Horse Farts

An amusing and brief distraction from political discourse and societal issues.

I’ve written in the past about having moved to and grown up on a farm from about the age of twelve.  At some point just prior to buying the farm my mom decided that she wanted to raise horses.  I am here to tell you that it takes a whole lotta dollars, hours, and effort to deal with those large animals.  There is an old saying about how a boat is a hole in the water that you throw money into.  A horse, or in our case horses, is what you throw money into when there is no large body of water nearby! You get the picture, I think.

Horses are beautiful animals I do have to admit.  Some are nice and some not so nice.  Some are just downright mean!  Kinda like humans, I guess?  Maybe that’s why my dad would tell me to stop acting like a horses ass when I was getting on his nerves?  Horses consume enormous amounts of water, grain, and hay.  Everything they eat goes in the front and eventually comes out the back.  They are crap machines and since they don’t stop eating, they don’t stop crapping.  Mucking stalls becomes a weekly ordeal along with trips to the sawmill to get loads of new sawdust then, next week you start all over. A couple of us siblings became intimately familiar with a wheelbarrow, shovel, and rake.  Builds character I was told.  It didn’t take me long to figure out that they were way more trouble than they were worth.  I’m not going to even start talking about cutting and baling hay, stringing fence lines or digging post holes!

To this day I still find it amusing in a sick way when someone starts talking about owning horses.  Oh my, I think.  Wait until Christmas morning and you have to take care of those horses before the festivities start. If they are your only mode of transportation well heck yeah pampers them but- we have cars and trucks.  You put gas in, turn the key, and go!  And, you can sit back and say wow what a beautiful car or truck.

Horses will get colic just like a baby.  It is usually caused by a change in diet, a new feed, different batch of hay, basically something they ate.  They start rolling on the ground and just generally act uncomfortable.  Horses unlike babies will get a knot in their intestines which leads to even greater problems so you must keep them on their feet and walking.  How do you know when they are ok?  You have to listen out for the fart!  So, you walk them in big circles until they fart.  This can go on for hours. 

Our stable was near the farm house and we had a mercury vapor light on a telephone pole that came on at dusk.  It also provided light for a large area and included the training paddock so at least you weren’t walking all night in the dark.  And I do mean sometimes walking all night, taking turns with whoever was enlisted to help.

Walking and waiting for a horse to fart!

Y’all be good now.