Feeding The Horses
Tuesday morning, before I could get this column written, I received the call I’ve been waiting for all winter. I’m being dispatched to the Holy Fire in Orange County. The fire is burning in Holy Jim Canyon, where I’ve been told there is “treehigh-brush.” This is an east-west canyon with both topography and prevailing wind pushing the fire. As I write, it is at or above the 4,000 acre size, and very little containment.
Our hilltop haven is blessed to have two horses living here. And like most of the critters around here, Sharon has babied and coddled them. Of course, this means they come to the fence looking for treats. And quite predictably, Sharon gets real pleasure out of providing for them.
The horses live in the pasture in front of our house to the east, and willingly come to the fence along the side of our driveway for their portion of Senior Mix. Strawberry is a strawberry-roan Belgian mare about eight years old. Ruby is a pretty black appaloosa mare who is much smaller than Strawberry, and is about five years old. They run together rather peaceably, and share the field with our black and white heifer, Spirit.
We feed the horses in rubber pans approximately twenty inches across and four inches deep. As the horses eat, they drag the pans away from the fence far enough, Sharon often can’t reach them. My part of the feeding process is to take a garden rake and position the pans next to the fence. Once in a while I actually have to go out into the field and put them next to the fence.
If Sharon is not fast enough, Ruby gets impatient. If her feed isn’t put into the pan quickly, she picks up the pan in her teeth, and drags it away from the fence. She will sometimes do that before I can finish dragging them up to the fence with the rake. I can’t tell if having the pan too close to the fence is uncomfortable, or if she’s just being impatient.
Even though I yell at her to “leave those alone” she will often pick it up, drag or carry it away from the fence, and then look at me. It’s almost as if she’s saying, “So put my feed in the pan already.” Sharon has a real procedure for feeding. It is not simply taking two cans of Senior Mix out to the fence and dumping them into the pans. Each horse has to get two equal-sized segments of cut-up carrot. We even have a refrigerated pan of cut pieces of carrot in the refrigerator.
With four equal sized pieces in hand, she heads for the feed room, carefully places the carrot into the can, and heads for the fence to distribute the goodies. Of course, Ruby may have moved the feed pan by the time she gets there.
But Ruby has another trick up her sleeve. Or is that hoof? Sharon always feeds Strawberry first, and Ruby knows it. She’ll walk to the north side of Strawberries pan, and wait for Sharon to drop Senior Mix and carrots into that pan.
With a quick movement, Ruby will try to grab one of the pieces of carrot before Strawberry can get it. Then Ruby will spin away and walk quickly toward her pan. Sharon moves down the fence and pours the treat out for our little Appy.
But if Ruby grabs one, and sometimes both, pieces of carrot from Strawberry’s pan, and she always tries, Sharon pours the mix out without the carrots. As Sharon walks back toward the feed room, she drops one or two carrots in Strawberry’s pan, depending on how many were pilfered by Ruby.
And before you think to tell me I forgot about Sharon feeding Spirit, I assure you that is another column entirely, and will be dealt with in the future.
It is time for me to get dressed and head for Orange, to serve as “a driver with a pickup” on the Holy Fire. I’ll try to keep columns coming to you, maybe even about my activity and duties, if I’m on this fire long enough.