I went out to ride on Saturday taking Miles with me. He was enchanted by Linda's newest additions--little black baby bunnies. And yes, that is a bunny in the oven warming up! Now that they have lots of fur and their eyes are open, their chances for survival have increased exponentially but they do have to come into the house at night (even though it has not froze here, it has come close!) to keep warm. Mother bunnies are lousy mother's and do not take very good care of their young. I never knew that they only feed their babies 1-2 times per day either. Their milk is so high in protein that that is all the little ones require! Miles enjoyed holding them and it was a challenge for him because they are quite squirmy! Miles was not convinced that Possum had made it through the assault with the dogs intact, so he was all smiles when he located him in the house and got to have a cuddle as the pic shows. Possum is the cuddliest cat I have ever met, he will let you do anything with him and loves to be held.
I also wanted to post a picture of Jackson getting his feet trimmed. This actually happened on Friday the 14th, but I left my camera out at Linda's which she rescued from the picnic table outside! Our farrier Donnie is a really neat guy and I had a wonderful time talking with him. He follows the Natural Balance principles of trimming and shoeing developed by farrier Gene Ovnicek after studying the hoof patterns of wild horses from a variety of environments. Donnie explained a few interesting things to me. First, he does not EVER shoe or trim a horses hooves in exactly the same way. He looks at the individual's horse hoof, hoof wall, frog, etc. He showed me how Jackson is slightly pigeon toed and told me that if he were to shoe Jackson (Jacks is a barefoot horse) he would have to have a build up in his right shoe because of the way he carries his feet. He then went on to show me how one of the muscles on his left shoulder is actually a bit bigger then on his right. This is useful information to have so that when I do ground or arena work I can work that right side a bit more, and it really explains why that is his least favorite side too!!! Here is Jackson "monitoring" Donnie's work.
