To start with, it's probably a good idea to introduce you to the horses. There are currently three horses at home with us right now, and we have two more at a friends place close by. Two of the horses that live here are the usual suspects... Our own horses Coal Miner and Zella. But just last week we took in a third, a battered looking old timer called Hazel, to live with us permanently.
We can only guess that Hazel must have got tangled up in a barbed-wire fence at some point when she was younger as she looks like a "Frankenhorse" with deep, criss-crossy black scars all over her that never healed properly. She doesn't appear to have received any kind of attention at the time and the worst cuts, across her face and very close to both eyes, would definitely have required immediate expert handywork and refined patchwork skills in order for them to heal nice and neatly. As she is, she is beautiful still, just a bit sorry looking. Her scars made me wince the first time I met her, even though I have plenty enough scars of my own! Despite her wild youth, Hazel is the sweetest old lady these days and so terribly polite in every way. She hasn't put a hoof wrong since she arrived and even when she had to have her vaccinations, when she got here, she behaved perfectly.
Horses and barbed-wire make for a very expensive combination. As cheap as it is, initially, to install barbed-wire fencing, veterinary bills are sure to pile up high when it's used for containing horses! Barbed wire was designed for cattle on huge ranges, not for horses in restricted pastures. Cows generally move very slowly and deliberately, if they move much at all, but horses travel at speed in panic and in play, and they have pretty poor eyesight and depth perception at the best of times. When a horse runs into a fence, it will jerk and thrash around and fight to get free, rather than calmly wait for help to arrive. Obviously that makes already severe injuries far worse and it's not a pretty sight at all... Think Paul Newman, in the motorcycle scene at the end of "The Great Escape" only better looking!
Hazel came to us with her 4 year old daughter, Ada, who is being backed and trained right now, having had very little by way of an education to date. Ada had been shot in her previous pasture, and arrived with a seeping hole in her shoulder. Thankfully, a good check over, some penicillin and a safe haven is all she needed and she is doing just fine now. She will end up being a very useful horse with a proper job someday, rather than just a feisty pasture ornament with a pissy attitude, which is what she was fast becoming in the absence of experienced handling and management. She's a very well-bred little girl, with many champions behind her, so we will just have to wait and see what she is best at, once she has her basic training and can concentrate for longer than fifteen minutes at a time. Once we know what she enjoys doing most we can point her in that direction and rehome her appropriately. She is bred well and super smart, just like her mother, and we don't think it will be difficult to match her with someone who will take her onto greater things and make the most of her athletic abilities.
Hazel will see out the rest of her days here with us, doing very little at all except being a happy, healthy horse in semi-retirement. She will occasionally be expected to potter around in the woods at a leisurely pace with guests or our wonderful next door neighbour, Jackie, perched atop. I have a feeling Hazel is going to be lavished with love and attention (and spoiled rotten by Jackie) for the rest of her life, which is exactly what she deserves! Jackie takes care of everything here when we are away and does a truly amazing job of keeping everyone fed, watered and entertained in our absence. She lost her own horse (at 28 years old!) last year and has since given over use of her land to us. Her old girl Blossom, is buried under a tree out in the front pasture, and a large compacted bump of red clay still remains. She was a very gentle and sweet old soul, from a less than ideal background herself, so it's apt that the grass should grow tall around her and her old pasture be a home to others like her. I am convinced she must be keeping a very close watch over the waifs and strays out there and letting them know that they're safe here. Everyone is munching away outside, quietly contented, and all is as it should be for them.
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