I feel for you. We are waiting for signs of monsoon season-hasn't rained in months! No signs in sight yet. Moisture is much needed. Oh, and I totally know what the hard ground is like. Our is called caliche here in the southwest and it is concrete basically.
You want humidity? We are saturated! Hurricane Alex moved into Mexico and some air mass grabbed it and swept it over Oklahoma. Here it SITS, tropical moisture heavy and wet! It's cloudy, 80 degrees and humid. The groundis soggy from the 3.5 inches of rain we received in two days and our fourth of July celebration was all but cancelled. Oh for some dry sunshine!
I am so sorry the weather is not good for you. It makes me appreciate the weather here! It is so nice this summer! But...the ground is kind of dry for natural feet. The people that do it here struggle with it and ride in boa boots or the soft arena. Janow is barefoot in back but he is not in hard work. He is shod in front. This may not be natural, but neither is a servicably sound 20 year old horse that has foundered three times. He is sound with egg bars and wedge pads in front. The titanium that fuses my lumbar spine into one piece is not natural either and it makes me not want to bend over to mess with feet. We don't pretend to have a good set up between us. We are old. We like each other.
Humidity is non-existent out here in Utah which is what inspired us to move here! I just can't handle it. So jealous that you can do natural foot care. Up here in the Rockies we re-shoe the horsies ever 6 weeks and man! That takes a big bite out of the budget.
I hear you on the humidity. We are not all that hot here today but with the humidity it is unbearable! Hope you see some rain and cool soon! I am afraid we are heading into that time of the year where all there is, is hot and dry!
July 5, 2010 at 4:08 PM
[Image]I guess if you love the South, you have to love the humidity. Yesterday and today, we have had more than enough to love. We have no break in sight. It is hot and dry and all living creatures are suffering from it.
I do barefoot and natural with my horses with the belief, unfounded or not, that Mother Nature intended it that way. Well, Mother Nature in all her rainless, hard ground glory has done a number on the horses hooves around here. Today we worked on improving this.
[Image]My youngest, Broken Arrow, does not especially love the trimming as you can see by the set of his ears. Arrow does improve each time. The treats I hand out are not hurting anything either.
[Image]Here is a freshly shaped and trimmed hoof. You can tell how the dry weather is affecting the hooves. Knothead has the smallest feet, they look like pony feet compared to the rest of the herd but Knot is the only one with no draft blood in him. This is his white hoof so it suffers more than the dark ones. Even with the dryness there are no major hoof problems, thank goodness.
His papers call him Arabian but it matters not to me. I measure the success of my animals by the size of their hearts and not the size of their papers.
[Image]This is a solid rock drill core that has been removed from the ground as the high line crew were installing our new lovely eighty foot metal monstrosities they call poles. It has at least a three foot diameter and this one is about eighteen inches tall...the perfect mounting block. It is certainly not going to fall over and there is plenty of surface in which to move around.
It is limestone turning into granite, not sure what the rock is called but does have a very limey base and is, that's right, hard as a rock!
We have a few of these that the crew has yet to remove. Hubby has tried to place some in useful spots with his Kubota. Kubota is having a hard time. Hubby has moved one that is about three feet tall and an unknown enormous weight. It is currently the mineral block holder and the horses love it.
The day Hubby moved that one was a blessed day. It started rolling! Now the barn is down hill from these rock cores so you guessed it...it began to roll right toward the barn. Hubby swiftly geared up or down, whatever he needed, and flew in front of the rolling mass of rock and stopped it with the tractor. The core now rests where it was stopped and will probably move no more unless we have a back hoe or dozer. I am so grateful I did not witness this!
I have many imagined wonderful uses for these core drillings but I may never see them to fruition. The house is also on the down hill side of these babies and I am not sure it is worth the risk...how would you explain that to the insurance company?
7 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formHa ha! I can just imagine your husband racing the stone done the hill with his tractor! That must have been a sight! Thank GOD he won the race!
Here's wishing you some rain!
July 5, 2010 at 8:18 AM
I feel for you. We are waiting for signs of monsoon season-hasn't rained in months! No signs in sight yet. Moisture is much needed. Oh, and I totally know what the hard ground is like. Our is called caliche here in the southwest and it is concrete basically.
July 5, 2010 at 8:59 AM
Avalanche?
July 5, 2010 at 9:06 AM
You want humidity? We are saturated! Hurricane Alex moved into Mexico and some air mass grabbed it and swept it over Oklahoma. Here it SITS, tropical moisture heavy and wet! It's cloudy, 80 degrees and humid. The groundis soggy from the 3.5 inches of rain we received in two days and our fourth of July celebration was all but cancelled. Oh for some dry sunshine!
Liz
July 5, 2010 at 9:50 AM
I am so sorry the weather is not good for you. It makes me appreciate the weather here! It is so nice this summer!
But...the ground is kind of dry for natural feet. The people that do it here struggle with it and ride in boa boots or the soft arena.
Janow is barefoot in back but he is not in hard work. He is shod in front. This may not be natural, but neither is a servicably sound 20 year old horse that has foundered three times. He is sound with egg bars and wedge pads in front. The titanium that fuses my lumbar spine into one piece is not natural either and it makes me not want to bend over to mess with feet.
We don't pretend to have a good set up between us. We are old. We like each other.
July 5, 2010 at 9:58 AM
Humidity is non-existent out here in Utah which is what inspired us to move here! I just can't handle it. So jealous that you can do natural foot care. Up here in the Rockies we re-shoe the horsies ever 6 weeks and man! That takes a big bite out of the budget.
July 5, 2010 at 11:15 AM
I hear you on the humidity. We are not all that hot here today but with the humidity it is unbearable! Hope you see some rain and cool soon! I am afraid we are heading into that time of the year where all there is, is hot and dry!
July 5, 2010 at 4:08 PM