Accidents Happen

And today one happened to me. David and I were struggling to get the west side of the shelter in place when the 4" fence rail we were using to take pressure off the corner post slipped. It fell forward into the shelter and the top caught me (completely unaware) on the spine, just above my right buttock. I screamed like a little girl, partly out of surprise, partly out of pain and partly out of fear.

Fear because my right leg stopped working briefly. It wouldn't hold me up, and I couldn't make it move after I went down. It lasted for less than a minute, and then the whole thing just went cold and numb. Our kind neighbors came by with a big bag of ice, and David hobbled me into the house where I lay iced, drugged and dazed for a couple of hours. Now that I'm up and about both legs feel as though they are made of lead, but they are holding me up and moving when I will them to move. A lucky outcome and a lesson learned.

Calling for Frost

Grass photosynthesizes during the day while the sun is out and the nutrients it produces are used to drive nighttime growth. It's generally safest to graze founder-prone horses in the morning because the plants have depleted their sugars through the night. One exception to this rule is frosty mornings -- cold nighttime temperatures can slow or halt the use of sugars such that the grass is dangerously sweet by the time morning rolls around. It is cold and clear in Deroche this evening, so Raven and Tonka will be confined to the paddock tomorrow. Maybe they will help David and I finish their shelter.

Food Over Fear

It really started to pour around 16:00 and I couldn't let the horses stand under the tree any longer knowing they had a perfectly good, dry shelter ready and waiting. David helped me to spread several scoops of alfalfa cubes along the back, followed by flakes of hay. I stood gonging the bucket against the metal walls while they ate and, after some more bucking and farting ('tis the season, as AHS points out) they settled in. This is not a great picture, but it feels like a great achievement.

Steel Breadbox of Doom

That's pretty much how the horses feel about their new shelter. Sometime last night we traded clear skies for a persistent, dreary rain. This morning both horses were huddled under a tree about 30 feet from the shelter entrance, looking damp and dejected.

Of course it will take some time for them get comfortable with this new addition, but I'll do my best to speed the process along. They had to put two feet into the shelter to get breakfast today, which turned out to be a challenge.

I sat toasty and dry with their feed buckets while they made two or three skeptical approaches followed by bucking and farting departures. Tonka (by far the greedier of the two) finally made the first move.

The whole structure makes a hollow gonging sound whenever a hoof strikes the front skid, and this resulted in several more episodes of bucking and farting down to the other end of the paddock. Eventually breakfast got eaten by both horses, and I am happy to report that no horses got eaten by the shelter.

After ensuring that the buckets were clean Tonka relaxed with a mud bath, and then I put their rain sheets on. It continues to drizzle and they are...you guessed it...standing under the tree. Later this week I will build an 8-foot one-sided feeder into the back of the shelter and I will start stocking it and it alone when it is raining. I have no doubt that their stomachs will soon motivate them to forget their fears.