Tis the season

Happy Holidays from everyone here at Greener Pastures!

Since my last blog a few days ago Greener Pastures has received 40 cubic yards of custom blended shavings, 16 750lb coastal round bales, and many e-mails from horse parents looking to board with us.

We wish we had a hundred acres this close to town and could offer board to everyone who was interested! But in the last 3 months we have had to turn away 12 horses. Some of our current boarders are waiting for pasture space to open up so that their stalled horse can be pasture boarded instead. This is a beautiful, convenient place to spend time with your horse - no wonder people are banging down the door!

We are just entering winter and everyone is tolerating the cold very well. It's those warm days that throw them off!

Bodhi and Casanova are enjoying their new herd which consists of head-gelding Magic, easy-going Dusty, and picked-on Tav.
This morning Magic was feeling frisky and chased Bodhi. But Bodhi doesn't tolerate being picked on (take notes, Tav!) so he kicked up, double-barreled, three times in a row until he whacked Magic in his massive chest. Magic, annoyed, gave up and walked away. Poor Mag just wanted to play!

Our wonderful farrier, Lana, has recovered from her car accident and over the course of 3 days got our barn all caught up. She trimmed Tie, Bodhi, Magic, Betsy, JW, Satin, Dancer, Jedi, Ufir, and Molly. Lana is a nurse specialist at the ICU at Shands VA hospital. She's been a nurse for 30 years and a farrier for 27 years. Lana is highly educated and firmly believes in continuing education (she's forever going to conferences and getting CE credits to keep up with the latest). Lana has tremendous patience. For example, when Karma the donkey arrived and was diagnosed with white line disease, Lana asked me if I minded if she take a look at Karma's hooves. I was thinking "Of course! But who wants to volunteer to do an angry donkey?" Karma has a sketchy background and was not trusting of humans. Lana strategized the best plan to get Karma's hooves trimmed quickly, safely, and with the least amount of stress possible. You can imagine how frustrating it is to handle a mistreated, naturally stubborn donkey jenny with painful feet. With soothing whispers, gentle patting, and a snug rope attached to a cement wall, we trimmed Karma's feet, opened up the nasty areas and treated them. Karma recovered quickly after Lana did her magic.
Jedi is a stud at heart. The kind of stud that has no manners and thinks only of himself. Lana patiently dealt with his overgrown hooves even while he fought and struggled against the cross-ties. She gave Ufir time to stretch her arthritic legs before asking her to pick them up, and helped Molly find just the right height on her hoof stand that was most comfortable for her arthritic, popping hock.
Lana doesn't advertise, doesn't have business cards, and doesn't gossip like a farrier. She's a great friend, does a great service, and we are very lucky to have her as our hoof podiatrist!

I hope you are having a great holiday!

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