A Rant

I hate wind. No, wait, let me repeat that.. I HATE wind!! The last couple of days the wind has been absolutely horrible. What makes it even worse is that the temperatures have been in the low 50s the last few days and the sun has been shining. They would be perfect days to get out and enjoy the sunshine... if not for the 50mph winds!! Today they said the wind was a steady 40mph with gusts up to 60. While taking care of my horses tonight, I had several flakes of hay ripped out of my hands by the wind and they blew away, no trace left. After watering and haying the herd out on the property, I came back to town to go see Onyx. (yes I think that's her name now) I had planned to work with her a bit, but I couldn't get the barn door shut behind me which meant the *~#&#%^# wind was HOWING through the barn aisle. Sooo instead I worked in her stall a bit.

When I picked her up the majority of her body was covered in mud. Most of it was dry, clumped on her. A lot of it has fallen off and I've picked some off while petting her, but her belly is completely covered in dried mud. There are a ton of little dingleberry mud balls hanging off her belly hairs. It's gotta be uncomfortable and of course before I can saddle her I've gotta get all that stuff off of her. She's been touchy about her belly and I can see why. The hair down there is being pulled by all the dried up mud balls. The good news is that most of them are not right up against her skin so I should be able to snip them off with some small scissors. She'll have some chunky cut belly hairs, but she'll be a lot more comfortable I'd think! She was letting me feel around down there tonight which is the most she's let me do to her belly without fussing. I also worked on touching her legs and was able to run my hand down both of her front legs. I worked on desensitizing her to the lead rope, tossing it over her neck, back and rump and letting it coil around her front legs. The only thing that bothered her a bit at first was feeling it around her legs but she didn't try to run away and she accepted it pretty quickly. The last accomplishment for the night was putting the lead rope around her like a cinch and playing with that. I jiggled it around and tightened it off and on. She didn't seem to mind that at all. Not too bad for a few minutes in the stall with the friggin' wind howling by in the barn aisle.

I've heard it's supposed to be windy again tomorrow (*grumble grumble*) but hopefully I can get started on the "belly mudball crusade".