Thursday, April 18, 2013

Death of a Blanket

It never fails.  If I head out to the pasture with some sort of camera, be it cell phone or bad ass Sony Nex5, I am lucky to get the horses to do anything cool.  If I go out in a hurry to just get them fed, then they are a total blast, racing around like a bunch of fools.

I think I forgot to mention yesterday that TC put Killian's blanket on wrong side out. When I pointed this out to him , he said, "Killian will never notice the difference."

I should have fixed it then. I forgot that the material on the inside is smooth and fragile, where as the material on the outside is made to withstand tears and teeth.  So when I got out there yesterday evening to feed, there was Sassy ripping the hell out of Killian's blanket.  I yelled at her to knock it off, and went to fix his blanket.  I put a string on his neck which is usually enough to hold him still.

Not this day!

I got as far as getting everything unbuckled and he bolted.   I tried to hang on, but he was gone baby gone!
I called to him trying so hard to get him to calm down and let me come to him. Meanwhile my nice heavy quilted blanket from SSTack was slipping down around his side.  It is a closed front blanket that you have to slide over their head, so it didn't just fly off, it was still attached around his neck.

"Whoa big boy, please just stand still"

I almost got a hold of him and off he went. Sassy of course was doing all she could to help by instigating the race.
Finally it slipped down around in front of him. I saw his big old fat feet land on top of it. He almost went down on his face but recovered, and then came the sound......RIIIIIIPPP!

And now its in a heap on the ground. He killed it.

Had I been smart I would have at least whipped out my cell and got it on film, but I guess my brain was still in "I have to stop him mode."   I should have just grabbed food, its the one way to always get his attention.   What can I say, I guess I failed under pressure.

It ripped straight down the closed front.  I reckon I can just sew on some buckles or wide Velcro traps and still use it, although thanks to the crazy mare some of the insulation is gone too.

I'm pretty sure Sassy must be in full cycle right now, because Killian has flat out lost his mind.  The worst part is that she seems to be purposely messing with him. She knows it drives him crazy for her to go around any other boy horses (which is any horse around) so she purposely goes over and flirts with them all.  She is so bad.  A brazen little hussy is what she is.

Anyway, I did finally remember to get some video although it was kind of boring.  I was hoping to get some good video of Trax and Danny, but I guess they weren't really feeling it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwhYB_Soxdo

This was taken right as I let them out. Of course the minute I shut the camera off and got back on the tractor, they started racing.  Figures!

When I watched this after posting it on Youtube, I realized that it kind of shows how bad Danny's stringhalt is. Then I realized that although I have taken video of him moving, I have never uploaded any of it.  I shall put that on my list of things to do this summer.  It is really interesting to watch, especially when he runs.  Even with his handicap, he is such a cool horse.

Naturally when I went out this morning the sun was shining and the lighting was great. The ponies were really feeling it, and it would have made for some fantastic video. But where were all my cameras?  Inside on the counter.  Ack!

It looks like the roads are going to clear up today, so hopefully I can get a lesson in . We were supposed to go to the ELPO farrier today, but the road to Cheyenne is still shut down so he rescheduled for Sunday.

3 comments:

  1. Poor blanket. I really wish horses knew how expensive this stuff was! And I hate that horses only do the best stuff when we are not ready with the camera! That always happens!

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    1. I have decided that I am going to use the loss of this very toasty warm blanket as the pivotal key in why we must make the move to Arizona. I don't have enough blankets to make it through another winter in WY! HA!

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  2. my rule is always carry my camera, but like you I sometimes miss it with the camera in hand , too busy watching or trying to stop the event

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