New Horse

Well we went, saw and fell in love. What a beautiful animal. Very up right and had nice action (winged out a bit on the front left no biggie), handsome condition and well behaved ground manners. He put his very large (about half the size of my daughter) head down and let my daughter hug him. Loves people. What a guy. Load up we're going home baby!
Draw back, feet. He had shoes on and had lost a rear one. I noticed his right front looked odd and it turned out he had damaged it while running loose down the paved road. He is a big boy around 1800 lbs so his feet are very important. I need a horse who can go barefoot. Pony actually just had his feet trimmed for the first time in two years. I maintain them myself but there comes a time when a pro needs to do it.

His hock on the shoeless side was swollen also. He did have ice pads on but still he should be able to loose a shoe without having too much effect. I will call his farrier and ask what the story is. I know it will take at least a year for that front hoof to grow in properly (the front clip must have really tore up the outer wall). That makes it in the neighborhood of an extra 150.00 every six to eight weeks until then and what happens at that point is only speculation and I am not going there. Imagine a lifetime of shoes all around on a back yard trail horse? Especially size five (regular riding horses take a 00 or a 0)?

From there we went to the co op for grain for the Pigs. Over 300.00 a ton. People ask why the grocery store food is so expensive? Lets start there......Cost of raising livestock has gone way up. Can't wait to see the cost of hay this season. I shutter to think about it. With the new horse, I should easily add and additional 400 bales to the 1300 I use now. Just one more drawback on the horse.

We had to wait for our grain while a large Trailer truck unloaded "Wheat Middlins" a major ingredient in grains and we watched the trailer and augers at work. Off we went for a terrible but fun lunch of Boston Cream and manager special donuts with orange pineapple juice for the kids and Mom had a bagel and coffee. Lunches like that don't happen too often. I was concerned the children were going to start chewing on the truck door arm rests. They had gone through two apples a piece and several pounds of carrots. Yes we always pack food for the ride.

On the way home we discussed the horse and my son did very well with his interpretation of what my husband would say and it made me realize that we wont be purchasing the lad.

Found we had been visited (pile of empty egg crates by the porch) by a friend who is anticipating the birth of her kidd goats. She is trying to plan around it and I told her that very much like humans there is nothing to be done to hurry them up and for crying out loud be patient. The girls will kidd when the time is right.

Onward home to have a conniption fit over my husbands new truck. The %$*&#(*& dealer we bought it from did nothing to prepare the truck for road worthiness. Now I have taken the battle on for having the retreads repair the truck under warrenty. I have already reported the dealer to Ford and DMV form K-35 is next. More on this subject at a later day.

I'm on vacation this week with the kids and am very late getting out. Such wonderful weather we will be outside all day.