The Count Down Just Rolling Right Along

With just two more days before I hit the road, there was lots of pressure today. I still had to finish up Rhet's body clip, do Legs, do a halter clip on Gycpy and clip ears on all three. That was just the "personal" horse chores left. I still have to finish my packing and pack the horse trailer. With time running out it's no wonder I'm feeling stressed.

Colleen did come to help with me Rhet's legs last evening but the light in that barn is not great in the daylight let alone the dark of night. I struggled to see on Rhet's black legs where hair had been and where hair still was. Running my hands over my work is just not all that effective on the boney surface of a horse's legs. But we did what we thought was a good job and quit for the night.

In today's light there was lots to be gone over. The colt fidgeted a bit about the touch up on his legs but was much better than he'd been at the same time the day before. I was able to clean up all the stuff I'd missed in the dark.
For the rest of his clip, Rhet stood pretty much like a rock....well, maybe except for his ears. He seemed to enjoy the vibrations of the clippers against his body..........thinking it felt like some kind of massage. I could see his lower lip quiver from time to time. He especially liked it going across his back and on his chest. Guess I know where his sweet spots are. Whatever it was that caused Rhet to stand for clipping, the colt did good!

Once done with Rhet, I went back to Gypcy to get her halter clip finished. I didn't want to leave that technical work for an overly tired me.........and believe me, this old gal is running out of steam.......fast and furiously.

Because Gypcy is chestnut I had to be careful about exposing pink skin. I was supposed to start off slowly and work my way up keeping a close watch for the tell tale light skin underneath but I had little confidence I'd get this right.

Before I started with this filly I went to my computer and looked up Midwest. I figured there would be lots of chestnut horses with halter clips there to use as an example and I was right. I found the chestnut horse with the least amount of black showing to use as reference in choosing my own starting point.

When I haltered Gypcy, the filly looked at me with that look that says, "Now WHAT are you going to do to me?" Poor Gypcy still hadn't recuperated from being stripped of all her hair. I wondered what she would think of shaving cream and razors.

Before I lathered her up, I went the areas I was going to strip with first no 15 blades, followed by no 30 blades and then no 40s. By the time I got to that last blade I could begin to get an idea of the color of the skin underneath. Then I applied the shaving cream over her eyes and began my first ever work with a razor on a horse.

Gypcy watched closely as I came at her with that glob of white foam. It surprised me she didn't spook at all but she did show some concern. Once the lather was actually on her, the filly showed no concern. I worked away with the razor and she pretty much tolerated it like she was an old pro.

After a while she took a big lick of that cream. I always expect when that happens the horse is going to blow raspberries to get that crap out of their mouth.......so far I've never seen a horse protest about the taste of shaving cream, and Gypcy was no exception. She just licked it off like a kid would lick a milk mustache and stood there.

By the time I'd finished with the razor I was ready to pull my hair out. The whole thing is such a shock.........and then blending it to look natural. I didn't feel confident with that either. Fortunately I have done that kind of blending work before so at least I had an idea of how to proceed. It didn't take too long and I reached the point I'd done about as much as I could. It wasn't really until I came back into my computer and looked at the pic at Midwest that I felt I'd done ok. Now it was going to be onto Legs............

To be continued..........

Or Do We Have Lift Off

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