Tag Archives: horse rugs

Weather watch

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Just been for a walk with the dogs around the village, and notice with interest the preparations my neighbours are making for the approach of the Siberian weather, which is being currently forecasted by people who should know.

Julia has filled her beautiful Cotswold garden with new garden furniture and two enormous sun umbrellas.  I don’t think she is taking the snow warnings seriously.  Frank is still tinkering with the home-made fuel he thinks will one day make his fortune.  It is entirely constructed (by his own secret recipe) from sheep droppings from his very own ewes, and the oily smoke curling out of his chimney shows that he is working day and night to perfect it before the Big Freeze happens.  His wife Phyllis is visiting her sister in Bournemouth at the moment, and I think this is a good thing.

Mr Addington spent the whole of March telling anybody who would listen that the fine weather wouldn’t last, mark his words.  When it did last and we had weeks of glorious sunshine he felt it as a personal insult on the part of the weather systems and the BBC, combined.  So now he has invested in a very ornate weather station, which he has installed in his garden to the fascination of all passers-by (me included).  It’s got a windmill thing to show how much wind there is (currently stationary), a bucket thing to show how much rain (currently empty) and some complicated systems for measuring the pressure.  Colin, who lives close to the Addington family home, assured me that the pressure machine is currently drawing a straight line which you can see clearly if you use binoculars and sort of squint.

So there we are.  I’m just having my usual dither as to what variety of rug to put on Slip.  The medium weight one makes him sweat, but it’s slightly too chilly for him to go out in just his fur.  I’ll opt for his light weight one and wait for the first flake to fall before I rush out with his heavy weight one.  And just having just spent an hour out in it, I’d call the current weather situation in North Wiltshire as ‘pleasant’.  Long may it continue!

Notes on a small holding

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First of all, for those who have been following the guinea fowl saga, I’ve sourced some eggs.  Or at least I’ve found some guinea fowl and booked a clutch once they start laying.  The fields of Wiltshire will ring again to loud uninhibited guinea fowl song!

In the short term, we’re off to drive overland to Morocco in less than three weeks.  Should be an amazing journey, once I’ve got used to washing my hair in a bucket etc.  Back here, Sarah our wonderful house sitter will be looking after all the animals.  Without her we couldn’t go anywhere, let alone to the Atlas Mountains and beyond.  And I’ve been trying to write notes for her which have enough detail to be useful but don’t confuse her utterly.

I must mention, for example, that if she leaves the back door open she will find a large peacock sitting in front of the Aga, and Duffy is not easy to evict.  In fact the only dignified way is to open a tin of tuna and lure him out with that.  Otherwise there is a lot of struggling, and peacock swear words.  If I’ve got my timing right, the ewes won’t lamb until I get back, but what if they surprise us?  I must have a sheep expert lined up.  Fluffy’s eggs, if fertile, will have hatched by then but the tiny chicks will need constant new supplies of clean water and chick crumbs, because Fluffy likes chick crumbs too and elbows her little family aside to shovel them down in quantities.

The list continues – try and keep the geese out of the road or Porous will chase cars.  Collect the eggs every day or the whole lot of hens will go broody.  If Foxy the ewe suddenly jumps in a small circle, she hasn’t gone soft in the head: that is just her little way when she sees food on the horizon.  All things that I do every day, without thinking about, but which need to be carefully listed for Sarah.

Then there’s Slip’s rugs.  He has become a sort of equine Barbie doll, with a rug for every occasion.  He likes it, I like it, and both of us ignore Harry sneering at us (Harry has a natural coat like a shagpile rug, unlike Slip who is pure silk).  So Sarah will have his light rug, his medium rug and his thick rug to think about.  And of course his fly rug if it turns hot.

And I’m trying to keep the whole lot on one side of A4!!

Horse rugs

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Harry the Horse is a Cleveland Bay, and his descendants have been around the British Isles for a long time.  Stone Age men improved their caves with murals of Harry lookalikes galloping about with bison and long horned oxen.  During the millennia, Cleveland Bays have perfected an excellent defence against English weather in the form of an enormously thick winter coat: underneath it is soft and fluffy, Harry’s own personal duvet; on top it is more like roofing felt.  Furthermore Harry despises man-made rugs.  If I put one on him because of extreme rain or snow, he slopes off to his secret rug-destroying place and when I next see him the rug is in tatters.  Harry prefers to go au naturel.

With Slip it is a different matter.  Slip is half Arab (the fine drawn horses who romantically gallop about in the desert) and half quarter horse (the cowboy horses who romantically gallop about in a sheriff’s posse).  His natural coat has the texture of fine silk, which gleams in the sun but is useless when the sun goes in.  This isn’t a problem, because thanks to modern materials he keeps warm and dry all year round in his light weight rug, his middle weight rug, his heavy weight rug (the list continues).  He loves being pampered, and I love brushing his fine coat and selecting the perfect rug for current weather conditions.  But as I buckle Slip lovingly into his latest deluxe high-tog two-toned soft-feel coat (with winter tail flap and innovative dart system) we could both of us do without Harry.  Because Harry, secure in his own natural yak-coat, strolls over to the fence and openly sneers at Slip.  We try to ignore him, but Slip (a sensitive flower) and I both know what Harry is saying:  “Wimp!”