Hooves, Husbands & Tractors

By Carole Herder

Happy horses and happy hoofs don’t always go together. Our groovy little paddock paradise with its numerous fenced passageways that encourage the horses to move along, suits some horses and not others. Slash will tramp headlong over the various terrains we’ve set out without hesitation. He’s just looking for the next best thing, the pile of hay, greener grass, another horse to nuzzle. But little Miss Dot has devised a way to pick gingerly around the outskirts of the drainage rock and crusher dust to tread on softer ground; what a baby! And guess what? It shows up in her hoofs. She may be happy on softer ground, but her hoofs are softer too… and less blood circulation.

I admit I am a bit of a tomboy, but somehow not enough of one to undertake tractor operation. Sorry fellow cowgirls! It’s about a vague childhood memory or maybe just an urban myth about a child who buried himself in a hay stack and his father came along to gather some hay and the forked bucket of his tractor… well you know. So I now have a phobia.

And that’s where husbands come in. Greg isn’t always pleased to be dumping a bucket of rock right at this particular point near the gate or just this certain 18 inches along a passageway, but he is certainly smart enough to understand that happy horse woman makes for happy household makes for happy husband. So here is my Darling spreading the rock even further along out from the barn door. We have endeavored to outsmart Dot yet again. And if successful, she will have tougher feet in a couple of days, or the cagey little Cutting Horse may find yet another way to make Greg get out there and play tractor guy.  We just made our move in little game orchestrated by the amazing horse: AsBadAsMyDad