Sunny Days

Sun! And walking is a bliss with the cold clear weather of these days. When I am out there in the woods, the steady clip clop of Kaylee's feet by my shoulder and the mane and tail of TomBoy bouncing and swinging like a fountain of spun gold before me, it is really easy to think that there is nothing, nothing better than this, and that Icould walk on and on like that forever, "into the land of sunset".

Romantics apart, walking with the blondies is becoming more and more enjoyable as our relation (and communication) improves and they come to trust us more and more.

We come to know each other better each day, and deal better with our various eccentricities. TomBoy is a strong and eager horse with a superabundance of energy that seems to spill over at the beginning of a walk, sometimes in an explosive way, and he needs a steady hand and a close eye for half an hour or so, lest he takes off bucking in ebullient equine happiness over the fields. Kaylee on the other hand always looks like a martyr at the beginning of each walk until she becomes warmer and looser. Longing may help with both, a skill on wich we are all working.

After a period of being skittish on the path whenever anything happened (a noise in the woods, a family walking down the road, a dog, a woodpile, another horse, a bike a car, a flock of geese overhead... you get the idea) they are now much calmer. I hope it means they trust our judgement more. Yesterday we had a long walk to the cute village of Lutz, met people, cars, horses, dogs, and no reaction at all. I do devoutly hope we do not have to test this new diligent attitude with another "snuffle" of wild boars! A dashy, classy, white arabian stallion begged to be introduced to Kaylee, with very obvious intentions, but she never even looked at him.

"All the Great Teachers have preached that Man, originally, was a 'wanderer in the scorching and barren wilderness of this world' - the words are of Dostoevsky's Great Inquisitor - and that to rediscover his humanity, he must slough off attachments and take to the road."

"One commonly held delusion is that men are the wanderers and women the guardians of hearth and home. This can, of course, be so. But women, above all, are the guardians of continuity: if the hearth moves, they move with it."

"The Bushmen, who walk the distances across the Kalahari, have no idea of the soul's survival in another world. 'When we die, we die' they say. 'The wind blows away our foot prints, and that is the end of us.'

Sluggish and sedentary peoples, such as the Ancient Egyptians - with their concept of an afterlife journey through the Field of Reeds - project on to the next world the journeys they failed to make in this one."

Bruce Chatwin, "The Songlines"

"He was working on a book of his own: It would be a 'manual of poverty'. He hadn't yet decided on a title.
Today, he said, more than ever before, men had to learn to live without things. Things filled men with fear: the more things they had, the more they had to fear. Things had a way of riveting themselves on to the soul and then telling the soul what to do."

Father Terence, in "The Songlines", Bruce Chatwin

The last few weeks have been dedicated almost entirely to the ponies. Their winter quarters needed improving, and were improved (one day they will work for us for a change), they needed to get used to grooming and fussing and they are now much easier to handle and more patient, especially TomBoy.

However, the greatest and most abrupt change in their (and our) behaviour came about a few days ago after I had a compact course about trimming their feet, something of great importance since we cannot depend on always finding a farrier at every turn of our long way, and we purchased boots for their feet, a more fussy solution than shoes, but one that we can safely handle ourselves without costant need of a hoofsmith. I am also convinced that going barefoot, with the additional help of boots, is much better for horses general health.

Trimming their feet as such did not change our collective personality, but spending 5 hours with Gunter, the "barefooter" who came to do the course, trim their feet and offer advice about the choice of boots, did.

There are persons who seeing you in difficulty in whatever field will immediately point out your mistakes and politely suggest you get help to correct them. Gunter is not like that: a natural born teacher, he saw our mistakes in handling the horses and immediately proceeded to analyze the situation, explain in detail what was wrong in our attitude, and show us in a very practical, no nonsense, direct way how to improve it. I did a fair amount of riding at the riding-school back in my old town, but the horses in the riding-schools are so alienated by routine that there is not much to learn about equine communication from them. So, while the relationship with the Blondies has been steadily developing into a very affectionate family life, there was not much progress in our "working partnership". Both me and Eric are polite and rather introvert people who tend to sit back quietly in loud companies. We don't usually try to dominate people, rather striving to just be left alone. This attitude however was evidently confusing to our horses, who, herd animals to the bone, perceived a lack of clearly defined authority: they did not really know where they stood with us, and some of their confusing and sometimes irritating "misbehaviours" were actually their way to test the hierarchy of the herd, something to need to be clear about if they must be able to think about anything else at all. You can read as much as you want in books and articles and web pages about horse communication and natural horsemanship, but seeing a confident, competent person handling your own horse, with his or her personal quirks and eccentricities is a different thing entirely. Gunter came here to trim our horses' feet and in passing taught us more about "talking" to our horses than a huge pile of books, and years of riding four legs automatons at the riding-school ever did. Thank you!!


At the moment we have three pairs of boots, Kailee's hind feet being yet "unbooted". They are three different kinds, each of them chosen to best fit the shape and size of each pair of feet, so we will be able to test quite a number of brands on our way! TomBoy wears Easyboots on his fronts, and Boa Boots on his hinds, and Kaylee, who had foundered in the past wears Old Macs G2 boots.
The first impression about the Easyboots is that the name is one of the cruelest jokes ever played on customers because nothing about theese boots is easy. They have great reviews all over the net, and stunning exploits were and are performed with them, so I must believe they are really good, but, boy, are they a pain in the bum to handle! They are really hard to put on, and hard to pull off, and the clasp in front should be enough to drive any horse owner to tears, being a devil to push shut, and even worse to pull open ( something that cannot be done without the use of a tool, wether a screw driver or a knife). I do hope they become easier in time, or I become smarter, and that their performance justifies the hassle, and I can only thank TomBoy for the patience he is showing with us during our fumbling first attempts at booting his front feet. For the moment, he seems to be walking really well with them, consistently landing his feet heel first. One of the strings is already fraying, but that may be due to our messy first attempts at fitting them on.
Part of the Blondies' increasing willingness to cooperate may be due to the fact that the hard frozen ground these days is hard on newly unshod horse feet, and it must be evident to them that the boots do represent an advantage.

The Old Macs are laborious but not so difficult to fit, having a number of different straps and belts to be closed in turn, so that there is quite a lot to do, but each step is quite easy. They need to be refastened after a few minutes of walking, because as the foot settles in them they become looser. Kaylee is not stumbling and sliding on everything like she used to do now: the sole of these boots has a very deep profile that offers very strong traction. As long as that does not strain her joints it is all for the best in these icy days.

By far the coolest boots, both in looks and practicality, are however the Boa, a very high tec looking boot that would make any stylish sportman out there green with envy. These are very very easy to slip on and even easier to close, like a pair of really well designed running shoes. A dial mechanism turns clockwise to tighten the lacing, and is just pulled outward to release them. The whole procedure is smooth and quick, completely stress free both for TomBoy and me. Carpal tunnel syndrome left my fingers somewhat weak, and these are the only boots that I can fasten by myself without swearing.

This, concerning the fitting of the boots. If the Boas turn out in the long run to be as durable as other boots I cannot see why anyone could want something different, but their reviews are not sky high, so I guess there must be a catch somewhere.

This is the address of Gunter website, and if you are close enough to avail yourself of his service, do so, you cannot be disappointed:
http://www.hufschuhe.com/