A Northern Journal

…you get the drift! When will the rain stop? When one keeps ponies you just can’t get away from the fact it is WET! It is also soooo dark as well with the thick cloud cover which seems to have been the story of winter sos far. Combine that with the handling and cleaning up after soggy ponies, it makes for a miserable winter so far. Paddocks still have to be poo picked and stables cleaned and haynets (NB. fill them BEFORE you go out and clean up the paddock or you get hay stuck all over your wet oilskins.) filled even in the wet and wind and dark. I suppose I have to be thankful tonight’s rain isn’t horizontal, although there has been planty of that too.

Since my last post it has been, well, ummmmn, dark and mostly wet. There has been illness in humans (viral and stress and S.A.D related all at once causing a blackout at the most inopportune moment!) and animals(all at the same time) and of course Christmas happened (quite good atually as was sooth with parents and sister’s family in parents new house - and it was actually dry enough to get out for walks in the woods - BIG SMILES as I love woodland and forests and rivers having grown up in the Highlands).

Puddo cats all had a viral diarroeah thing with Merlin also having a chest infection. Great fun for a while (not!). Thorfinn unfortunately triggered with laminitis again, three years or so after the original bout but what was unusual was that it was in November. Now laminitis is more commonly associated with spring time and lush green grass although, having said that the grass was still ‘growing’ as the weather was so mild. The upshot is because of the late occurance and the fact that he is an older pony (19 this May) the vets tested for Cushings Disease (negative) and did a glucose tolerance test. The latter showed that he had mild insulin resistance otherwise known as [early stages] Equine Metabolic Syndrome which seemingly (internet researching here) is ‘common’ (not really the right word) in ponies that are designed to live in wild conditions with low quality grazing.

The sugars in our modern managed grazing is just too much for some of them and unfortunately my Thorfinn is one of them. Mind you, I have always been aware of his ability to get ’fat on air’ but what I find galling is that fact I have always carefully managed him but one can’t really fight against the fact that nature actually designed him to suit the type of environment few ponies live in these days. This can be managed by diet and exercise, but what with the dark nights and that ubiquitous wet stuff falling out of the skies exercise is pretty much a non-starter. So he is on a restricted diet of hay and ‘Hi-fi[bre] Lite’ and living on the sand school. This is not ideal as he is hungrier than usual and has taken to chewing wood, but careful management by putting two to three haynets out in different plpaces, means he has to walk about to eat from them. Also, putting one haynet inside the other slows him down a bit - well it is supposed to.

As to the Hobbit ponies, they are doing great out in the field grazing and now only just getting a little supplementary hay. The ground though is very very squelchy and wet, and one does wonder what it will be like by the spring. It is rather nice when I go out to prep stable for Thorf, and I hear a high pitched whinny from the field as Gem says ‘Hello’! I must get to working them again soon!

Nope, not the squeak of a mouse in the cat’s mouth, but the ‘eek’ of a blogger who hasn’t blogged in many many months. What has happened to the last few months? Can’t say I have been any busier than usual. I certainly haven’t had a break from computers as am on either the work one or my laptop everyday to check the emails I thankfully don’t get too many of, and online browser game that I don’t really play anymore, yet keep checking anyway and the ubiquitous facebook. Ahh! Facebook! It certainly has been known to eat up my life but as with the online game, find myself checking but not doing much with it. Stopped all the naff apps and games months ago, and the least said about the recent changes the better.

So life over the last few months has consisted of work, work and more work; Dungeons & Dragons role playing game (playing, running both at school and in leisure time); Red Dead Redemption on the xBox (amongst one or two other games); playing with the ponies and attempting to train the Hobbit Cavalry to harness (needing a lot of patience with these ponies who are too bright for their own good); neglecting the garden; Lots of harness cleaning; driving Thorfinn for leisure and for a couple of public events; endless poo picking off the paddocks; a bit of travelling to the Highlands(including taking part in Horse Boy training in Newtonmore - to use horses to help Autistc children) and more recently to Swindon (for a meeting) via family near Oxford.

Winter has now set in and as I take stock of the last six months or more I really do wonder what the heck I have been up to. I do believe procrastination has had a lot of influence! Let’s hope that the few days holiday I have coming up bring okay weather (can’t ask for more than being relatively dry) - some hope - so I can play more ponies and maybe even tidy up the neglected garden let alone give ALL my horsey leather work a good pre-winter check and clean prior to storing in the house out of the damp shed. EEK!

Vast expanse of pale blue sky

Sun, a golden orb slowly setting

The quiet sound of unshod feet on the road

Riding into the setting sun

Down a grassy track

Sit quietly on gentle pony

and listen…

Lap of water on the loch shore

Quiet breath of pony at rest

Hooting of swans

Twittering of small birds calling to each other

Honking of geese and the wheeze of wings as the fly overhead

The snort of the pony as he blows his nose

A tractor rumbling in the distance

The drone of an aircraft overhead

The screech of an oystercatcher or three

The low rumble of the sea on cliffs some miles away

Insects hovering low over heather shimmering bronze

in the setting sun

A gentle canter up the grassy track

The setting sun on our backs

Following a long shadow leading

the way home.

So, the day dawned snowy but clear. The time had come to do the pony post and get the cards delivered in the neighbourhood. Wrapped up in several layers I set out on Thorfinn who was bedecked in tinsel and bells and did the annual delivery, now in its 12th year. Three hours later, one hour in a snow storm, we arrived home damp but warmed by coffee, whisky and rum, in my case (not all at one, I hasten to add) and pan drops and carrots in Thorf’s case.

Jingle through the snow - 1

Jingle through the snow - 2

This is the sort time I like to go out on a moonlight ride on Thorfinn. There is no wind and a silence unlike any other rests over the snow covered land, as though the snow muffles everything. There are stars in the sky and the moon casts a silver light over the snow, causing the snow crystals to twinkle and glisten. The photos from my peedie camera really don’t do it justice.

Okay, so I couldn’t resist. It is so still and quiet out there with just the rustle of the jacket, the crunch of hooves in the deep snow, the occasional snort from the pony and geese rising from the loch.

It has been such a long time since I last posted so here are a few recent photos including some of the worst snow conditions I have seen up here.

Thorfinn has spent the winter without a rug for the first time in years. I made the decision not to use a rug as I read an article in a magazine (whilst browsing in a shop) which made me reflect on the way I manage my laminitis prone native pony. It basically said that we (horse owners) now over feed and over rug our horses, meaning that they come out of the winter well-covered (fat) so that when they get the first influx of fresh spring grass the sudden increase in sugars triggers laminitis. In the wild ponies and horses would come out of the winter on the thin side so the extra goodness in the grass goes to building them up, rather than mucking up their digestive and circulatory system.

This is a painful condition affecting the animal’s circulation which affects the feet. Inflamation occurs in the laminae (the structure that holds the outside of the hoof to the internal structures and pedal bone, equivalent to the very end bone in your middle finger), but as the horny structure of the outside of the foot can’t move out like our skin it gets really sore, exacerbated by the fact that the pony’s weight is on the feet. Think about when you badly stub your toe or trap your finger in a car door, then it swells with blood and off course your nail doesn’t stretch! Ouch!!!

If you catch it in time, like I managed to with Thorfinn four years ago or so there will be little internal damage. Leave it too long and the laminae start to separate and the pedal bone moves. Ponies will become reluctant to move. They may rock back and ’stand’ on their heels to relieve the pressure and pain. If you ever see this then the animal is in pain! Thorf never got to this stage, as I know him pretty well and realised something was wrong very early on. In very extreme circumstances, the hoof wall will separate from the inside of the foot and can slip off the foot kind of like you would slip a wellie boot off. Now, I repeat… this is in extreme circumstances.

Once a pony or horse has had laminitis, there will always be a risk of it developing again so at this time of year I cut back Ts grazing and he will spend time on the sand turnout area with hay. He has restricted grazing in the summer.

So, to this end, very very fat horses are as much a cause for concern than the very thin horse. If, at this time of year you see an equine in a field showing ribs, but the main joints (hips, shoulders, etc) aren’t protruding, then it may well be okay. It will soon put on weight with the spring grass, but if it is still thin a few weeks later and on a good grazing (or carefully controlled strip grazing), then maybe there is an ongoing medical condition (some old horses will always look thin). Don’t jump to conclusions about welfare! BUT, of course if there is NO grass or a weed strewn field, then maybe it isn’t being looked after.

So, as you can see, Thorfinn has survived an Orkney winter without a rug. Admittedly, he comes in at night with his wee shadow (Sigurd) joining him. I believe he has been a happier pony and his natural thick double layered winter coat has done a much better job than any modern rug. I am just now going to have to spend hours grooming it out and put up with white hairs all over my clothing!

The hint of spring hangs in the air as the sun shines from a clear blue sky. A hint of spring hangs in the air as the aroma of black earth drifts from under the shining plough. A hint of spring hangs in the air as the birds sing their songs to the baseline of the rumbling tractor.

For anyone who is interested, I have copied the posts I made in the original BBC Island Blogging site into a page.

Original Blog Posts