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Thread Nine: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1584833/posts |
Posted on 10/04/2005 9:56:41 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog
I can vouch for that. For the last couple of months I've been trimming all my horses that are unshod and it's darned hard work! It's hard trying to figure out the best position to be in and what's the best way to hold the tools and the foot all that, plus your body's not used to being in that position and you get tired quickly. But I've at least got the excuse that I'm probably twice that kid's age. Better done right and slow than fast and wrong though.
My shoer is coming next week. I;m going to have him pull Rocky's shoes. I'm just not riding him and I'm not paying for shoes. I'm thinking about asking the shoer to watch/coach me in rasping his feet down. At least one or two. Then maybe I'll be able to do it myself. I've thought about it before but worry so much about getting the unlevel....but with the shoer coming every 6 wks, I can have him check each time to make sure I'm keeping him right...
Becky
About the horse that got down in the trailer, he was probably used to the partition and was leaning on it for balance and panicked when he didn't have it. He probably couldn't get up by himself because his head was tied up too high for him to get any leverage. Some horses become what's known as "scramblers" and when they feel themselves start to get off balance it's almost like they start trying to brace themselves on the walls or anything else they can think of but they sound like they're trying to run in place. They'll throw themselves down and everything. It's afwul! I sure hope Charlie's horse doesn't turn into one of those. But at the very least, I'll bet he has a really hard time getting him back in a trailer again. It'll take a lot of time a patience. I feel for him. I've almost resorted to tying the horse to the back of the trailer and making him walk home too but I've always been too far from home to do it. Charlie was lucky, in more ways than one!
I tried that too but it didn't turn out too well. My farrier let me do it and all, but I was just so awful at it and so slow and felt so self conscious that I just quit and let him do it. It worked out better for me to just buy a good rasp and hoof knife and do it by myself. That way I could stop and blow when I wanted and it didn't matter if it took me an hour to do one foot. I wasn't wasting anybody's time but my own, which was the problem when I was trying to do it in front of the farrier. I ordered some DVDs on the subject and eventually bought a good hoof stand, nippers and a hoof gage. You could get the farrier to check out your work after the fact, when he comes to shoe Harley the next time. Buying all the tools is expensive, but when you've got as many horses as I have, it doesn't take long to make it back. With you just having one to trim, it'll take you a bit longer.
Oh, and the other thing that I didn't think about but that came up after I tried and quit and he thought I had given up for good was that I think it insulted him a little. He said he'd had lots of people think that they could pick up in a few hours what he'd been studying to do for 15 years and do it as well as him and that most of them found out that it wasn't as easy as they thought. I didn't mean to imply that to him, but I guess I was. It didn't keep me from wanting to do it, but I wasn't going to ask him to spend his time for free trying to teach me. I don't have the luxury of time to go to a farrier school, but I can learn enough from books and videos to keep my own horses feet in halfway decent shape and maybe have them checked out every now and then by a real farrier.
Then he will tell you how badly you screwed them up and how he has to come every month and get them right again!...lol
Charlie probably didn't think at the time it was funny, but I couldn't help but laugh at having to drive home with a horse tied behind the trailer. Poor guy. Good thing, he did all that all day trailer tieing before.
I'm going up to Maine to have thanksgiving with my aunt and uncle. My uncle is a fantastic cook. We'll probably have a great turkey, the traditional sides, and lots and lots of pie.
If need be, I can keep the powder upstairs. It's dry now and there is a dehumidifier. With winter coming and furnace on, I would worry more about static electric. I have a dryer sheet around the power reloader bottle to hold down the static. The finish shells will go back upstairs. That is, if I make anymore. My trapshooting has really been in decline the last few months. My reloader is a single stage, and it takes me an hour to make 100 shells. So very very boring.
LOL! Yeah, you're proabaly right. I guess the best thing to do is to educate yourself as much as possible so you'll know for yourself if you're not doing a good job. And I would go on to say that I would only attempt this myself on a horse that has "normal" foot conformation. There's no way I would even dream of doing corrective work.
Yes, working...lol Thanksgiving and the day after are holidays for us. It will be nice and quiet and I can get a lot done without being interrupted by the phones, and people coming in the door. Daughter, SIL, and granddaughter will go over to her dad's, or someone on that side of the family.
Why did the landlord not paint?
........?????????..........
huh?
Boy you got that right! I'm blowing the ends of my fingers out every time I get out of the car. One evening last week I had on a fleece jacket and as I was getting out at the barn, Grace came up to meet me and when I went to rub her cheek, a blue flame arced from my finger to her face and it sounded like I'd popped her with a rubber band. It shocked the crap outta me and it must've hurt really her bad coz she grunted and ran off. I appologized to her and tried to pet her but she kept on looking at me like "Why'd you hurt me? What'd I do?". Poor girl! I've got to remember to ground myself out on the door frame when I get out the next time.
Uuuuh, should've said "it must've really hurt her bad" ...Sorry, I don't know where that first line came from. It's Monday I guess.
Beacuse the landlord's kids lived in the apartment. It's an interesting situation that I really don't know much about. :-)
Oh! I figured out what you were asking with the ???'s! It just took me most of the day to process the thought. So I'm a little slow these days.
99,85,80,90,90
So tell me about the goldfish
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