipper movement to the side, you wouldn't have known the leg had been injured.
This all happened before I started going to Buzz's barn. I hung on every word as he described putting up the sling, and getting it around Jetty's belly, and how some horses can't be slung up like that because they panic but Jetty was a perfect patient and he brought him around. Then he'd give Jetty a beer.
We all accepted Buzz's story because we were kids, and it sounded good to us. And it was all "a few years ago", we couldn't conceive of the possibility that Jetty's history could go back further. It's only in retrospect, thinking about the way that horse could move, that leads me to believe there had to have been more.
He was a good horse.
We would ride down to the Old Airport in Billerica: me on Jetty; Karen on either Honey (a palomino mare Buzz had brought home one day from the Shrewsbury Auction) or Heidi, a grade mare Buzz told us was Little Dick's daughter; Cherrie on either Heidi or another horse (I'm having trouble remembering all their names, sadly).
The ride over, Jetty would start to lather up: he never stopped prancing, you see. Karen would sing - usually "Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo", really loudly and really off-key. We'd laugh and joke, talking about family and boys and school and everything else. The ride down Aldrich Road always seemed both shorter than expected and longer than it was the day before, because we all anticipated what was to come. Even the horses would start to get excited as we approached the turn-off.
Turning in to a tree-lined path, we crossed through woods towards "the Pits". These were deep holes in the ground where we believed granite had been taken out years before, and that filled with water in the spring. There were often a bunch of older kids hanging out there, drinking and carrying on - it was always a bit scary passing them. But beyond them, we would arrive at the long, wide dirt path that went behind the abandoned hangar on Hopkins Street.
There, we'd race. Riding like indians and pretending we were jockeys, crouched over necks, their manes whipping our faces, our own hair streaming behind us and our grins wide and wild, we'd race until the dirt road ran out.
Then we'd turn around and do it again.
Jetty never won, though he tried. I'm not sure if it was age or that he'd pranced for nearly two miles, but I always was a little sad for him - I could tell he wanted to be fastest, he wanted to win, for me.
He was a good horse.
We had a lot of adventures over at the Old Airport. Hopefully I'll write about them sooner than I did this one.
He was one of Buzz's horses, and named Jetty.
I've found the only photo I have of Jetty, me riding him. Karen is on Honey, the palomino.
He was actually much more handsome than this Polaroid makes him look. His head was not that huge, and his butt not that small. I remember being appalled at this when it was taken, but I'm glad now that I saved it.
Jetty was not in the usual string of horses we little girls were allowed to ride. To ride Jetty, you had to earn the privilege. I worked my way up the ranks, first with Zero the sociopath pony, then Oscar the ugly palomino (who taught me that a horse will ALWAYS run back to the barn), then Little Dick the hackney stud pony (who helped put me on Buzz's good side, winning him 6-packs of Schlitz from unsuspecting patsies), until I reached the pinnacle: I was Jetty's rider. No one else was allowed to ride Jetty but me.
Jetty was beautiful. He was about 16H. A big red bay with black mane and tail, his coat shone dark copper in the sun. He was also pretty old - Buzz said he was about 25, 26 years old. When you looked at his back, you could believe it: he had a prominent wither with a bit of a swayback. He'd had a bowed tendon at some point in his life but it was now fully healed; and though it didn't bother him, he would twist his left foot out to the side in a little flipper-like movement when he moved.
Leading him along, he looked like a regular old horse, but once I clambered onto his back, he become the quintessential "noble mount", head tucked, neck arched, flaring nostrils - bigger than life, awe-inspiring. This horse never walked. His slow speed was "prance", and after that we had trot, then an incredible extended trot, then canter and gallop.
And then there was the "canter in place": if I held him back and asked for a canter with my leg, he would - only we wouldn't go anywhere. He'd also switch leads at a touch of my leg, every stride if I asked.
Idiot that I was back then, I didn't realize that a lot of what Jetty did was dressage - and higher level, at that.
What Buzz told us of his history was this: he'd been a lead horse at the track, and had been owned by Billy Cash, a track blacksmith at Suffolk Downs (I think it was Suffolk, not Rockingham). Buzz said he'd bowed the tendon there, and Billy Cash was going to have him put down because it was a bad bow and he didn't think he'd be able to get him sound.
But Buzz, who'd been trying to get Billy Cash to sell him for a long time, persuaded Billy to give Jetty to him. He wanted to try to get him sound.
And this is what he did: he set up a big sling, and supported Jetty in that sling for weeks to keep the weight off his leg, while wrapping it every day, until finally Jetty walked off sound. And aside from the flipper movement to the side, you wouldn't have known the leg had been injured.
This all happened before I started going to Buzz's barn. I hung on every word as he described putting up the sling, and getting it around Jetty's belly, and how some horses can't be slung up like that because they panic but Jetty was a perfect patient and he brought him around. Then he'd give Jetty a beer.
We all accepted Buzz's story because we were kids, and it sounded good to us. And it was all "a few years ago", we couldn't conceive of the possibility that Jetty's history could go back further. It's only in retrospect, thinking about the way that horse could move, that leads me to believe there had to have been more.
He was a good horse.
We would ride down to the Old Airport in Billerica: me on Jetty; Karen on either Honey (a palomino mare Buzz had brought home one day from the Shrewsbury Auction) or Heidi, a grade mare Buzz told us was Little Dick's daughter; Cherrie on either Heidi or another horse (I'm having trouble remembering all their names, sadly).
The ride over, Jetty would start to lather up: he never stopped prancing, you see. Karen would sing - usually "Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo", really loudly and really off-key. We'd laugh and joke, talking about family and boys and school and everything else. The ride down Aldrich Road always seemed both shorter than expected and longer than it was the day before, because we all anticipated what was to come. Even the horses would start to get excited as we approached the turn-off.
Turning in to a tree-lined path, we crossed through woods towards "the Pits". These were deep holes in the ground where we believed granite had been taken out years before, and that filled with water in the spring. There were often a bunch of older kids hanging out there, drinking and carrying on - it was always a bit scary passing them. But beyond them, we would arrive at the long, wide dirt path that went behind the abandoned hangar on Hopkins Street.
There, we'd race. Riding like indians and pretending we were jockeys, crouched over necks, their manes whipping our faces, our own hair streaming behind us and our grins wide and wild, we'd race until the dirt road ran out.
Then we'd turn around and do it again.
Jetty never won, though he tried. I'm not sure if it was age or that he'd pranced for nearly two miles, but I always was a little sad for him - I could tell he wanted to be fastest, he wanted to win, for me.
He was a good horse.
We had a lot of adventures over at the Old Airport. Hopefully I'll write about them sooner than I did this one.
Friday, December 26, 2008
I've been looking at one of my other sites...
This still cracks me up:
Tico being himself.
If that takes too long, go back to the main page and click on the low-bandwidth version. There are also other movies, and some photos, from Dusty's 25th Birthday this past April.
Merry Christmas! (Alright, yes, I'm a day late...)
Tico being himself.
If that takes too long, go back to the main page and click on the low-bandwidth version. There are also other movies, and some photos, from Dusty's 25th Birthday this past April.
Merry Christmas! (Alright, yes, I'm a day late...)
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