In a deck of playing cards you will find a One Eyed Jack.  He’s just faced that way.  If he has two eyes, no one really knows.  There was a line of One Eyed Jack Quarter Horses.

With this last Triple Crown there was a one-eyed horse, and people made such a big deal over it.  “Oh his blind side is on the side of the “field.”  “Oh how can a blind horse run?”  Seriously people???!!!

As it was explained to me years ago by a vet (and I know I’ve mentioned this before) – Horses are different from people. Predator animals, such as ourselves, cats, dogs, anything that has their eyes in the front, their two eyes focus in to make one picture.  A prey animal has eyes on the sides of their heads to give them a pretty close to 360 degree view of anything that is going to attack them.  Actually the only blind spots they have are directly in front, and directly behind unless they move their heads.  So it comes down to, we have one TV screen in our head and the horse has two TV screens.  One for each eye.  Removing an eye knocks out one of the screens and the horse has to move his head to see around him.

I’ve had a horse that had an eye removed, and one of my boarders horses was blinded in one eye when she was young.  I also had my granddaughters pony who was blind in one eye.  Not one of these horses were bothered by the fact that they could only see out of one eye.  It bothered people more than it bothered them.  Once my mare got used to looking before going through a narrow space, my leg no longer hit a fence post.  The first time I brought her out to the hunt field after the eye removal, I was a little concerned.  The sun hadn’t come up yet, and she was set and determined to follow the huntsman over the first three-foot coop.  I wasn’t even sure she had seen it let alone made a correct judgement of distance and height.  Her bouncing in anticipation told me that she had it under control and I let her go.  Perfect, as though nothing had ever changed with her.

I have a dog that is deaf and is totally blind in her left eye, and almost totally blind in her right.  She was born this way.  She doesn’t know that other dogs hear, or see better than her.  She is happy, playful and totally enjoys life.  Does 90 miles an hour through a doorway on a turn and never hits it.  I do, but she doesn’t.

Humans are getting a little more comfortable with people with disabilities, but not with our animals.  Three legged dogs and cats don’t care they are missing a leg.  They are happy and run and play just like all the others.  Horses don’t care they are missing an eye, they just go on like before.

We are the problem.  We protect them too much, and worry about them.  We need to be more like our animals, and accept things we have no control over, and just go a head and enjoy life.

Sounds like a plan to me.

Just a friendly Public Service Reminder.  It’s Summer!!  Yay!!

I was speaking with my neighbor the other day.  I told her, as usual, one of my horses is sweating like crazy and one of them wasn’t.  The usual reply is – well the other one isn’t bothered by the heat as much, or one stands under the tree more.  No, I said, she shut down.

Red flag district.  No, the one that isn’t sweating has flaring nostrils, and is breathing hard.  She hadn’t been running or stressing about anything.  She was NOT sweating.  She does this to me every summer.  I’d like to believe that she just handles the hotter weather better, but I’d be fooling myself and hurting her in the process.  She normally doesn’t do this until late July or August.

When you have two out of three that are soaking wet and one that isn’t, it’s a good indication something is wrong.

This seems to be more of a problem here in the south.  I don’t remember ever having this situation when I lived up north, but it can happen, you must stay aware.  If you are at a horse show, even up north, pay attention.  Listen to your horse.  Get him cooled down as fast as possible.  They can, and will die.

Don’t forget – When the humidity is higher than the temperature, they can’t cool themselves.  I seem to say this every summer.

A horse that is overheated may not be drinking water as he should.  Adding a little table salt to the diet will encourage them to drink more.  Adding electrolytes to their water and food won’t work if they are not eating or drinking.  Keep a tube on hand, just in case.

Don’t forget the suntan lotion for yourselves and your horses.  A pink nose on a horse will burn.  Full length fly masks work wonders.

Broken record signing off for now, but over the winter, we forget.  Also when you don’t face heat and humidity like we do in Florida, you just don’t think about it.  Stay alert.

So my friend is building a barn on her property.  She’s so excited, I’m kind of sad.  I enjoy her company at my barn.  I look forward to the days she is here.  But I am also happy for her.  She thought her horse days were over, she was too sore, and too old (she’s younger than I am).  I showed her that they weren’t over, they had just changed a little.  It gave her life and something to look forward too.  Removed a lot of pent-up stress and replaced it with happiness.

Now our conversations have turned to planning her barn.  She grew up on a ranch in Montana, but her father was in charge of the horses back then.  She had a barn at home when she lived in Pennsylvania, but only for a very short time.  Northern care is different from southern care.  We talked about proper positioning of the barn to get the most from the East/West breeze, and to protect from the Southern sun and Northern winter winds.  We talked about the benefits of a center aisle barn as opposed to a shed row.  We also talked about different hay and grains.  About the best time to buy from the fields and proper storage.  Knowing and trusting the people you purchase from.  How the hay is cured, how to stack it.  I was telling her about spontaneous combustion with poorly cured hay up north.  How barns would catch on fire.  To slide your hand into a bale of hay and make sure it wasn’t wet where it would mold or too hot where it will catch on fire.  To stack it with the bale cord on the sides so it can breath.  To allow air to circulate under and around the bales.  To sweep all the old hay out so any mold spores that were there, will not contaminate the new hay.  It’s funny, the local hay down here doesn’t mold as fast as the Timothy and Alfalfa up north.  I think it’s because of the moisture content in northern hay.  Smell it, and when you open the bale check it out.  Make sure there is no mold.  We have a habit of just taking a few leafs (flakes) and tossing it to our horses without really looking at it.  Horses that are well fed will not eat moldy hay, but horses that are really hungry will, and they will colic.  If it’s a little dry and dusty, either shake it out or wet it down.

Choosing the right grain company is very important to me.  I want fresh grain.  Make sure you dealer moves his grain.  I’ve been in feed stores that grain has been sitting there since the stone age.   I don’t want grain that can be contaminated by cow antibiotics.  There are so many “designer” grains now.  I prefer to add what each horse needs, if and when they need it.  I don’t just want to give something across the board.  Why should I pay extra from something that all the horses don’t need.  I don’t mind playing mad scientist with supplements if it’s going to help a certain horse.  but just to give it to everyone because it’s easier, bothers me.

Barn layout is optional, but work smart, not hard.  The easier we make life for ourselves, the more quality time we can spend with our horses.

With every barn I’ve had, it had different needs.  With every horse I’ve had, it had different needs.  One size doesn’t fit all.   It’s up to Cinderella to try on that glass slipper, and walk away with that prince.  Oh, and most things aren’t cast in stone, you can make adjustments.

I’m going to need a barn warming present, what shall that be?

In loving memory to my hay man Jerry Anderson.

That was a movie from the 60’s with James Garner.  He still brings a smile to my face.  I loved his movies all the way to the “Notebook.”

My writing today is about support.  Now I have belonged to many clubs and organizations over the years, and the one thing they all had in common was politics, and ego.  I hate that!  I’m talking from the large breed organizations to the small local clubs.  You just can’t get away from it.  What starts out to be a good idea, with great expectations, turns out to be a “he said, she said” it’s all about me deal.  Hate it, hate it, hate it.    BUT sometimes it’s necessary to pull together to stand up to the big guns.

I have lived with my horses in many towns, counties, and states.  It’s always the same. People want to live in the country and then when they get there they want what makes it the country gone.

In Staten Island, New York we had 4,000 horses at one time.  You could ride your horse absolutely anywhere.  Tie up to a tree or telephone pole and go in and have lunch, pick up stuff at the store, or go to the Post Office. Technically barns weren’t supposed to be there within the”City Limits”, but many people had them in their backyards.  No one used to enforce the laws, it was country living in its finist.  Small towns and communities were everywhere.  We just rode down streets and waved to the neighbors as we went.  It’s just the way it always was.  Then “The Bridge” (Verrizano) was built.  It made a beautiful backdrop in the movie “Saturday Night Fever”, but it was the end of Staten Island.  Instead of riding the ferry to Staten Island from Brooklyn or New York City you could drive.  It opened up a whole new suburbia right there, a short distance from N.Y.C. Totally destroyed the bucolic beauty of the Island.  Inch by inch horses were pushed out. Everyone, who had horses, moved to New Jersey.  Just a handful of horses remain today.

Those of us, which were many, who cared back then, decided we had to do something to save some areas for riding.  The trails through the woods we once rode were being threatened.  We were told that horses were eroding the land and bothering the flora and fauna.  Those trails had been used for 100’s of years and everything was still flourishing.  The horses did absolutely no damage.  If anything the manure helped the flora and fauna.  It’s all natural.  So the horse people banded together with other groups to save the area.  When all was said and done, the other groups got access and the horse people were restricted to riding around the outside of the “park.”  Seriously?!  We were there first.  Those others didn’t even know that land existed.

I watched it happen in Staten Island, and then again in N.J.  Once again we banded together to fight to keep horses in the area.  Some townships loved the idea and actually required people to leave easements for horse trails, others turned their heads away and didn’t even acknowledge there was a problem or people who cared.

So now I’m here in Florida watching It happen all over again.  This is getting very old.  All the ranches that we Fox Hunted on are being sold off to developers.  Soon there will be housing developments, along with their own schools and shopping centers, where cattle once grazed.  Fox, Bobcats and many other local wildlife will be pushed from their homes.  Concrete and street lights will be the norm.  Gone will be the Cypress banks, flowing streams, pine trees and Sandhill Cranes.  Six lanes of traffic will replace dirt paths that were once used by man and beast for centuries.

The sad thing is that most people don’t care.  As bad as the clubs and organizations may be, that is the only hope of holding back the onslaught of progress.  “United We Stand, Divided We Fall” must remain the battle cry.  Together we have a voice, alone we are ignored.  It’s the old “The Squeaky Wheel Get’s The Grease.”

So as much as you may want to stay out of the politics of each organization, you have to get involved.  You don’t have to become sucked into the politics, but you do have to be part of the number who wants to keep horses in your particular area.  Find a local group who is attached to a state and national chapter, and join.  You need to financially support them with your membership, but you don’t have to play the ego game.

Stand up and be counted for the right to have horses in your area.  To keep the trails you have enjoyed over the years.  Or someday we might be like the Ringling Bros. Circus, just a faded memory in some old persons mind.

When I was young, Art Linkletter had a show on in the afternoons.  It was kind of a combination of variety and talk show I guess.  Can’t quite remember at this point, but he had a segment with young children called “Kids Say The darndest Things”.  He would ask them simple questions and they would come up with the most hilarious answers.  You’d wonder where they got that stuff from.  It was so popular that he wrote two books with their answers.

I’ve watched late night TV in the past couple of years, and I know some of the talk shows have sent people out on the streets and asked a passersby simple questions like who is the President of the United States and these college students would reply something like Abraham Lincoln or something so out of touch you wonder what rock they crawled out from underneath.

Now with horses, it’s not a matter of what they say, but what they do.  You walk out into a pasture and their eye lid is hanging off, or they’re waving their leg in the air, like “look mom what I did.”  Usually If you ask them, as I know we all have with the high-pitched question of “What Did You Do?”  They usually won’t discuss it.  It’s, “does it really matter? Just fix it.”  They almost look proud of their accomplishment or they have no idea what you are talking about.

You rack your brain as to what they got into.  They are in a horse safe pasture.  You’ll walk around and look for bits of hair or skin attached to something, but there is nothing to be found, and they are definitely not talking.  They go on as if nothing happened and you lose sleep wondering what went wrong.  Funny how that works.

The most trying thing is the length of time it takes them to heal.  Some horses heal very fast, while others are out of commission, what seems like forever.  I have one right now who, no matter what it is, takes forever to heal.  It doesn’t matter if it’s an eye infection, a bowed tendon, or a cut, she will take her good old-time getting back to normal.  She’s fine with it, I’m tired of it.  I feel like I’ve been wrapping her leg since the disco era.  I know it’s only been a couple of months, but it’s aging me.  A couple of months at this point in my life is like watching the “sands through the hour-glass” running out.  I feel like yelling at her “I don’t have that much time left on this side of the grass, you need to get better now!”  But she will just go about being herself.

Sometimes I swear they do it on purpose.  The day before a big competition, or whatever you had in mind to do, they will turn up lame or hurt.  We were up to five hunt horses so that we would always have a spare, and guess what?  All five would be broken, and I’d be borrowing a horse.  What is wrong with this picture.  I know it’s not just me.  About thirty years ago, in the Western Horseman magazine, there was a cartoon, and I’ve never forgotten it.  It was a picture of a cowboy standing there with his tack in his hands looking down at his horse.  The horse was laying on his back, with his legs in the air.  The caption was “Cut the dramatics Walter, you knew today was the trail drive.”  I laughed then, and I still laugh when I think about it.  It is so true.  Their timing is perfect.

So as we all know, there is never a good time for them to be hurt or sick, but they do seem to do it at “the darndest time.”

I don’t know all the information, and truthfully, I don’t want to.

A friends granddaughter came to visit her for a few weeks on spring break.  My friends are here for the winter months.  Somewhere along the line her granddaughter bought a couple of English saddles with fittings, breast collar, saddle pad, and a bareback pad.  All this for the amazing price of $50.00.  Oh my!  The question – could I look at them and tell her what I thought?

Here we go a “Tip Toe Through The Tulips.”  Well the first saddle I wasn’t even sure what it was.  Could be Australian or maybe not.  Odd shape, “D” rings all over the place.  I’m sure it was used for training the horse how to get into a frame, or maybe not.  The second saddle was English, but the leather was just short of cardboard.  It never saw oil in its life.  It didn’t even have a name on it.  The irons, pad, and girth were good.  Now the saddle had been lunch for a rodent.  Chewed through the padding under the gullet.  The breast collar also had never seen oil.  It was a cheap grade of leather and when you bent it, it cracked.  I told her it wouldn’t hold up, but it wouldn’t be dangerous if it broke.  Oil the saddle and see if it will uncurl.  Look on the Internet and see if you could trace the other saddles origins and purpose.  Now the bareback pad was a keeper.

The inevitable question.  Well what do you think?  Well…… if she went to sell everything individually she would probably get her $50.00 back.  Most likely on the bareback pad, the irons, pad, and the girth.

What I wanted to say was unload it as quickly as possible.  Don’t make it travel all the way to Michigan.

Now the next question I have is does her granddaughter know how to fit a saddle and who is she going to use it on?  Is this saddle going to fit her granddaughter?  I never got that far because we were standing in a restaurant parking lot and Bobby was getting ready to leave without me.  I’ll catch up with her before she leaves to go back north and see if I can make any sense out of all this.

I love a great deal just like the next person, but if it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t worth buying.

I think “Let the buyer beware” was coined at a horse auction.  I know “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” was.  You may find out his teeth are older than time itself.

How do you tell them?  Just speak the truth, gently, with love.

We all know our horses well.  We know what is normal activity, body language and what is not.

My husband went to his GP yesterday for a normal check up.  He’s had a cold, which has been going around, aggravated by allergies.  He asked the doctor what he had.  The answer was “The Crud,” just like everyone else has.  It just keeps going away and coming back.

In the last couple of weeks the word “Neurological” has come up with not only horses, but people I know.  What, is this the new trend in diseases?

A friend totally passed out three weeks in a row, and was taken by ambulance to the hospital.  After many tests, nothing was found.  He has heart problems, but they couldn’t confirm anything there.  The symptoms indicated possible mini strokes.  Do you know what the doctor told him????  Drink more water.  Really?!!!!!!!  The man stopped breathing in church.  There were two nurses in attendance and they said so.  After the next week when he did it again at a restaurant, still no answers.  So they told him to go to a neurologist.  Well that would have been my guess after the first and second time when nothing was found.  We still don’t have answers on that one.  He says after it’s over he feels fine.  Well he doesn’t look fine, speak fine, or process information fine.  But he thinks, since the doctors haven’t found anything, and in his head he’s fine, he’s starting to drive again.  Oh my!

I’ve known several horses lately who have been diagnosed with neurological problems.  Now one I disagreed with, but the other I believe.  Horse couldn’t walk a straight line one day and the next it was fine.  Too much tequila last night I guess.  Since it was a temporary problem it didn’t look like the classical EPM or anything we usually vaccinate for.  With drought conditions we have no grass and horses are starting to eat anything that looks on the green side.  They are starting to eat weeds that they normally wouldn’t.  Some of them are toxic and will cause neurological symptoms.  A large amount of toxic plants will kill a horse.

If you find your horse doing something weird, don’t wait, check it out with a vet.  You may be able to reverse it, it may wear off itself, or it may be fatal.  If it’s a toxic plant you need to get it out of your pasture and stay on top of the possibilities.

This is not Weird Science, this is serious stuff.

There are some southern states that are still fighting the war (Civil that is).  Now Florida is much more tolerant than let’s say Virginia south to the Florida border.  The reason Florida is more laid back is because most of the people who live in Florida are really from somewhere else.  You do meet some natives, but even they seem less intense.  Florida was never caught up in the need for slaves as the other states were.  There was not really much agriculture, in the way of growing things here, other than mosquitoes and gators that is.  There were the cracker cowboys who raised the cracker horses and cracker cows.  The term cracker came from the cowboys cracking the bull whips, emitting a large cracking noise.  The cracker cows could survive in the swamps and live off the local forage.  The cracker horses were the same.  They are a smaller breed, but boy can they run.  A friend had one that could out run a Quarter Horse race horse.  Their feet can withstand the moist ground conditions usually found this state.

Now horses like Clydesdales do not do well here.  Their feathers hold the moisture and all kinds of fungus and bacteria find a comfy place to live.  They have allergies which drive them absolutely crazy, not to mention what is does to the owners.

When it comes to horse keeping the Mason Dixon Line does float.  Winter blankets up north are truly like the down jackets we used to go snow skiing in.  A winter blanket down here is usually a medium weight.  It will go to 28 degrees here in west-central Florida but only for a few hours at a time.  We will get a thin layer of ice on the water troughs, but come 9:00 a.m., when the sun comes up high enough, it’s gone.  Now the states north of Florida will get snow, but that also doesn’t hang around long.  The farther north you go, the longer it lasts.  They tell me they have had snow flurries here, but I haven’t seen any.  If I did I might go screaming into the night.  I’m so done with snow.  I love to watch it on TV and then thank God that I don’t have to deal with that anymore.  It’s amazing what you can get used to and learn to live with.

This post is really about horse trailers.  There is a difference.  Down here they are very open and airy, just like the stables.  The northern made trailers are able to be totally closed up.  One of my boarders is moving to Nashville, as I have mentioned in a previous post.  Her trailer was from Alabama and is an older steel trailer.  Ventilation is limited.  No front window that opens, small round vents by their heads, a high tailgate, but does have sliding side windows.  Since her horse has Cushings Disease she still has a good hair coat.  The first winter I was here my horses had way too much hair.  We moved down November 1st.  After that they got less hair in the winters.  My vet checked out the trailer being used for the move and told her she had to get out of the state before the sun came up.  This morning was cool (59 degrees) with a ground fog making it a little chilly for us.  Florida is like having three New Jerseys stacked on top of each other.  The northern part of the state is much cooler than where I live, and the southern part of the state, much warmer.  I told her that if it got to warm in that trailer to take a hammer and pop out the rivets in the front windows to allow more air flow.  She could always have them pop riveted back when she got there.

The owner was told to syringe water with table salt in it to the horses to make the horses drink.  I found that horses don’t like the taste of water from different areas and states.  My vet up north suggested peppermints in the water a week before I would leave so that every states water smelled like peppermints.  Didn’t work for me, my horses didn’t like peppermints.  Carrots in the water just don’t work the same.  Now her horses on the other hand, love peppermints so she’s going to try that.  Her trip is a ten-hour trip, but with the stops for gas, food, and restroom checks, it will take longer.  Our trip was twenty-two hours.  You were only allowed restroom stops and food when we got fuel according to Bob.  Although I will say that he would stop at rest areas and take the horses out for a walk in the dog walking area.  One security officer commented on what big dogs we had, and then smiled.

It was very interesting watching the owner and her girlfriend getting loaded this morning.  They were all happy and enthusiastic about their road trip.  A new beginning for the one girl and her friend was just the pillar of confidence.  As I hugged my boarder and waved goodbye to her best friend I could only remember how exciting it was when I was younger and ready to take on the world.  As for me, I don’t do three a.m. well, so it was off to bed to catch up on the sleep I had just missed.  I bid them a safe journey and told them to text me when they got there.

I don’t think I have the energy to be young again, but it does make me smile.