By Patty Wilber
I just got a copy of Casablanca…and this blog title appeared to me in a dream. However, this blog has nothing to do with that movie or the dream.
It’s about Hair.
The real title should be “Hairin’ Up”, as in:
“Ya know,” (spittin’ tabacca juice) “the horses are hairin’ up real early this year.”
“Yep.”
“Pro’lly gonna be a cold winter.”
“Yep.”
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It is not technically fall, but every morning it is darker at 5:30 am than it was the day before. This just makes me want to shut the alarm off and stay in bed, unless there is a real good reason to arise, like a horse show, a cattle drive, or maybe I have to go to work. I prefer to get up with the sun rather than before it!
In the evenings, the mountain is rising into silhouette by 7:15 instead of 9 pm and some evenings dip down into the 40’s (F) whereas mid summer nights are low 60’s. We’ve had a day or two that didn’t top 65, but of course Thursday was over 90F, so there’s also the unevenness of the changing season.
The horses have noticed–well at least their hair has.
Cometa, a little fuzzy--his hair coat! Not the photo!
They are shedding their short glossy coats of summer and beginning look a little pouffy when the mornings are crisp.
"pouffy? who's pouffy?" Queri's hair is the longest of the bunch, at this point of the season, but Buckshot is known for his long winter locks. .
It seems to me this happens to my horses right about State Fair time, and this week was State Fair in New Mexico.
Buckshot still has one more major show this year (and then he will go home): The Appaloosa World’s. It would be nice if he still looked glossy–especially because his coat has that amazing metallic sheen.
The best way to ensure that would be to keep him in a stall at night, with the lights bright and a blanket on. This fools the horse’s brain and metabolism into thinking it is not cold (the blanket) and it is not coming on to winter (the lights simulating longer days.).
Unfortunately, Buckshot has a big pen, but no stall, so the best he is going to get is the blanket. (You can see Buckshot’s head in Queri’s shot)
Buckshot's coat is still pretty short, but his winter hair is definitely showing as he is not as glittery as he was mid summer.
Thursday, I was down at the State Fair as a coach, and it was getting warmer and warmer. I took off my jacket, when all of a sudden it hit me: I’d forgotten to pull Buckshot’s blanket!
I got this shot on accident but decided to use it because it conveys some of the busyness of the warm-up arena for the 4-H State Fair Horse Show
It is not a light blanket. It is a dead of (New Mexico) winter blanket. We do live at 6800 ft. It does freeze hard, so this was not a blanket that should be on a horse as the temperature is climbing toward hot.
Doranna to the rescue!
She went right over, figured out the maze of gates, and pulled the blanket off the poor sweated up stallion.
I am pretty sure he said,“Thank you! Who ever you are!”
(He apparently hasn’t read any of her books, yet.)
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Squirt--her coat will lighten up over the winter and shed out gold again in the spring.
Penny getting shaggy. At least her jaw is not clenched this week!
He did say that! “Don’t know who you are, but I appreciate it. Scratch my face. Okay then.”
Thanks so much!