A weekend has shot past. Supposedly a time to rest from the week's labours, weekends seem to pass in a flash. Diane is taking this week's ride out, leaving me to get on with a variety of work here. I've started by welding borium on horseshoes, and moved onto fixing a leak in a bathroom. Danielle is busy with paperwork as usual, of course.
On a trip to Bistrita, I snapped a photo of an old horse-drawn vehicle that has appeared outside Ilva Mica town hall, just down the valley from here. At first I thought that it might be a fire engine, however it looks more like a mail car. I wonder just how many old vehicles there are sitting in barns out there? I have an old horse-drawn fire engine in my barn, awaiting restoration, amazingly only withdrawn from fire brigade service around the year 2002. It must have been amongst the last horse-drawn fire engines in service in the Western world.
On Sunday we were out with our big old mare, Kaluga, and the new harness. I'm pleased with the padded saddle that spreads out the weight of the harness and shafts over her back. Most harnesses out here have a plain wide back strap, which can rub the spine if the horse doesn't have a naturally rounded profile. The padded sections are filled with wool, like saddle stuffing.
The horses received their periodic veterinary checkup on Saturday. As usual, several of the older horses needed teeth rasping. We also found a couple of cases of peritonitis, a swelling of the roof of the mouth, which is believed to result from the horses eating pine boughs in the forest. Presumably spines occasionally prick the inside of the mouth, through which infection starts. Since pine forest is so widespread, it is difficult to eliminate this problem, so we are treating each case with a course of injections.
Pintea, the white gelding who seems to have strong allergic reactions to various influences, had a bad reaction to an insect bite. The bite had scabbed over, however we found that the skin below the scab had necrosis. Basically, a piece of skin the size of a coin had turned to leather. This is a new and unusual problem, which I put down to more aggressive insect species appearing after a cool winter followed by a long, hot summer. The vet easily removed the dead skin under local anaesthesia, and Pintea has a sterile dressing in place whilst the wound heals. I've applied wound healing gel and changed the dressing daily, taping the dressing in place. It is quite difficult to get the tape to adhere, even special medical tape from the pharmacy. Fortunately Pintea is good and doesn't try and remove the dressing with his teeth (I am sure that he can reach his back) or rolling. He's in the stable now where it is cooler and there are fewer flies.
Finally, I've been thinking about the problems caused by lost shoes. The horses are doing more miles than in previous years, and shoes are getting lost from time to time. The biggest cause seems to be overreaching, and I have spoken to my farrier to take care not to set shoes too far back. Precise attention to detail is not a Romanian strength, and I do have to watch my farrier carefully. I've decided to acquire some Easyboots, one in each size, to tie to the saddles so that I always have one to replace any lost shoe for the rest of that day's ride. We can always nail a shoe back on, or replace it if lost, at an overnight stop. However the horse may have to go for several hours over stony ground to reach the end of the day's ride. I've been advised to buy the Easyboot Epic with gaiters - has anyone any comments?