OffGridFarms.com

Hubby's Corner.........

Well, maybe not just a corner, but a whole page. Ah the life..

I've often thought about writing a book "Men, and their women who love horses". There definitely are some lessons to be learned... Me, I love being around intelligent beings and horses definitely qualify. I often refer to our horses as autistic 5 year olds. Not in a negative sense, or as an excuse for bad behavior, just because they take a special kind of understanding to break through their thick hide. It's a communication thing, and some of us get it, and well, some just don't.

Little known fact, I like Juggling (as in keeping 3 balls in the air). It is great exercise and has one very interesting side benefit. It teaches a lot about how to do something without really thinking about. I mean if you try to think too much about the process of actually juggling, you'll find that you cannot do it. It is kind of a moving meditation mythologies thing.

In case you have not noticed, we live in a rural area where power failures are not uncommon, add to that living on a island, and you can understand why it can take more than a few hours (or days) to get power restored after a storm. We always enjoy watching the raging storms (knowing that the windmill is cranking). We also take some enjoyment when the power fails on island and we're watching the big screen TV.

Living off the power grid is a lot easier (and cheaper) today than ever before, but still most people would rather spend the easy 10K or so hooking up to the hydro poles than spending 25K on a renewable setup.

I keep running into people who want me to talk about living off the grid, or renewable energies. It's all cool stuff, but talking about it is no where near as much fun as actually living it. Indeed, I'm all talked out about it. Now ask me to help you spend thousands of dollars building a setup, and that's different.

But I digress.. Today I'm talking Horses.

I remember riding at a young age, maybe 10 or 12. It was always fun to head out to the country for pony rides at some road side farm stand (ya, they used to exist). I've enjoyed riding down the grand canyon, in the Tetons and of course Yosemite.. All this long before I started dating my other half. After we started dating, I used to stand in the frozen riding ring while the 'girlfriend' took lessons. The other lesson women would make fun of me, like what would a guy know. But truth be told, I'd never really had any 'real' lessons before, and I started (on the hush) taking some lessons (on a 17hh really competitive horse). Then one day the instructor asked me to step up and do the course. You should have seen those neasayers faces on a clean run. I even did a couple of months of serious training before I did a week long trek out to the Canadian rockies. (http://www.trail-rides.ca). It sure helped my ass get used to 6hrs a day of riding, and made a real difference in my understanding of hunter jumper.

It's been around horses close to 30 years now. During that time I've seen the rise and fall of a number of equestrian oddities. Things like special foods, special boots, special farrier's, barefoot techniques, training techniques... I think you get my drift. I'm not here to knock any of these practices, but they definitely seem to have cycles. When in doubt, let common sense prevail. Be observant and go by what works. If something's working for you though, think twice before changing.

We're big on wood shavings (the white fluffy stuff) for our stalls. Their an added expense, but I credit our boys leg health to them. Rubber matts are good, shavnings on top, even better. I shutter to think about how many vet bills they've prevented.

One thing I'm always on the watch for is a good farriers. They are hard to find (and keep) We've been really lucky with ours (every shoe a hand made shoe). We try to keep him happy by doing a lot of ground work with our horses. There is more to it than just picking feet. It's handling. People just don't seem to understand how farriers risk their lives every time they crawl under a horse. You need to do everything you can to make your horse comfortable with having its leg up in the air.

One of the scariest horse thing's I've had to do was hammering a shoe back on the wife's horse. Exhausting, and the anxiety of those last few smacks as the nail goes deep, and SHOULD errupt out the side (as in, sorry hunny I just lamed your horse).