First time horse ownership, part V

Zeplin

I made my way through knee high grass and weeds and down the rutted path towards the location where I spotted Zeplin's chestnut tobiano coat. He stood still at my approach, clearly exhausted and soaked in sweat, head drooped past his knees. His blonde mane stuck in soggy clumps to a glistening wet neck. Zeplin wore a bright red, brand-new, yearling-size halter that hung loosely over his young Arab head, to which I attached the first leadrope.

The miniature gelding, Chester, appeared from the brush nearby. I caught him handily and attached a second leadrope to his small green halter. His sides heaved rapidly from exertion, but he remained upbeat and energetic.

I led both of my errant boys past my motorcycle and onto the gravel road towards home. We were about six miles away from the house. I'm not sure how long our journey lasted. Poor baby Zeplin had clearly been pushed past his endurance. He wanted to stop again and again, refusing to budge when I tugged on the lead. I realized that if I dropped the line and continued walking Chester, the colt would stand his ground for awhile, and then rush to catch up so he wouldn't be left by himself.

The sun burned brightly on my neck as we reached our yard. I offered the boys water, then put them back in their pen with a happy Eddie. Eddie brayed a welcome to his best buddy, which perked little Chester right up and added spring to his step.

I rested for a moment and contemplated my next move. Now I had to retrieve my motorcycle as well as the other three horses. I dreaded walking the distance over and over, but that seemed to be my only choice.

As I grabbed the leads and headed down the driveway again, a green Chevy truck pulled up to me. The driver rolled the window down, and I stepped up to address the white-haired gentleman behind the wheel.

"Hey, I noticed that you have horses now," the man began.

"Well, I did," I replied, my frustration creeping into my voice. "They ran off last night, and I have to go back and get the others." I gestured to the fence behind me where Zeplin, Chester, and Eddie were happily munching on hay.

"Do you need some help?" the man offered. The lady with him smiled at me as I nodded silently. "Hop in!" he replied, indicating the crew door on the passenger's side.

Gratefully, I slid into the dark leather bench seat. "My name's Dennis," the man said. He introduced his lady friend as well, but for the life of me I cannot remember her name anymore. "Do you know where they are?"

"Yes, they are in a farmer's field by the river," I answered. I directed him while he drove.

Before we reached my abandoned bike, I looked down a dirt lane between two corn fields and saw Phoenix's shiny red body. "There they are!" I pointed. "I'll walk down and grab them then we can take them home."

 It took some effort to capture my reluctant mares. I only found Jazzy and Phoenix; Caly was nowhere in site. Jazzy still had very little human interaction and had not yet been halter trained. My only chance at getting the wild mare home was by catching the alpha Arabian mare first.

Phoenix played hard-to-get for awhile, trotting up and down rows of growing soybeans whenever I neared. I finally snagged her and attached the lead to her halter. Once caught she followed me willingly back down the dirt track towards the waiting truck.

Jazzy whinnied after us. She didn't want me to halter her, but she feared being left behind. I handed Dennis Phoenix's lead then softly approached Jazzy again.

Finally, Jazzy allowed me to to pull her heavy nylon halter over her face and buckle it around her poll. All fight left her, and she walked behind me quietly to where my new friends waited.

Dennis put down the tailgate of the truck and motioned for me to sit there. "We'll each hold a horse's lead and she can drive," he said, nodding towards his female companion. "If you need her to slow down, just holler at her."

The truck pulled forward slowly. I held Jazzy's lead, and felt it go taut when the vehicle moved. At first she resisted, then she gave to the pressure and began walking.

Whereas Phoenix paced briskly behind the truck, head up and ears pricked, Jazzy stumbled tiredly, dragging her feet along the gravel road. Several times, I indicated to Dennis that we were going too fast for Jazzy. Numerous times, when Jazzy slowed to the point of almost stopping, I would hop off the back of the truck and walk her by hand. Dried sweat clung to her copper-colored coat, and her flazen mane hung limply over her sagging neck.

Along the way, Dennis decided we should take a break to offer the mares water. There were only two houses along the road, but he knew the owner of one. Kevin was an area farmer who lived alone in his old white farmhouse. I learned from Dennis that Kevin had his driver's license revoked after too many DUI arrests, so now he took his combine into town for transportation.

Fortunately, Kevin was sympathetic to our needs, and I was able to offer my girls cool water from a dog bowl under the hydrant in his yard. They drank deeply, barely giving us time to refill the bowl before plunging steamy muzzles back into the water. After a few refills, we gently tugged them away from the bowl to continue our trip home.

I think it's safe to say that Jazzy was well broke to halter and lead by the time we finally reached my yard.

Phoenix and Jazzy joined the boys, burying their noses deep in the hay. Dennis and his friend gave me a lift back to my bike so I could continue my search for Caly. "Give us a call if you need anything," he told me before they left.

Jazzy

Hot, worn out and worried, I climbed back on the blue motorcycle. I compressed the clutch, grabbed the brake and pushed in the electric start button. My bike roared back to life.

To be continued...

First time horse ownership, part IV

Exhausted but determined, I hauled myself out of bed as the first rays of dawn brightened the eastern sky. I abandoned the unfortunate red Mazda in favor of my little blue motorcycle. I could travel places on my bike that I wouldn't be able to reach in the car.

In the calm glow of the morning sun, it was ridiculously easy to find the path left by my feral herd. They clung to the roads, leaving mountainous clumps of green manure wherever they passed. I ventured out on chalky gravel streets farther from my house than any previous expedition since I moved there. In some locations, the banks of the road dropped sharply into deep ditches lined by tall sullen trees. Corn and soybean fields stretched out endlessly on either side of me as I drove. Occasionally I would discover a remote house guarded by overgrown maple trees.

Alas I found them! My silly bunch of ponies had found the only other horses in our vicinity! They grazed casually in a stranger's yard, discussing mundane equine topics with the lone sorrel on the other side of a small metal corral.

My bike wasn't loud, but Phoenix started at the sound of my approach. Off she went, dashing across the road into the soybean field with her rag-tag band trailing out behind her!

I wasn't sure what to do at this point, as I hadn't thought so far ahead. How would I bring the renegades home? I had some lead ropes and halters in the tail bag on my motorcycle, but there was no way I would be able to lead them on my bike!

The herd sprinted across the beans until they reached the thick cornstalks of the next section. I had never seen any of them run before, and it certainly was a breathtaking site. Phoenix's bright copper coat gleamed against a background of leaves. Her tail flagged high in the air. Her head was held high with nostrils flared and flowing mane streaming out behind. Jazzy paced her then came Zeplin with his own proud Arab tail aloft. Poor young Caly, not quite a year old, and diminutive Chester, with his shorter legs, labored to remain with the group. I could only follow from a distance, keeping them firmly in my sites as I drove alongside the field.

Phoenix running in the pasture (video still)

The row of beans ended abruptly, and Phoenix darted up the embankment back onto the road with everyone else pursuing. I lagged behind them, trying not to panic them further. They paused, nostrils wide, coats soaked with sweat, and sides heaving from effort. I killed the engine of the bike and rested it on its kickstand. Cautiously I approached my little heathens, calling urgently and hiding a rope behind my back.

Phoenix would have none of it. She abruptly spun on her heels and crashed through a ditch into yet another bean field. Her band struggled after her, clearly winded. Phoenix darted through the plants, widening the gap between herself and her herdmates. Distressed to find herself alone, she halted and called to them. Jazzy pressed gamely onward, dropping to a brisk trot. The remaining three slowed but continued to follow their leader to the best of their abilities.

A fence divided the soybean field from the adjacent corn crop. The fence terminated at yet another corn field, but there was a several foot gap between the two fields. Phoenix vanished into the opening, and soon I lost site of the others as well. Frustrated beyond belief and fighting a huge lump in my throat, I backtracked to the nearest road heading west, the direction my ponies had disappeared.

The gravel ended and I found myself on a dirt track heading to a heavily wooded section by the Missouri River. At the edge of the woods was a barbed wire fence with a large metal gate blocking access to the remainder of the dirt path. To my right, a rutted corridor forged its way through tall grass to several machine sheds far back from the dirt track. I pulled into the path and parked my bike.

At the end of the corn row abutting the corridor I could make out the white of Zeplin's coat.

To be continued...

First time horse ownership, part III

My four new equine friends arrived on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Their anxious faces peered at me through the rails of the bright red stock trailer. Scrawny little Treasure and gangly Baby were in the front compartment, separated from the two red mares by a divider. All of them were loose. Only Jazhara didn't have a halter on her scared-looking face. "She is not halter-broke," was the explanation.

The rescue lady backed her large trailer up to the gate of my chain link fence panels and opened the back. Two bright coppery bodies bolted out, confused. We directed them into the pen, blocking any escape routes with our bodies. She climbed into the trailer and freed the remaining two ponies. They trembled on their knobby knees, but they were a lot more tractable and easier to direct. After leading them into the pen, the lady removed their halters, although she told me I could keep the one on Phoenix.

We retreated to the house to sign the paperwork. I could barely believe that I finally had a herd of my own. I signed agreements promising to never sell the horses at auction, and she handed me Phoenix's registration papers. Phoenix was the only papered horse of the four, registered with the Arabian Horse Association as Praire Park Gerri. I winced when I read her unfortunate name. "Prairie" wasn't even spelled correctly (or was that intentional?).

After a little more chatting, the lady and her friend, who came along to help, returned to their rig and drove away. I felt excited but at a loss as well. I didn't have a shelter up for the horses, I needed fencing around my five acres to allow them grazing, and the only horse-keeping experience I had was the short time with little Chester and Eddie. I was totally unprepared.

Only a couple days after the newbies arrived, they made a break for it. What "it" was, I'm not sure, but they decided to try my temporary fencing. When it gave easily, they headed out down the road. I don't know how long they were gone before I went out to check on them, but the sun had already sunk well below the horizon and the dark, moonless night offered no clues as to their whereabouts. How do five horses and a donkey simply vanish?

My heart leapt immediately into my throat. I imagined any number of horrible incidences. Bruised, bloody, broken bodies lying on the road in front of a furious motorist. Hordes of mountain lions, coyotes, or wild dogs chasing frightened and wild eyed ponies through dense corn and soybean fields. Panicked equines bolting straight into barbed wire fencing in the blackness, shredding thin, fine skin.

I gathered my German Shepherd mix, Tasha, and we hopped in my crappy little Mazda to go look for the doomed horses. The Mazda's headlights barely illuminated two feet in front of me, much less enough to see any evidence of the passing of my herd. We puttered along a few of the local roads with no luck, stopping to call once in awhile from the road into the enveloping blanket of the night. The longer we were out the more my heart sank. I felt dread and terror building up within my chest. How stupid I had been, to leave them out in that temporary fencing instead of putting them back in their makeshift pen. I had no local resources to help in my search.

Finding nothing from the pathetic Mazda, I decided to continue my search on foot. I grabbed Tasha's leash (not trusting her to keep by my side otherwise). We headed back down the gravel road, straining our eyes to catch site of the errant ponies. I found manure on the road and easily followed the path until we reached a dead end at a soybean field. The horses had left the road and entered the field. I couldn't see them or hear them. Tasha and I pressed on through the stubbly green stems until we reached the edge of the field where it bordered a cornfield. I debated turning back, but again the violent images danced through my mind, preventing me from abandoning the task. Into the cornstalks we crashed, thrashing around blindly.

I have no idea how long my loyal pup and I pushed our way through stalks towering well above my head. The rustling of the leaves as the wind ran through made the fine hairs of my arm stand on end. I brushed through more stalks and stumbled into a clearing. No sign of the horses, but a trail of headlights not far ahead informed me that we were close to the interstate. It was time to turn back. Without light, the search remained futile. I would have to pick it up in the early hours of pre-dawn.

Tasha and I trudged along the edge of a bean field, skirted the strange neighbor's house, and continued on through yet more beans, trying to cut back to the road.

We were blocked.

Ahead of us lay a deep ditch, at least 10 feet down, filled with water. Why hadn't I noticed it in the field previously? I slid down the embankment, searching for a spot where I could leap across the stream. My feet were soaked in my old tennis shoes from inadvertently sinking into a soft part of the marshy ground. I couldn't see in the inky night where the ditch might end. We tried following it away from the strange neighbor's house, but only found ourselves trekking even farther into the bean field and away from the road. Frustrated, I backtracked. I think we had to go the entire length of the field and past the strange neighbor's house yet again. We reached the edge of the corn patch again, this time not venturing very deep into the jungle of grasping leaves.

After what seemed like a lifetime, Tasha and I burst from the corn into the bean field we had originally traversed. Exhausted, worried, squishing my toes in wet socks, I dragged myself back home...

...To find Eddie grazing peacefully in the front yard as if he had never left. However, my sad-eyed long-ear was alone.

Feeling utterly disgusted with myself, I led Eddie to the pen and then went to bed. I set my alarm for five, way too early for a night owl to be up in the morning. I had difficulties sleeping, but eventually drifted off, dreaming of monstrous corn stalks and injured horses.

To be continued...

Tasha

My foray into first time horse ownership, part I

Every one of my horses has a story, but I will go into those of the individuals at a later date. Today's post is the first part about how an inexperienced but determined woman came to own her first horses/farm animals. I will add a disclaimer for any other newbies looking to purchase that first horse. I didn't go about it the most careful and thoughtful way, which would be to take lessons for awhile first, then lease a horse and board it before finally purchasing one. I could write an entire post on what I did wrong and what I would recommend, but in my case I got lucky and it worked out well.

In the summer of 2007, I was dating an Army man from a nearby small town. He was stationed at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina. I don't plan on going into the details of our relationship, but he was a key player in this story, which is why I have mentioned him. We had been dating for nearly a year, and he knew I was horse crazy and itching to jump into the equestrian lifestyle. Since his "surrogate parents" owned horses and traveled around the country to ride, I think he had a pretty good grasp of the concept that it is a lifestyle not just a hobby.

I'm an afficionado of adopting from a rescue to help a horse find a much needed home, but I didn't have any idea that there were "bad" rescues and "good" rescues. I've learned a LOT about what a proper rescue should do for the horses in its care. I just wanted to give an unwanted horse a new chance, much as I had my first two dogs (in my life) that I adopted (yet another story). I researched horse rescues in the area and perused their websites, wondering if I would be able to take in one of those sad cases.

In the meantime, I told my boyfriend that I wanted to work on starting a small farm. I had (and still have) dreams of becoming self sufficient. I wanted to raise all of my own meat. Coming from a poultry background in college, I had a good idea what was involved in raising feathered livestock. I convinced my boyfriend that we should start some birds, and I ordered my first turkeys from an Iowa hatchery. It was an assortment of two different heritage breeds. I didn't have a place to brood them, so I made a small pen in my basement, thinking I would have something ready by the time they started to feather.

I also had an addiction to Craigslist, and I loved looking over the farm and garden section to find stuff for my acreage. I found an ad posted by a family moving to Texas who were trying to find a new home for their "petting zoo." I have no idea why I thought it was a good idea (I usually try to be rational), but I wanted those critters! They were selling a miniature gelding, a miniature john donkey, two pot belly pig sows, a Nigerian Dwarf goat, a Pekin duck, and an "Easter Egger" hen (Americauna chicken). I didn't really want the pigs and had no idea what I would do with everything, but I was excited to have a ready made farm. My boyfriend reluctantly agreed, thinking that it would put an end to my constant discussion about purchasing a horse.

So I had my very first equines, the miniature gelding named Chester...

...and the cute miniature spotted donkey, Eddie.

They were named by the couples's little girls, and I didn't change their names. I was told that Chester was five and Eddie was two. They were both very friendly, although Eddie could be a little reserved. They were certainly best buddies.

The rest of my ready-made farm included Molly the goat...

...her shadow, the Pekin drake (I never did name him, although Quimby thought his name was "Goat")...

...and the two pot bellies, Abby (white) and Lucy (black).

Abby was a friendly girl, but Lucy wanted nothing to do with anyone. She was the wild child.

In a previous post, I already mentioned the animals I currently own. The only one remaining of the original crew is Molly. More details will be fleshed out over time. Meanwhile, stay tuned for the next part of the story.