Lions and Horses and Bears... Oh SHIT!

1) Lions
So yesterday the Grove Girls - which is what we called ourselves from a party invitation and the moniker stuck - were grooming, blanketing, and turning out some very eager horses back to the pasture from being in for three days. One was due to the weather, the other two days were waiting for the farrier, to give all our beauties their manicures. He ended up not showing up either day. So we were giving them back to the wild... more wild than we anticipated!

Clare says, looking up the road/hill that goes up to the far pasture, "Hey, look - someone's cat is chasing a deer." I jumped out of the barn in time to see, running across the dirt road from the fenceline into the raspberries, a deer indeed... followed by a puma chasing it, swiping its front paws at the hind of the deer in an attempt to knock its legs out from underneath. Just like you see in the Wild Kingdom shows. They generally attack from above by jumping and biting prey, I guess something went wrong with that plan.

There was a second deer, who WAS running along with his buddy until he went and got himself in trouble... but he was confused, ran across the road after the cat, so that it was deer-cat-deer, but something must have seemed wrong about that particular order to him, because he turned and ran back across, but turned again and looked after his buddy, obviously wondering what to do? Yeah, that can get pretty confusing, buddy, chasing the guy who is trying to eat your friends.

We saw the tracks in the mud today, and measured from one set of deer tracks to the next... 20 feet. Someone was in a hurry.


2) Horses
OK, so like I mentioned above, we had to take each horse out one at a time, brush it, pick the poop n stuff out of their hooves, and blanket them before sending them out. It has begun the rainy season in earnest, and there is something called RAIN ROT that happens sometimes up here on the horses, and other livestock I'm sure. Wet coats + mildew and mold in the air + warm bodies to help them grow on fur = lots of itchy skin and multiple baths with medicated shampoo. Great if you can avoid it - bring on the waterproof blankets.

Except Monty decided he didn't want to have his hooves picked clean. Spoiled brat that he is, all 1500 lbs of him - he is a jumper breed and extremely tall, and OH SO full of himself. I lifted the first of his back legs - did I mention he was bred to JUMP? - and the little shit kicked me off of it.

It wasn't the typical HOOF to the BODY and... the ribs are broken. Or collarbone, in most cases. Sometimes face, where plastic surgery comes in handy. No, this was quite the angelic-rescue story (and I have a few). Imagine me, standing with my right side against his rear end facing the opposite way he faces, bent over with his leg in my hands - his hock (flat bony part of the lower leg) caught me under the left ribcage, and just... kinda... lilted me into the air, and back two feet. Now, at three feet, we are talkin' - into the back wall of the barn. No good. Two feet - still on the mat, not on concrete or 2x4 beams... better. And to top it off, I did a 180 somehow, whilst flying through the air, only to land on the mat face first, arms out, kinda on the knees for a split second but immediately pretty flat out, limbs and all.

I didn't feel a thing. I got up, and I think he even surprised himself... but, yes, a little discipline was necessary. Not what you might think though. I was surprisingly not angry, scared, or ruffled in any way. Just took him out of the barn and made him do a few circles using the lead rope. He was still flustered from being inside so much. Later on I ached a lot and needed a hot shower.

I did tell the owner that his back feet are going to be pretty dirty until he gets to the trainer.



3) Bears
The farrier shows up an hour early today to trim feet. A day late and an hour early. So absurd it made us laugh. He had to wait on US to get the horses in. Now THAT was funny. We told him about our wildcat story. He said he was going to report it as a sighting to the fish n game service here. They like to know where the cats are, to keep eyes out for missing livestock etc. I guess they may have something to worry about once the deer run out. Like it evidently has in Eastern Oregon, where hundreds of big cats are reportedly killed by the government for overpopulation. Unresearched stories...

He discloses he is a hunter of many a wild beast. We decided to escort him to the back door of the barn, where not ten feet from the door there are large diggings in the soft soil, which is laced with barn shavings and horse poop from years past. That's no deer, no cat. No, he says. Definitely bear. Digging for ants, grubs, mushrooms... this time of year they 'load up' on anything they can find to prepare for the ultimate nap.

Yeah. Bear. Oh my. What if it tries to come after one of the old horses? they are penned up at night like TV dinners! Well, it happens in the movies! And one night this week, about 10 pm, I went to check on the horses but couldn't make it past our little fenced yard, let alone to the barn. Something was watching me, you all know that feeling I'm talkin' about... it was starin' HARD, too, I got the biggest willies... I had to have an escort, just 25 yards or so to the barn door, but damn, it is dark out there, and so many places to hide... not that it helped when we got back up to the house, let the dog out to pee, and it barked a ferocious little storm up. Geez.

Well, out of the frying pan of desert snakes, into the zoo...