Life lessons at the barn

I am really new to this. In fact this is my first official blog. Not really sure how much I will use it, but it looks like fun. I will start by writing about the day at the barn. It started with putting medicine in one of their eyes. She got an ulcer on one of her eyes. Apparently horses get them quite often, from bumping there eyes on who knows what. They can lose their eyes from the darn things. Anyway I digress, so put the medicine in her eye, followed by putting her in the field. Then we moved on to putting the rest of the heard out. Spirit, and Little Chief in the field with Beauty and Dreams and Spumoni out to eat grass. This was followed by cleaning stalls (5) and refilling water. the best part of the day was standing in the middle of the field watching all the horse interactions around us. You can learn a LOT about behavior and interactions by watching. I could of spent all day in there, listening and watching them. But alas responsibility called. We moved on to preparing the beet pulp with the vitamins, wormer and salt. This is where our routine became a bit more interesting. As you read Dreams and Spumoni were out eating grass. Well, we learned a really good lesson, put spumoni in her stall before putting hay out. She freaked out, (she is a bit of a bully) pushing dreams (and the human trying to feed) out of her way to get the hay. It was bad for a few intense seconds. Horses jockeying for position and human getting the heck out of the way. Disaster avoided. feeding continues. Then it was time move the boys and beauty out of the field for the night. I get Spirit and then stand at the gate watching as my friend gets beauty to her stall. I then make a critical decision, not to close the gate as beauty is secure, going into her stall. I get spirit into his stall and am taking his halter off when I hear I hear the thunder of hooves heading my way at a gallop followed by a scream of "beauty is loose! Jess!" I look at spirit and tell him to be good just as beauty slided to a stop in front of the stall we are in. The gate isn't latched, I have my foot on the bottom rung and am praying that spirit will be good and not try to bolt out. Luckily he decided that hay was better and he stood behind me with a rather impatient look at beauty, obviously wanting to eat but trying to be good. Beauty in the mean time, is standing on the other side tossing her head clearly unhappy with the whole deal. She was cooperative with being captured and taken to her stall. Moral of the story: LATCH the gate to the field EVERY time there is a loose horse in it! No harm done to humans or horses. Turns out that beauty was cold and not feeling well ( the eye ulcer is VERY painful). We put her sheet on and she was fine, her attitude gone. Horses are a lot like kids, if they are uncomfortable or not feeling good everyone knows about it.