Trudy Andrew | Canadian Author

Tails From the Farm

Springing Ahead

After a rather long and unusually cold, or should I say, ridiculously frigid winter, it appears that spring has decided to appear. Sure, there’s still a lot of snow everywhere, but it’s melting … really melting … honestly. The sun is shining, as it usually does up here. The big difference is, the rays have warmth to them, so much warmth that the snow is visibly sinking, puddles are appearing, and little rivers of melting snow, are filling those puddles and making them bigger. I suppose, it won’t be long before the pastures appear to be lakes, and if we’re lucky, the masses of snow and water filling the Red River in the States, won’t create a flood up here, but it could. In fact, I believe the potential to be high. That’s just my educated guess.
We know it’s truly spring because, the Jimmy started and we were able to water using it, instead of hauling five-gallon pails of water for the horses. This in itself, is a wonderful thing. It certainly makes doing chores, a whole lot easier. If it wasn’t slippery from ice, the impulse to leap into the air and click my heels together may actually have been given into. Who am I kidding? I can’t leap into the air and click my heels, except in my imagination. But I felt like it, and that counts, or it should.
It’s been a busy week. Even a week ago, when it was rather cold, and there was a brisk wind blowing, the horses were full of themselves. Most of them ran around like fool idiots, bucking, farting and yes, they could actually leap into the air for joy. Our older girl Spirit Image was among the foolish. She played and leapt with the best of them. We laughed, chuckled at the old girl’s antics, and found so much joy in the fact that she felt great enough, to do so. Back to the house we went for another load of water. By the time we returned, which is no time at all, Spirit wasn’t quite right. Instead of standing at the gate, she was lying down in the straw. They’ve been bedded deep against the cold, and it is comfortable sleeping for them, but she shouldn’t be lying down, so that was somewhat worrisome.
We got her up, checked her over, and found nothing wrong. She wasn’t stressed, there was no rolling, no touching her side, and gut noises were normal. On top of that, she wasn’t dehydrated and her gums were a healthy pink. All checks were normal. Still, she wasn’t being herself and clearly was bothered by something. What that something was, we had to figure out. She didn’t want water, or her hay, and even turned down a handful of senior feed, which she’s crazy about. We worried that she possibly injured herself during her foolishness, yet she didn’t show any signs of such happening. Then we thought that she may have a sore tooth, or mouth, and that put her off her feed. We offered her a bit of lovely, fragrant hay, which she took then dropped out of her mouth. We got some vegetable oil down her, walked her a few steps and when she had a most lovely, normal poop, we decided it wasn’t colic. Yes, when one thinks there’s a possibility that a horse is showing signs of colic, to see them poop is a good thing, great thing, actually. Directly afterwards, she went to her hay and began eating as if nothing had ever happened. One minute the world is ending, the next they look at you like they’re wondering what the fuss is about.
So, she had pooped, all signs said she wasn’t suffering anything that would do her harm, and I deduced that she was coming into heat. If women can have cramps, why not horses? Anyway, she came into heat, so that was likely the cause of her momentary discomfort that appeared to be the beginnings of colic. Just another day in the life of owning horses, and that’s all it was. Who knows what will happen next, but whatever it is, I’m sure it’s going to be interesting.

2 Comments
  1. How old is Spirit?

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About Trudy Andrew

Trudy Andrew lives on a small farm just east of Winnipeg, Manitoba, where she enjoys her Morgan horses. A dreamer since she was a child, its no surprise to those who know her well that her imagination would find an outlet in writing, as it has in the past through artwork.
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