John's First Communion Dress

Well it looked something like that when I first put it on him. It was a shiny very pale blue, and had a rather skirt-like rear end so as to cover his haunches well.

When I saw him Friday, he had managed to get some mossy vegetation stuck into his eye under the fly mask. The mask had prevented him from rubbing it out, so there it sat and there were little tracks of tears down his cheek under that eye.

So goodbye mask, at least for the time being. Plan B is the fly sheet, viewed above in its pristine state. I'll post the "after" photo later, when it is stained, torn, rubbed into snags, and otherwise broken in.



More proof that horse ownership is a bottomless pit of expenditure, at least if you are a worrywart like me...

"No Flies On Me!" - Summer = Horseflies

Fly season is here, and John's new fly mask is the stylin' kind with eyeballs and spectacles painted on. I think it captures his personality pretty well, with that amused expression and raised eyebrow implying, "Oh, reaaalllly?"

Everyone handles horse fly season differently and according to their principles: some people buy the strongest chemical concoction available, and drench their equines all summer long. This requires careful thinking about risk. If a fly spray comes with instructions "Do Not Allow Contact With Skin", there's a fair likelihood it poses some danger to the horse as well.



Some people purchase fly sheets, which are great at preventing bites but do add a heat factor for the horse.

Still others make their own "natural" fly sprays, and that's the route I'm taking this summer. Here's the recipe I was given by the barn owner:



3 cups apple cider vinegar

3/4 cup Avon Skin-So-Soft bath oil

1/3 cup Dawn dish soap

The Avon product has a fragrance that really bothers me though; I know some people love it but to me it is rank. The Dawn ('original fragrance') also is quite strong, and adding vinegar to these gives you quite the head-rush. It also produces a sticky horse, so that dust adheres to the coat. It's not a perfect solution, but it does seem to keep flies at bay pretty well. And not too expensive!



Happy Father's Day to everyone! Take a minute to thank a dad, your own or someone else's, for taking on a tough job with a very confusing and contradictory job description!!

Pony Tails

Lytha of Horse-Crazy American in Germany has inspired me to try to keep John's tail cleaner because she likes Baasha's tail to be snow-white. Well John won't make that standard, partly because his tail does have some black hair in it. But yesterday I gave him the Pony Tail treatment with a shampoo, cream rinse, and Show Sheen detangling. This took about one hour and he practically fell asleep during the process.

We then went for a 2 hour trail ride to dry it and show off to the birds, flies, and guinea hen gang that had mobbed the yard by the time of our return:



I don't think I've ever been this close to guinea fowl before. Let me tell you they make some strange noises. It's like a whole shelf's worth of Random Avian Sound Effects got bestowed upon them at the creation, in return for their awkward pin head appearance.



This is apparently a gang of Guinea thugs who wander the farmscape looking for trouble or bugs; they were running down the road practicing their sound effects as I left.

And I made this little movie of John in his new paddock, so that you could see his body condition. In return for being boring, it is very short:




His belly has lost that aggravated puffy look; behind the ribs where he used to have a bulge, he now is concave. His coat is shiny and bright, and his eye is cheerful again like when I first bought him. This is from 3 weeks at the new barn, and different hay, different feeding schedule, and also just spring finally arriving.

Have a great weekend everyone!!