Maybe Not So Much Wrestling.............

OK, I must be honest. My clipping yesterday didn't go quite like Gorilla Wrestling...........well, not all the time anyway. There were brief moments when my joints creaked or my head got thumped when I had flashbacks of wrestling matches in the past and the notion of "gorilla wrestling" came to me. I couldn't help but write a post. The very thought just got me giggling.

The real story is the clipping went pretty darn well. It took me all day to get 19 horses clipped but it really had more to do with the clippers than the horses. The blades would heat up or the battery pack would die and I'd be taking another break waiting for my tools to co-operate.

On the whole it took me about 45 minutes to clip three horses. By that time the blades would be just to hot and my alternate blades decided to die so I'd go off and work on something else while they cooled down. A couple of times the battery pack died and I had to wait on charging but overall the horses were good with only intermittent moments of gorilla wrestling.

My feet stayed totally on the ground. I didn't get stepped on once........but had three close calls. I think each horse, at least once, tried to pull its head away. There were a couple who tried more than once, Legs being one of those!

The horse hates having his face clipped particularly in the scoopy part under his eyes and the groove down the middle of his face. Any place that is difficult to clip he doesn't like messed with. He hates those clipper blades digging into dips and grooves seeking out hair.

A friend once told me that if an Arabian horse's head did not have lots of difficult grooves to clip (dryness), it wasn't a quality horse. The more difficult the face to clip, the better the head. I've always used that as a guideline when I'm evaluating horses.

Back to my clipping, Andy really was a good boy. At first he jumped at the sound of the clippers and acted like he was going to fly backwards away from me. As soon as I began clipping the wedge part between his eyes he settled down and pretty much stood there. He had a couple of twitches and a little head pulling but for a yearling who's only had his face clipped once before he did great.

Even the broodmares were good about having their faces clipped. I do have one still to go because the batteries died again. I couldn't bring myself to start off my day today itching again, so I but it off to finish tonight. But tonight I ran out of steam and still have one more horse to clip.

Today I spent time bathing horses. My friend, Jean, came and helped. We bathed all of the horses that I can't bathe alone. That was the two yearlings, five of the two year olds and a four year old who is sometimes naughty.

I was going to run her to get her car but the port-a-potty hadn't arrived yet, so we bathed one more horse waiting for it's arrival. That was Storm. So all in all, I bathed 9 horses today.

Rachel did 3 at the other barn. I picked those horses up tonight and they are nicely tucked into their own barn. (How I love having my horses at home!!) That leaves us with 16 horses to bathe tomorrow and last minute clean-up stuff. Then in the evening we'll do some food preparation and Sunday will be the big day...........ready or not.

Open House

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