A Day in the Life...

Dad, this one's for you:

Here at the miniature horse farm we rise at around 5:30-6:00 each morning, creak our way slowly out of bed and stumble toward the coffee maker. We wake up via caffeine I.V. while checking email and reading news on line, then we head for the medicine cabinet and hit the dated, categorized, carefully compartmentalized pill boxes that we're told keep us living. Then we dress and sit dumbly on the edge of the bed, as if our boats fetched up in mud, while our engines try, re-try and try again to turn over. Mostly what we get is that "tick, tick, tick" sound of a bad battery. Eventually, however, we sputter to a start and mosey out to the barn to feed the horses around 7-ish.

Sometimes it's good to be short.

Then we feed horses. Horses who today are standing out there, tapping their toes, and not at all happy that breakfast is late. Rowena is determined to chase William down for her bowl because as you can see the poor baby is emaciated. Handsome is turning himself into a giraffe trying to inhale his feed straight out of the scoop before I can dump it in his feeder.

William and John handle the heavy chores around here, lifting those bales, toting that poop and such. (Imagine Green Acres theme playing in the background)



John also handles the WHW (Wittmann Horse Wrestling) duties whenever anyone gets out of line.







While the horses eat we check the garden for ripe veggies so the rabbits and squirrels don't make off with them first. The rabbits have finally gotten desperate enough to eat zucchini. Looks like we've been raided over night AGAIN.

Gol-durn rabbits! We'll show 'em!!

Then it's time to ride out to check the fence lines.

Good grooming practices are part of the daily routine. Well, at least for the 4 legged residents. People wouldn't recognize me without hay in my hair.

William tries to explain the concept of rabbit hunting to Elmo and Anniedawg. They just want their bisquits and bacon thanks.



On weekends we love to watch the televised PBR (Professional Bull Riders) events after the evening chores.

And that's pretty much our day, minus the tractor work, house work, nap, and writing!

DISCLAIMER: No herbivores were harmed during the making of this blog post.

Horses, Horse Racing, Horse Lovers and Taking Responsibility

Marquet Gold aka Buster, safe at foster facility.

There's a lot of griping going on about the horse slaughter ban. Y'all know, or should by now, my feelings on that subject. A lot of the griping centers around people who can't afford to have their horses euthanized, can't sell them, can't afford to keep them, having to turn them loose in the countryside because of all of the above.


I've recently come across the Alex Brown Racing website which hosts discussion groups. There is a section in the discussion boards dedicated to the rescue of horses from auction houses that sell to kill buyers. I've learned a lot from that forum. These are not PETA people. These are not "uneducated" people who have somehow been brainwashed by PETA. These are HORSE people. These are horse owners, horse breeders, horse trainers who band together in a giant cyber army of responsible humans to rescue horses. It's one of many such groups.


How did I find out about this forum? I plugged the name of a horse I know into Google. The horse belonged to a friend of mine that breeds, trains and races thoroughbreds. I've known Buster (aka Marquet Gold) since he was a baby. Sandy kept us updated on his progress through training, his first race, all subsequent races, all his personality quirks, and I feel like I know "Buster the Butt" almost as well as I do my own minis. When Sandy let me know this weekend that Buster had narrowly escaped being sold for slaughter in Ohio when his trainer, Randy Joe Faulkner, dumped him at the Sugarcreek auction. I was horrified. Sandy had sold this horse on condition that she be contacted to buy him back if the horse ever left racing. She was NOT contacted.


Buster is one horse among thousands with responsible breeders ready and willing to buy them back rather than see them end up in a meat wagon. Yet, there they all go. Why??! In the words of one of the members of this discussion group "there are no UNWANTED horses, we just simply live in a quick disposal society."


Certainly, there are times when hard times hit fast and out of the blue. Just like rescue groups such as this one grew out of need, I feel that other groups will form to help owners facing sudden financial crises. As people who enjoy or make a living off of horses, it is our responsibility to provide a decent life and humane care for these animals. Knowing that there may be people out there that suddenly find themselves in sudden dire financial straights it should be a shared responsibility to help them do the right thing by their horses in a crisis. Rather than saying "They can't afford it! The ban hurts them! They'll have to turn their horses loose!", it's time for responsible owners and caring veterinarians to stand up and say "Together we CAN help afford these animals either a humane passing or find them a new home." It can be done. It has been done. It is being done even as I type this blog post.


Here is a link to the discussion group. Please read as this exciting story grows with each individual post and shows what this group of responsible owners and trainers went through in order to save 8 thoroughbreds in the kill pen at the Sugarcreek Auction. Then ask yourself if it "can't" be done or if people just aren't willing to put forth the effort and time do what's right. (The "FOB" refered to in this forum is the group "Friends of Barbaro".)


http://forums.delphiforums.com/alexbrown/messages/?start=Start+Reading+%3E%3E


Here is Buster's story, written by my friend Sandy:


He had scratches and bite marks all over him, he was hungry and only had one shoe left but Buster was one lucky horse.

He was alive.

He had raced on Monday, and here it was, Thursday, and he was at the auction barn in the kill pen with a bunch of other Thoroughbreds who had just been dumped. Horses were already being sent through the auction ring and dedicated rescuers were frantically making calls and emailing people trying to raise enough money to save a few of them. Twenty dollars came in from a PayPal account here, a hundred there, fifteen or twenty dollars from somebody across the country. Friends of Barbaro and Canter and volunteers were scrambling for every penny. Some of the volunteers were in the pen, trying to look at lip tattoos to help identify some of them. Many of the horses would shy away from the humans, but Buster walked right up. Maybe one of these guys had a snack, he probably thought. He was chosen as one of the lucky ones to be saved that day. His identity came back; his name was Marquet Gold, known from birth as Buster. My partner and I were there when he was born.


Thursday night about 9:00pm I was checking Email when a message popped up from a nearby friend. She wanted to know if I had seen the post on Backyard Racehorse forum. Buster had been pulled out of a kill pen in Ohio. My partner and I started making frantic phone calls, googled rescue groups in Ohio, called the phone number listed on a website. An online friend in Florida alerted her parents in Ohio, and they were ready to go bail him out, or do whatever needed to be done. Another online friend in VA was ready to help get him transported to the barn where she boards her hunter until we could make arrangements. A friend in the Pacific Northwest contacted people she knew in rescue to help track him. We were frantic. This was one of our babies.


We had a couple of good mares, and might have one or two foals a year. One might sell as a yearling, or we’d send one for training. Not happy with the results, I was ready to semi-retire and decided to try my hand at training my own. I figured I could not win races cheaper than the other guys weren’t winning, and this way I got to keep my horses sound. It worked, I had some wins with my babies, and when they retired they were found new careers. People liked my retirees because they had been raced with no drugs except an occasional dose of Lasix, which seems to help in the South heat and humidity. Never did my horses get steroids or other "performance enhancers". Buster was no exception. He was started under saddle in a big pasture full of billy goats and whatever other livestock wandered onto our place. The rider did figure eights on Buster while I kept the world’s nastiest billy goat at bay with a squirt gun full of water. By the time Buster got to the track, not much spooked him.


Buster was a stone frontrunner. Try to rate him, and he’d get sulky and spit the bit. It was wire to wire or nothing for him. He was big and stout and tough, but when the Sam Houston meet ended in April ‘07, I didn’t think he’d be competitive where I was headed next, to Dallas and Lone Star Park, so the plan was to turn him out. Another trainer who had come down to Houston for the meet was going back East, and thought Buster would run well there. He wanted to buy him.


After waffling, I decided to sell him, the first active runner I had ever sold who could run as a racehorse for someone else. I pinned my card to the foal papers, with a note on the back stating there was a forever home, if needed. The trainer agreed to let me know if he ever decided to get rid of Buster so I could buy him back.


Of course I had followed him in the charts and with Stable Alert, and was pleased to see he was back running. Buster never had a sore spot in his life but injured a fetlock in the first race for that trainer, still while at Houston. Then, I noted that he had not finished in the money in his last race Monday, and wondered if he was sore. Then Thursday night I got that email.


Sleep didn’t happen Thursday night, and by Friday emails were starting to be answered. We finally got the one we wanted to see—"we rescued your horse!" Buster was on his way to a foster farm in Virginia. We phoned the farm there, and Sheila told us that he seemed to be sound. Relief. We had been afraid that he had injured himself in that race.

A flurry of activity followed, and today, Sunday, my friend in VA had commandeered a friend of hers who owns a trailer, and the trainer at her barn hopped in for the trip, and off they went to retrieve Buster. It turns out Buster had been delivered to a foster farm a mere 24 miles from her house.

Buster is alive only because of a bunch of unlikely and awe inspiring miracles. Miracles that interlocked and formed a safety net that caught Buster when he fell. The miracle of the group that calls themselves Friends Of Barbaro, in honor of the great racehorse who won the Kentucky Derby, then was injured in the Preakness and fought valiantly for months to recover. The rescue organization, Canter, whose people were there helping with the rescue. The miracle of friends and strangers across the country chipping in money and effort to save as many horses as they can from slaughter. The fact that someone who knew me through a forum scanned the pedigrees of the horses rescued, and saw me listed as breeder. This is the miracle of people like Gail and Sheila and Kathleen and Susan and Lyn and a hundred others holding out helping hands.

One miracle is wonderful. Buster receiving so many is almost unbelievable.

I wonder how many breeders or past owners would like to help these horses if they knew there was a crisis situation. The only answer is some sort of early identification so they could be located quickly. Can the formation of a national volunteer registry of breeders or caring owners help? Info on a microchip that auctions would be required to scan, and show proof of trying to contact the breeder or owner? Requiring a holding period of time before a registered horse could be sold to allow time to make the contacts? How about an additional fee for all horses, like a licensing fee, to help with the horse’s eventual retirement? Say, a thousand dollars in an interest bearing trust account for that horses as foal, for TBs deposited thru the Jockey Club, for others another applicable agency. When a horse is retired or no more useful, a licensed agency gets the horse and the money to care for it. I don’t know the answers, but if the racing industry is to survive, some hard decisions must be made. Drugs need to be banned except for therapeutic use. The crisis situation for horses is increasing and rescues are being overwhelmed. Of the thousands who weren’t so lucky, I thank my lucky stars that Buster is safe now. The scratches and bites will heal, the weight will be regained.


Buster is alive. I am forever indebted.

Aridzona Jean and the Garden of Doom

I dreaded it. I put it off. I was saved by two phone calls. I trimmed Hellmo's eyebrows. Eventually, however, I had to (insert eerie music here) check The Garden. Keep in mind please that I checked The Garden two days ago and still have the 8 zucchini, 4 yellow squash, two romas, and about 20 cherry tomatoes from that day's haul taking up a large space on my kitchen counter.

THIS is what I found in The Garden this morning! HELP my god HELP!

There were about 6 small zucchini (about 6 inches long) that I didn't pick today. No doubt they will double in size by tomorrow and triple by Saturday. There will also be about 20 more cherry tomatoes ready to pick tomorrow. I'm thinking I should start bagging up mini-manure and sell it as miraculous designer fertilizer because you wouldn't think all of this food would come out of a 12 x 4, seriously overcrowded, unweeded, totally organic garden.

Here's a photo of the garden. It used to be about 12 x 10, but that big bare spot you see is where the 6 melon plants used to be until the squirrels mowed them down. (squirrels and rabbits STILL won't eat the zucchini) Everything else is crammed into the remaining 12 x 4 section of The Garden of Doom. On the far right, against the wall, are the cherry tomatoes. Those immense green umbrella leaves are the zucchinis. Obscured by those immense green umbrellas are 3 pepper plants and a spaghetti squash vine. Behind those gigantic abundant green umbrellas are the two yellow squash plants, the roma tomato and the grape vine that is still holding it's own.

And yes, you see correctly. Glutton for punishment that I am, that is a sprinkler going in the spot of bare dirt. We certainly don't want those plants to parch and die do we?!

Veggie Tales

No, this isn't about the cartoon, it's worse than that. I'd like to know why we're importing tomatoes (I guess they are technically not a veggie, but I promise I'll get to the veggies later).

We started a garden this year for the first time. We threaten ourselves with growing a few veggies every year, but this is the first year we actually made the effort. It's even hard for me to call it an effort. We took about two weeks worth of mini-manure and spread it out in a 12 x 10 section of bare dirt inside the pool fence, wrapped some chicken wire around it to keep Hellmo from peeing on the plants, and called it garden.

We went to Home Despot and bought seed packs of lettuce, broccoli and zucchini. We bought 6 honeydew melon plants, 4 cherry tomato plants, a roma tomato, two yellow squash plants, a grape vine, a bean plant, and a spaghetti squash vine. We planted, watered and waited. I planted an 8 foot row of lettuce and a couple of feet of broccoli. I only planted 6 of the zucchini seeds because I figured a couple wouldn't sprout and a couple wouldn't thrive and two zucchini plants would produce plenty for the two zucchini eaters in the family.

Let it be known that today's seed packets have obviously seen some improvement in the last 3 decades. Seeds now sprout very well indeed. Perhaps there are magical properties in mini-manure, but all of those zucchini plants sprouted, as did all of the lettuce seeds and broccoli. They all thrived. All the plants we planted thrived. Our 12 x 10 garden was looking a bit cramped after about a month, but nature has a way of dealing with overcrowding.

The lettuce was almost ready to start picking a bit each day for side salads when the squirrels found them. I went out to water one morning and half the lettuce had been sheared off at ground level. The next morning there was only bare dirt where 8 feet of lettuce should have been. The zucchini, squash and tomatoes were untouched.

The melons had begun blooming and boy were we salivating. Nothing beats chilled honeydew melon. The vines were lush and lovely. Until the squirrels finished up the row of lettuce and discovered the melon vines. 3 entire melon plants gone in one night. 2 the next night, bare earth on the third day. The zucchini plants were untouched. I started contemplating rodenticide.

I forgot to mention the 6 strawberry plants I put in pots with potting soil. These strawberry plants grew, blossomed and started producing little berries. I'd placed them toward the front of the garage where they'd be protected from the lethal effects of the Aridzona sun. They got about 6 hours of morning sun but were protected from the worst. The berries started getting big and fat and pink. I was salivating again. The berries went from big and fat and pink to gone and mostly gone. Damned squirrels had found them IN THE GARAGE. The zucchinis were still untouched. I went to town and came back armed with 3 boxes of D-Con and a high powered pellet rifle. I was ticked off.

After 2 months, our garden contained 6 gigantic zucchini plants, 2 gigantic yellow squash plants, 5 gigantic tomato plants, a grape vine that is still fighting the good fight amid the choking tomatoes and zucchinis. The bean plant never did much. One bean per week is hardly a harvest. Then the rabbits discovered it and left nothing but the stalk. Rabbits don't eat zucchini either.

I'm getting about 12-15 zucchinis per week. We've only just now started getting decent yellow squash even though the plants are huge and lush. And our tomatoes are ripening. The tomato situation is about to become as frightening as the zucchini problem. We have hundreds of tiny green maters and probably 15 romas ripening. None of the tomato plants show any inclination to stop blooming so there are more coming after these. There's going to be a lot of fresh salsa, spaghetti sauce and salad fixins around here.

The zucchini wars are quite frightening really. I get on my hands and knees, pull back leaves, and search diligently for new zucchini every other day. Zucchini, however, is evil. There will always be 3 or 4 that manage to hide in the bermuda grass (when watered, mini-manure produces a better, more hearty, patch of bermuda grass than any landscape artist can install) until they weigh about 10 lbs and are bigger than Elmo. I have made two 10 lb zucchini casseroles, I've steamed it, I've baked it, I've cut it up raw on salads, I've grilled it and I have two 1 gallon freezer bags stuffed full of it in the freezer with 8 more fresh ones on the kitchen counter staring at me. I also haven't checked the plants since yesterday and I know there are more out there lurking. I can feel them watching the house, and growing. My neighbors avoid me. I'm considering mailing them to friends across the nation.

What I am forced to wonder here amid the salmonella epidemic from imported tomatoes, is why in heaven's name are we importing veggies? I have 5 tomato plants that are producing enough to handle the average tomato consumption of 3 families each week. I'm doing this with nothing more than water and magical mini-manure so it's certainly not a high cost crop. If I discover we're importing zucchini I'm going find out who is to blame and take one of these two foot long club shaped veggies and beat the fool over the head with it. I can feed 3 families DAILY with the zucchini I get out of 6 zucchini plants, more than that if one of those 10 lb casseroles is involved. I mean really. If I can supply this many veggies from a garden that is now only 3-4 feet wide and 12 feet long why are we paying for salmonella imported from Mexico?

How Minis Helped Shape the West