Ned with Icelandic ponies Trausti and Osp..

Our wish of good health in the New Year did not come true; misery continued throughout January. We all kept coughing our lungs out, recovering from Christmas deluge over the course of three or four weeks. Soon Lisa went down again, this time with angina. The third hit was my Ned going lame. The fourth impact was when Lisa lost her pony.

Starting from the last item — owner of the pony had announced in December that Jenny was to begin training him now. The same Jenny who threw my goats out of the stables. I was already sensing a problem, but because of Lisa and Ljufur, I was willing to arrange things with Jenny that we would visit the pony on Tuesdays after school, and would like to have access then. Naturally, on the first Tuesday after winter break we came with Lisa to the stables and Ljufur was not in his paddock. Gate ajar, both halters hanging on a nail, and we got startled that perhaps the horse went on trip by himself. The I spotted Jenny's car and all was rather clear. I offered Lisa that we could take Ned instead and ride on him.

Licky enjoying warm sun under supervision of Bessie the flat cow.

When we had Ned saddled, Jenny rode out of the woods on Ljufur. A great surprise that I was mad, for we could have him right then. The twenty-three year old pony was soaking wet with own sweat, as he had been ridden by an adult woman without saddle zig-zag across the forest, so I turned it down. In such state, poor Ljufur had only thoughts for hay, and not some more riding. Still, Lisa still wanted tu just visit her beloved Ljufi before we went back home. We took him out to the arena so that he could roll around after an afternoon shift (sand works a bit like soap suds — bind onto dirt, fats and sweat, and it can be brushed off the fur), and checked his hooves. Doing that, we discovered that Ljufi had one shoe half detached. So not only had Jenny taken a pony reserved for Lisa, but was not able to take care of hime — she could have crippled him with a shedding shoe.

A stable Italian opera ensued (dramatic, weepy scenes, threats and blackmail), for which I feel all too old — so in the end I had to explain to Lisa that she really won't be able to have Ljufi — for Ljufi had become a standby horse who can be ridden by anyone at any time, without respect to his age and condition. And giving him extra work late in the afternoon (as we can't get there any earlier from school) on top of the rest was not fair. Some days Ljufi stands in his paddock with his head hung low and has obviously had enough. Other days he's peeking from behind his gate, whether somebody would take him out to ride. Alas, we cannot help him, as we don't own him and it's not our business whatever his owner cares to do or not do, including who and under what conditions gets to borrow him.

Twilight on a warm road.

Eventually I arranged with a lady, who owns Islandic ponies parked next to Ned, and we lease a mare named Osp for Lisa. Osp is two years older than Ljufi, but there's at least some fixed order in when and who rides on her; there are two resting day in a week, and she's on a pasture with her son Trausti, and therefor is not lonely and can run as she sees fit. Lisa was depressed by the change, but I think that Osp and her get to be good friends. And Osp knows Ned, and so I hope that over time we could ride together without fear that the horses begin to sort each other out. Ned and Ljufi are both geldings and very dominating, and I had planned their gradual getting to know each other so that I could intercede if they both elderly gentlehorses decided to deal with thing manually (or rather hoofily). Osp has been non-conflicting and a mare — and Ned, being a knightly steed, does not fight with females.

Osp and I have now a better schedule, as we can use Fridays, when Lisa does not have as much homework — and if still, then there's a whole weekend to catch up with them. We has access to Ljufi on Tuesdays, thus she had to do homework in the evening, and then on Wednesdays came Lisa's choir and vaulting, which resulted in getting home by seven o'clock and being stuck at her desk up to nine-thirty. In the new regime, there's a one day gap of "only" school between her hobbies, and she can rest a little.

By mid-January, it started to rain, and subsequently my Ned went lame. In the Sierra, he wears shoes so that he would not abrade his hooves bloody on rocks (horses began to wear iron shoes in medieval times, when moving into castles with stone yards and stables became a problem). By autumn, Craig takes horse-shoes off his horses and pushes them out on a pasture. Running barefoot is actually better for them, as a hoof is thus more elastic while hitting the dirt, which pumps blood and lymph into circulation, getting legs better irrigated and warmed up; joints suffer less, for impacts get partially absorbed in the flexible hoof.
Alas, Ned can't go barefoot, for he's "flat-footed" and contacts the ground with the whole area of the hoof, not just the wall. As soon as it starts raining, mud and water dissolves the softer parts of his hoof (just like your skin when you stay too long in a bath-tub) and every step begins to hurt him. Ned is a typical quarter-horse — short legs, heavy torso, large butt, about 1,300 pounds of weight — making him truly feel every little pebble on the road, so he needs not only horse-shoes, but for his front legs, which carry up to seventy percent of his weight, he requires rubber inlays under the whole hoof surface.

Groomed ridge road above Kirkwood.

All this about Ned I know quite well, but when Craig brought him barefoot during a dry December, I wanted to let him enjoy the longest time without shoes and arranged with my farrier that he would shoe him only on front (which did not look like able to take the load), and when the need arises, add shoes to the rear, and pads in front. Our farrier Michael visits the stables sometimes more than once a week, and it seemed a good plan. Naturally in the moment Ned stopped being able to walk and I arranged Michael to take care of if on the next day, he (the farrier) went down with a brutal case of flu. He kept naively claiming that he would be back up in two three day, and I said to myself that we would manage.

For the subsequent three days I kept dragging Ned on a line. When his feet hurt, he refuses to walk; when he does not walk, his muscles and joints get stiff; a circular trap. The worst was always getting him down along the road to the arena — once he found himself on sand or a soft muddy clay in the woods, he moved much more readily — and the more he moved, the more he flexed and warmed up, and started looking functional again. Providing this horse therapy, we took Ned mushroom-hunting — this year's winter is, alas, atypically warm, and since it had rained, red toad-stools sprung up all around the stables; we thought that edible mushrooms can't be far. Ned approved of mushroom hunting very much — he was munching on fresh grass beside the shrubbery, from which mushroom-hunters' joyful cries emanated. Given his malady, no-one climbed on him or asked him to do anything else. He may imagine a vacation looks something like that.

Tom.

After a weekend, even Michael admitted that this week, too, he would not be able to get out of bed, much less shoe horses — and thus I cajoled out of him a contact to a friendly substitute farrier, to get Ned in shape. Cody arrived, confirmed my diagnosis and the necessity of not only shoes, but inlays as well, and then performed a small miracle. I had dragged Ned to Cody, and going away, Ned was jumping merrily. I felt like jumping of joy much less, having seen the bill — but this was a farrier called specially to an extra case, and an acclaimed expert to boot. And I could not leave Ned in pain.

As soon as Ned got resolved, Lisa went down. It began to dawn on use that if we wait with our trip till everybody is healthy, we may never go. And thus we left Sid at home with Lisa and I set out with Tom to Kirkwood, only for a one day round trip. Going in two, for a half day, is simple packing, you fold the back seat, toss skis and poles and helmets and boots in, and you go. When I noting that we made good time, we came to Carson Spur, about a mile before Kirkwood, and a traffic jam. The idea to take a half-day trip must have occurred to a lot of people, and the approach road to the resort could not cope. Just before we got to it, police began to divert traffic away and we were told that we should park at the cross country center and take a bus that would shuttle us to the lifts.

Kirkwood begins behind the rocky outcrop all the way to the right.

In the end it was not so bad — a little bus stopped right in front of our noses and disgorged us inddeed at the stairs to the lifts, thus we may have gotten on the slope faster than had we parked in some remote corner. The only thing we had underestimated was clothing. Beginning at noon at the car, it was rather hot, and we did not put on may layers, which we regretted only a couple hours later. Kirkwood slopes face mostly north, and the sun sets rather soon in mid January. Still we enjoyed our skiing, for some more snow had fallen during the week before, and it was OK. Naturally, in our favorite spots, rocks and nasty bald spots still stuck out, and we had to limit ourselves to groomed runs, but it was a nice the trip.

I was glad to have mastered to drive two hundred miles, ski, and drive two more hundred miles back without much deterioration. I was even more glad of the trip itself. And I realized that I feel about my goats and Ned just as I do about my children. As much I love them, an occasional break is very refreshing. And with that, I realized that I don't want to milk any more. Our goats give us very tasty milk (or rather, Twilight does, for I milk Licorice only because she's willing to climb up on the milking stand), and I enjoy milking them, but after eight months of an everyday commitment, where even a one-day trip to the mountains means hunting down a substitute, I feel like putting a stop to it already. Besides, Twilight lost weight, and I reckoned she might need a break. She has been giving milk for almost a year (when I count in the three months she was nursing her young), and that is a lot for such a small goatie in her first round of kids. We planned mountains with Igor and his children for mid-February, and it would mean arranging substitute milking for eight days.

A view of Palisades.

On a Monday after mine and Tom's return from the mountains, Lisa did not feel any better, and we had to see a doctor. Given a brutal flu epidemic we had put off such visit, hoping it would just be a cold, but we had no choice. The doctor diagnosed strep throat and proscribed antibiotics for ten days. Thus we decided to alter our set-up, and I stayed back with Lisa, while Sid and Tom went to the mountains. Alas, it was a weekend closely following a heavy snow storm, and the boys had eventually never got into the resort — there was no place to park and they got more or less sent away.

The boys had instead stopped in Carson Spur and at least hiked a stretch of a cleared ridge road. They met back-country skiers who eventually chose this path to infiltrate the resort — the road continues to the top end of the lifts. For that, of course, one needs special equipment, as it is a rather long ascent, and regular downhill skis are unsuitable.
And to sweeten up (or perhaps fatten up) their disappointment, they managed to stop in a famous sausage store in Lockford. For years we have been driving by, watching a blockbuster line wrapped around a corner, and we were curious what they offer that is so special. It seems that they just make simple, non-industrial, sausages, those that don't make you sick from all the additives. Still, even home style sausages didn't remove she stink of the fact that the boys drove four hundred miles in vain. Almost as if we were not meant to ski this year.