What a life! Paradise, n'est pas? The lush greenness, horses in the field. They are foragers by nature, consuming 1-1.5% of their body weight every day plus, it keeps the fields down. There is a scheduled rotation of the four fields, separated by fencing to prevent overgrazing of one area. Hopefully, you won't have an uncooperative grazer, repeatedly grazing in the same spot, over and over, eating what they like best, then moving on when there is no longer any available. The three horses have sixty acres and so, there is plenty for them. to be honest, the Chincoteague wears a muzzle to keep him from overgrazing.
Certain horses and ponies are prone to grass founder, especially in the spring or during heavy rains when the grass is greener and higher in sugar. The founder is a common cause of lameness in horses. It involves damage to the laminar connection between the hoof wall and the coffin bone. Inflammation of the foot. Sounds innocent, but, in reality, it's not.
“Treatment of a foundered horse can only be considered an attempt to allow the horse to exist comfortably with structural damage,” “You can diminish pain and possibly prevent more damage, but you can't reverse what has been done. Source
It's Wednesday! We are walking! As always, I want to thank @Tattoodjay for hosting the #WednesdayWalk challenge! It is a challenge that allows you to share what you see as you walk through your day. Show me where you walked today, I want to see what you got to see and hear what you have to say. If you want to do the challenge, drop him a link on his #WednesdayWalk post here.b so he can try to visit yours! Whatever your day looks like, it is worth a walk-through. You can't always have sunshine and rainbows, but, you can always have a #WednesdayWalk!
Let's walk a little bit further down to the other field. We are doing this walk today because one of the horses lost his muzzle. A muzzle is a piece of equipment that fits over the mouth, it is used for limiting the amount of grazing a horse does while out in the field. Need to add the cats to the Animal Crossing sign. The outside of the fence needs a little mowing with a generous amount of rain last week. Thankfully, it is during the night most times, so there are nearly no lost days.
I have already covered one of the fields and this is a large one and a few treed areas where they like to hide in the shade. Or hide from me, which is pretty possible. Especially when I have to bring them in. They would rather stay out all night and frolic in the fields. I do switch it up in the warm summer months, like today for example. I keep them in during the day when it is hot and put them out after dinner. It was 90 F (32 C) today, so they were in and I just put them out ten minutes ago. I gave them a nice brushing and picked their feet. You pick a horse's hooves in case they get something like gravel, dirt, or any kind of debris in there. It happens all the time. Lodged in the wrong way, it can lead to discomfort, possible infection, and lameness. Everything that can go wrong seems to point you toward lameness.
I walked Through the fields to the edge of the fences and couldn't imagine where they went. I wasn't too concerned as the sugar content is getting less than in the spring. I was a bit concerned, but, Henry seems to have slowed down in his overgrazing and April has too. So, I will still look, but, I am no longer in panic mode. This stream is merely a big puddle, but, I can see my reflection in it. See? It often seems to me that nature gets more interesting the closer we get, the smaller the slices. It truly is a fractal system.
I have walked to the last pasture, and as you can see, we had a little problem crop up last week. With the rain two black walnut trees fell down, one knocking into the other. What a sad day that was. A guy who owns a sawmill came and took the trees and for the price of one half of one of the trees, will be cutting boards. Sad as the entire thing is, at least it is a salvageable situation. Have you ever bought/made fresh boards like that? Incredibly beautiful. Not to take trees down, but, to use and not waste what falls.
The Chincoteague, Henry, loves to jump UP this wall. He does it rarely, but, they have a hunt every fall and if he sees them, he will jump up and away to join them. It is tall enough to not have a fence, but, one may need to be put up. It is at the wall that I found not one, but, both of the muzzles, one almost next to the other. Seriously. It looks like they scraped them until they came off. Ah, yes. Henry Houdini. Now I remember that about him. April is just a copycat horse. I backtrack to the barn to refit them. That was three hours I'll never get back.
All I have are my words, armed in my mind, written in pen, stand by stand. Oh, yes. Still by hand. It has a different feel. Altered not by keys, backspace, and delete, I write, erase, tear it to pieces and start all over again. And again.
It’s my way. I walk out to the deep end of the page and dive right in.
Flowers. Always, color my day. #alwaysaflower Thank you so much for joining me on my #WednesdayWalk. I had a wonderful time showing off what made my day today. There is so much to see, so much to do and truly remarkable people to do it with. Life is good. Embrace it! *You can't have everything. But you can have a #WednesdayWalk!And just like that, this show is over. Come back tomorrow and we'll do it again.
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
#TeamUSA is a growing community of quality-content people from the United States or those living here. Check us out on Discord!
𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓔𝓷𝓭
