The Right Place at the Right Time

The girls are barefoot and frisky now that Spring has officially arrived. Our daffodils and forsythia are in full bloom, and the brown lawn magically turned emerald green overnight on Wednesday. All it took was a couple of warm days and some rain to flip on the growing switch.

A week ago, Silk gave me a scare. I came out at dinner time and she could hardly move her back legs. I had Johnny, our farrier, swing by in the morning to check if there were any abscesses, but he couldn’t find anything. He said she was moving more like she was 33 than 23. He suggested that it might be scratches. In the thirteen years that I’ve owned Silk, we’ve never had scratches or mud rot. On Sunday, when I was buying hay, I was lamenting to one of the farmers about Silk’s problem. “Don’t read too much into this, Victoria,” he said, “Sometimes, you’re just old.” True but I had to do something. I am a miserable, anxious wreck when SIlk isn't feeling good.

I recalled that JME posted a great explanation of what to do, so I consulted her. She recommended washing the legs with warm water, but not pulling off any of the the mud that was too crusted to fall off. Then, she said I should wrap both legs with Animalintex that I wet lightly with warm water and then use vet wrap to secure it for 12 hours. Then, wrap dry Animalintex around both legs for another 12 hours. I am happy to report that it worked perfectly. Silk tooling around just fine, back to her usual routine.

After Johnny came back this morning, trimmed the girls and removed their winter shoes, Silk was certainly not acting like she was a senior horse. We decided to leave them barefoot for now, and I’m hoping that I can pick up the rocks in the pasture often enough to let them stay that way for the summer. Since he’s been doing their feet for the last six months, I am so pleased by how much better they look and feel.

As I opened the pasture gate to let Johnny pull out in his truck, my husband called me from the driveway to help him lift an old sofa that we are taking to the dump. Once we got it into our car, I went back to the barn and let the horses back out into the pasture. I was standing next to our car, talking to my husband when Siete came charging out into the driveway, heading up towards the road. Freedom! Her mother pranced out right behind her. Luckily, some luscious grass tempted them to stop. My husband and I casually strolled over to them and each grabbed a horse by her halter. They weren’t happy that we were leading them back to captivity, but they didn’t resist.

The gods were smiling on us that my husband was home and that we both happened to be in the right place at the right time. Once I got the gate securely fastened, my heart started beating again. That was a close one.