Thursday, April 22, 2010

Comfort in the Morning Horse Feeding

There is a fulfilling comfort in the routine of feeding the horses. Each morning I let the horses out to do some quick munching on grass while I prepare their food. While they are trotting to the pasture, I can check for any injuries or problems. It's so much easier this way than having three horse sticking their heads in the feed room telling me to hurry up! I now shut the paddock gate and start refilling their water supply. I am constantly amazed at how much a horse can consume in any given day. With summer coming up, the water will need to refilled several times a day. Now that the horses are happily occupied, I go to each stall, give it a quick visual check for broken boards, exposed boards, etc., and gather up each feed bucket.Now I can saunter over to the feed room, line up the buckets, and methodically drop two scoops of pellets in each bucket.  All three buckets are returned to the stalls where they belong, the water is turned off, and the paddock gate opened. I call Haley (pictured above) and stand back while three horses gallop back to the barn for food! I tend to leave the gate open so that they can let themselves back out to the pasture.Through this whole routine, the horses can be seen if I raise my head and look for them.

I find myself looking at these three great beasts and wondering at how lucky I am to still have horses in my life. It is so quiet this early in the morning except for the horses, birds, and wind blowing in the trees. Life is good.

Thunder and Sunshine

2 comments:

  1. You do have your work cut out for you. There is so much more to owning a horse other than just riding it. You are a dedicated and loving horse mom. I agree, you are truly blessed to be able to surround yourself with such beautiful and majestic creatures. My goodness, I love all the trees on your property. I would be in heaven.

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  2. It is heaven out here, and I absolutely love it. I am blessed. These horses are my children now as my real children have grown up (22 and 24 years old)

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