Peevish Pen

Ruminations on reading, writing, genealogy and family history, rural living, retirement, aging—and sometimes cats.

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Location: Rural Virginia, United States

I'm an elderly retired teacher who writes. Among my books are Ferradiddledumday (Appalachian version of the Rumpelstiltskin story), Stuck (middle grade paranormal novel), Patches on the Same Quilt (novel set in Franklin County, VA), Them That Go (an Appalachian novel), Miracle of the Concrete Jesus & Other Stories, and several Kindle ebooks.

Friday, July 01, 2011

Mares' Manicure

Warning: Graphic hoof image. Note for the squeamish.

For nearly a year, my 30-year-old mare Cupcake has had hoof problems. Late fall, she had a massive abscess so bad that we had to keep bandaging her hoof to protect the hole on the bottom. (Thank goodness for newborn-sized diapers, Vet-wrap, and duct tape!) The abscess eventually broke though the top of her hoof and, for several months, the hole has been growing down. It looks as if she has a cloven hoof.



This morning, she waited patiently for the farrier to come and trim her hoof so it wouldn't look quite so cloven—and so the angle would be a better match for her other hoof. (The farrier trims both mares every six weeks.)


I took the above picture before I brushed the shavings off her. (Cupcake always lies down for a nap after breakfast.) I did have her fly mask on, though.

The farrier arrived with his arm in a sling because he'd recently had surgery. However, he brought another friend to trim for him. 


Cupcake's trimmed and rasped hoof is still cloven, but it's a lot better than it was. By the next trim, it should be considerably better.


Their "manicures" done, both Melody (left) and Cupcake went to graze in the pasture before it got too hot. There wasn't a cloud in the sky this morning.

Facing northwest.
Facing southwest.
The mares will graze for a few hours in the morning and then return to the run-in shed—where there's a fan—to avoid heat of the afternoon. That's what they do in summer.
~

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1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

You sure take good care of your animals, Becky. I think I would have liked horses, if I'd ever got to know any.

I especially liked your introductory passage about John Robert Forbes riding home on Sweet Molly. It made me think about my Henry riding homeward through Tennessee after Appomattox. I think Lucy and her husband must have given him a horse - maybe a racking mare - before he left Grove Hill.

Anyway, he sure spent a lot of time on horseback during his lifetime. I think he thought about them simply as a mode of transport, though, because he never wrote anything "personal" about them.

I'll write something about that on my blog pretty soon. By the way, I've figured out how to do blogrolls on two of my blogs, and have added Peevish Pen.

12:22 PM  

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