The Jolly Rancher: The Perfect Summer

  • Monday, August 24, 2015
  • Jen Jeffrey
New yearling, Deep Suede
New yearling, Deep Suede
photo by Jen Jeffrey

After a long, hard Kentucky winter I was looking forward to spring and summer more than usual. When I lived in Chattanooga it seemed that we never really experienced spring because just as we’d have a few great spring days, then storms would come through bringing humidity followed by a long hot summer.

I never minded the heated summers of Tennessee. I delight in the opportunity to wear light, sleeveless, kick-around-in apparel meant for getting sweaty each summer.

Hiking, exploring, playing outside and especially being around horses were my favorite things to do and I looked forward to every summer.

I remember a very hot, humid summer I went out to Hidden Hills Ranch in Ooltewah to be with my favorite Tennessee Walker named Smokey. As I bathed him, he greatly appreciated the cooling gesture of love in the heat of July and while sweat ran down my body, I appreciated getting a little wet myself. No matter how hot, I still enjoyed the summer.

Getting used to Kentucky weather again, I had forgotten how beautiful the winters are when it snowed, but this past winter had been harder than usual and I feel that was my ‘initiation’ for moving back to Kentucky. March could not get here fast enough!  I think I hibernated during winter and stayed inside (except to take pictures of seasonal scenes and an occasional hike). I did get cabin fever and was certainly ready for a warm summer where I could get outside and sweat again.

I was pleasantly surprised that spring seemed to last a lot longer than I was used to.  Instead of a few 60 degree days with rain and then humidity for three months, we actually had quite a few days that were between 60-70 degrees and the rain was ‘just enough’. In fact, I loved each day that it rained because I knew the cornfields of Kentucky needed the rain. I actually had a day where I played in the rain! I was inspired by my friend Becky Hansard when she recently posted a photo on Facebook of her playing in the rain. Sometimes we all need to take the time to do something like that – it is so freeing.

Spring lasted for weeks, but just when the humidity of June made me feel at home as I relished in a few summery-feeling days, it left and we had a few more spring-like days. In mid-June! I was a little disappointed and wondered if I lost my favorite time of year when moving to a different climate, but then I remembered the previous year of summer here – with all the horseflies! THAT, I was not looking forward to.

My Murray friends told me the horseflies were unusually ruthless last year and should not be that way this year. Since we bought the ranch and our horses this spring, I hoped that my friends were right.

Toward the end of July, I saw the first horsefly. I was a bit nervous remembering their many attacks last year as I darted from my car to the house trying to bring in groceries. But to my surprise, they were not that bad. I did not have to run for my life when I saw a few buzzing around our farm and they didn’t chase or attack me. I did wonder how they would be at our ranch with the horses most likely drawing them.

As August came, I expected them to get worse, but they haven’t been too bad and are already dying out. I must admit though, that as I drive my black Jeep on the country roads while passing all the crops, I delight just a bit when they hit my windshield and I think that is one bite my horses won’t suffer.

So far, I have seen a few marks where a fly has bitten them, but I have done my best to spray them down with fly spray and keep the manure taken off with my trusty John Deere tractor and Millcreek manure spreader.

There have been a few really humid days in July, but I have loved it! It reminded me of my Tennessee summers.

As much as I hate to voice that out loud for fear of jinxing us for another hard winter, I’d have to say this year has really been ‘perfect’.

At the beginning of summer I had started running again and, I am not sure if less-dense bones coupled with running on the pavement did it, but I broke my foot in two places. They were stress fractures, but still very painful and of course, I was too stubborn to stop running when I first felt the pain and I was also too stubborn to go to the doctor until two weeks later. That only prolonged my healing time and I was given an orthotic boot to wear for eight weeks of my summer.

At first, I felt the boot gave me permission to ‘keep going’ as usual and I still went out to the ranch as much as I could (though limited with what I could do) and I played basketball shooting hoops in my driveway, trying to get some form of exercise while I couldn’t run or jump. During my follow-up visits, I was warned about ‘surgery’ if I didn’t listen and stay off my foot more. That word was all I needed to make sure the rest of my time in the boot I behaved and took my doctor’s advice, staying off of it and taking it easy.

I guess we all push ourselves and try not to let things stop us from reaching our goals, but I find that is usually when God lays us on our backs with sickness or injuries to slow us down a bit, so I thought I better listen and not make things worse. It was hard not going out to the ranch as often, but I had my ranch hand and my son to take care of things. I just missed being with my baby horses so much!

After I got the boot off, I was still advised not to run or jump and to take it easy, but I was allowed to wear my cowgirl boots and kick around in the fields with my horses again!

I have been working with them as they learn the basics of life. It is certainly different than training an adult horse new things when they already know the basics – a baby horse knows ‘nothing’ and must be de-sensitized to things that spook them …and that would be ‘everything’.

What little I have been able to fully get out there with them this summer, I have enjoyed watching their progress. They were so loving and trusting when we got them back in March, but since then they have learned what boo-boos feel like and that we use a loud, green and yellow monster in their paddocks from time to time and other little things that they have earned to fear.

Legend learned to drink water from the water hose when at first, it scared him. Teaching him to be still in cross ties while I bathe him was hard at first, but as summer got hotter, he decided it was a good thing and felt good and he would stand still as I scrubbed his body clean.

When getting a baby horse conditioned to even the simplest things, you have to be patient and take time to let them check things out. So when I bathed him, I had to first let him see the hose with the spray nozzle, listen to the sound of me turning it on and off and even smell it. Once he was okay with the hose, I eased it onto his legs and worked up to the rest of his body, but the first time I did it was in  April and it was still a little chilly for him, so we had to stop at the top of his legs. I tried it again in May and was able to get the rest of him and he did well from there on out.

It is so fun to see him drink from the hose. My husband’s filly Suede doesn’t like to drink from the hose, but I did recently see one of her habits she likes to do with water.  She will put her leg in the water trough and ‘wash her hands’.  They are so cute to watch with their quirky behavior, but I also get excited to see their progress no matter how small, as they learn.

After having my little horsies get used to the vet and the farrier and doing well with them both, I can say with pride just as I did with my sons, that I have well-behaved babies. Oh they have their moments, just as my kids did, but overall they are good horses and they are about to be “yearlings” next month.

My colt Legend still has some spunk in him and when I try something new with him, he is a little resistant at first. I recently took him away from the stables and his paddock and out to the road where he could become ‘bomb-proof’ around passing cars.

I loved hearing the sound of his hooves clip-clopping along the paved road. I think he liked hearing it too. The look on his face was a cross between ‘fear of the unknown’ and the ‘thrill of adventure’. There aren’t too many cars that pass by on our country road, but I was sure at least one might and I was ready for it with a tight enough grip on Legend’s lead rope in case he spooked.

What I was not prepared for was the kid on the ATV turning on our road and not paying attention. He was looking behind him at our stables and not paying attention to me and Legend out in front of him. The ATV had a loud motor that was a lot more noise than I wanted to start off with in bomb-proofing my colt. 

I tried to get the boy’s attention by holding my arm out with my hand in a “go slow please” motion, but he was still looking behind him as he drove.

Just as I anticipated, Legend spooked as the ATV got closer. He wanted to rear-up but I held the lead right at his halter and took my hand that tried to wave down the ATV rider and I instead placed it on Legend’s mane stroking him to calm him down.  Finally as the kid came nearer and was about to pass us, saw me and my colt on the side of the road and he looked frightened himself when he saw that he was upsetting my colt who was trying to jump out of harm’s way.

Thankfully, when the kid passed, Legend stopped jerking his head and his eyes grew calmer as we began to walk back toward the stables.

He seemed proud of himself. He did something new. I know how he felt – I love when I have faced new fears and have an exhilarating feeling wash over me that is part fear and part bravery.

Suede saw us coming back to the paddock and she was about to give Legend the ‘what for’ for leaving her. She whinnied at us and when I took off Legend’s harness and let him back in the paddock, he and Suede took off bucking and jumping across the field.

I could just hear Legend by his body language telling his girlfriend, “Suede you will never believe what happened! I saw a scary, loud monster coming at me and mom and it didn’t eat us! We were okay! It was pretty cool and I wanna do it again!”

I can’t wait to do more things with my horsies. Suede is a little harder to convince to do new things, because she is so dependent on Legend and any time away from him makes her nervous. 

Yesterday after a thunderstorm passed through, I went out to the ranch while it was still raining softly. I went inside the paddock with my two babies and after loving on them, I thought of something else I could teach them.

In a couple of years, they will be trail horses and I don’t want them to be afraid to cross the creek I like to go to, so I saw a deep puddle in the paddock and I trudged through it telling the babies to come to me.

Suede would have no part of it and she just gave me the look, “Uh-uhh, I will just be over here if you need me,” and she went to get a drink from the trough. I could count on Legend and his curiosity. He smelled close to the puddle and looked up at me and decided to go around it instead. He came up to me for his ‘good boy’ pat on the head and I giggled at him.

I said, “Noooo…. I want you to walk THROUGH it… like this…” and I walked through the puddle again and turned to see if he would follow. He went around it again and looked at me as if HE wanted to teach ME a better way.

“My way is much better mom and our feet won’t get messed up,” he said. I giggled again at the look on his face and then repeated walking through the puddle and turning to him motioning him to come to me. He did it! He finally walked through it and I gave him praise and pats on the head and a ‘good boy’.

But when I tried to get him to go back through it the other way, he continued to walk around it. The look on his face was priceless, as if he were really trying to get me to learn HIS way. He didn’t look scared or rebellious, he just looked like he wanted to show me the ‘right way’ that would keep ‘my hooves’ from having any problems that could occur by constantly going through puddles. So I tried to explain to him in human logic and let him know I understood his reason and that was okay, but I also don’t want him to be ‘afraid’ of water.

I went through it again and turned around and he followed me through the puddle. He would go through the puddle one way fine, but never coming back through – he would always go around. So I figured that had to do with his dominate eye’s view of things and he just wasn’t comfortable going back through it the opposite way. It delights me whenever I teach my horses something new and they comply – but I am just as thrilled when I learn from them too.

Aside from wearing an orthotic boot for two months, I have enjoyed this year on the ranch. Teaching my growing baby horses, getting through horsefly season with no problem, and with the cool, breezy days with only a few humid muggy ones has made this the perfect summer.

jen@jenjeffrey.com

New yearling, Legendary Blue
New yearling, Legendary Blue
photo by Jen Jeffrey
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