One of the first things I ever learned as a lady horseshoer is how important it is to think ahead. I can do anything that bigger, brawnier farriers can, I just have to think about it in advance.
Take bathrooms, for instance. As a woman who goes to the furthest ends of the pasture for a horse, I've learned to take any decent restroom as I find it, whether it's necessary right at that moment or not. Sure as stars shine, I WILL need one when there are none for miles if I don't. Having a barn restroom is a great way to make it onto my A list of clients.
On a more serious note, anvils are another sticking point. As a hot shoer, I have to haul a 100 pound anvil into and out of my truck on a daily basis. Considering that I weigh right around 150 pounds, picking up 100 pounds of dead weight isn't something to be done lightly. Feel free to mentally beat me for that pun, but I stand by it. Point is, I have to think about my weightlifting technique and the route to my anvil stand ahead of time in order to save myself from injury.
Where brawn and size make no difference, however, is with the horses themselves. It doesn't matter if I were a waif or a 200 pound bodybuilder, even the smallest horses can yank me through the air like I'm a feather. They can yank nearly anybody. Horses are four to five times as strong as most people think they are by weight, and NOBODY has ever actually physically wrestled a horse with their bare hands into doing something they fundamentally did not want to do. When dealing with horses, nobody is free from the necessity of thinking ahead, because it's the one ability we have that they don't.
Friday, April 17, 2015
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Diary of a Horseshoer #4: To Bleed For One's Art
I never thought I'd get so many cuts and scrapes doing any profession as I have in the last couple of months. I suppose it's a natural side effect of working with sharp tools around hard hooves, but it's still annoying. I won't bother listing them all to avoid a study in skin abrasion.
On the bright side, lots of cuts come with foal season like clouds come with rain. I love all the babies, even if their tiny hooves do invite rasp slip-ups. We're working with one filly who lives at the vet right now. She was born with an oversized thyroid, a severe underbite, and knees and ankles that bend backwards because the bones and tendons weren't developed enough. Her mother rejected her, so she's been bottle fed every day of her life. She's sweet to work on, she just lays there and lets you do whatever you need to. Then she'll get up and lean on you like you're best of friends.
Other babies are a bit wilder. At our one halter horse barn, the best stud colt kept laying his ears back and chasing his own tail with bared teeth when we had to take his mother out to shoe her. He was MAD. Their owner's not looking forward to weaning time. . .
But it seems I can hardly go a week without rasping one of my fingers, cutting myself with a hoof knife, or some other stupid thing that makes me bleed. Sometimes it's a little crazy making because it's not as though stables are the cleanest places ever. I got so worried about a cut on my arm the other day that I used the same stuff I put on horse hooves if they've got a bad nail or a cut. A combination of iodine and turpentine may not feel good on a cut (ok, it feels like getting burned with a cutting torch), but that cut will NOT be infected.
Eh, the cuts heal. I still would rather be doing this than anything in the world.
On the bright side, lots of cuts come with foal season like clouds come with rain. I love all the babies, even if their tiny hooves do invite rasp slip-ups. We're working with one filly who lives at the vet right now. She was born with an oversized thyroid, a severe underbite, and knees and ankles that bend backwards because the bones and tendons weren't developed enough. Her mother rejected her, so she's been bottle fed every day of her life. She's sweet to work on, she just lays there and lets you do whatever you need to. Then she'll get up and lean on you like you're best of friends.
Other babies are a bit wilder. At our one halter horse barn, the best stud colt kept laying his ears back and chasing his own tail with bared teeth when we had to take his mother out to shoe her. He was MAD. Their owner's not looking forward to weaning time. . .
But it seems I can hardly go a week without rasping one of my fingers, cutting myself with a hoof knife, or some other stupid thing that makes me bleed. Sometimes it's a little crazy making because it's not as though stables are the cleanest places ever. I got so worried about a cut on my arm the other day that I used the same stuff I put on horse hooves if they've got a bad nail or a cut. A combination of iodine and turpentine may not feel good on a cut (ok, it feels like getting burned with a cutting torch), but that cut will NOT be infected.
Eh, the cuts heal. I still would rather be doing this than anything in the world.
Friday, May 8, 2009
From Frozen To Roasted
It's hot. No, hotter than that. Again we come to the vagarities of weather when you work outside.
In the space of seven days we go from 50 degree highs to the high eighties, and I don't think my circulation has quite caught up yet. I do love the warmth much more than I ever like being cold, but horseshoeing itself is toasty-making.
Still, trimming the spring babies is so much fun. I got to trim four cute babies today, none more than four months old. Because we're trimming them this way, they'll grow up with healthy legs and feet instead of getting deformities, so that always makes me happy. Plus they're about as cute as anything can be.
In the space of seven days we go from 50 degree highs to the high eighties, and I don't think my circulation has quite caught up yet. I do love the warmth much more than I ever like being cold, but horseshoeing itself is toasty-making.
Still, trimming the spring babies is so much fun. I got to trim four cute babies today, none more than four months old. Because we're trimming them this way, they'll grow up with healthy legs and feet instead of getting deformities, so that always makes me happy. Plus they're about as cute as anything can be.
Monday, May 4, 2009
To Travel, Or Not To Travel, That's A Question?
This traveling thing is getting on my last nerve. I work in Arkansas and Tennessee, yet for the moment I live in Kansas. At least, my husband, father, children and assorted critters live in Kansas. I live out of bags, it seems.
I'm glad I bought a house, but selling it in the current market is going to be . . interesting. I suppose I'll just have to rent it out for a while, because I can't afford to take much less than what I paid for it. However, I can't leave my family up here while spending a month away at a time, that's no way to live.
At the same time, I might as well try and give up air as give up horseshoeing. I found out a while back that horseshoeing is a way of life, not a job I can leave behind at the end of the day.
Oh well, we'll get it sorted out eventually. Until then, I'm happy to be blessed with a generous and patient husband.
I'm glad I bought a house, but selling it in the current market is going to be . . interesting. I suppose I'll just have to rent it out for a while, because I can't afford to take much less than what I paid for it. However, I can't leave my family up here while spending a month away at a time, that's no way to live.
At the same time, I might as well try and give up air as give up horseshoeing. I found out a while back that horseshoeing is a way of life, not a job I can leave behind at the end of the day.
Oh well, we'll get it sorted out eventually. Until then, I'm happy to be blessed with a generous and patient husband.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
The Joys of Weather
Ick. Ick ick ick ick ick. That's what I have to say about today's shoeing.
It has rained here in Arkansas for three days straight, and we had to be out in it to trim five horses this afternoon. We also helped a vet move from her old clinic to a new one, but the new one had flooded due to a debris blocked creek. All in all, it was a miserably wet day.
Oh well, horseshoeing goes on in all kinds of weather. The only time I truly hate doing it is when it gets too cold, which I rate as 15 degrees F if I have to do it outside, lower if I have somewhere out of the wind. After all, horses are Ice Age critters, right?
Now, I've got to put all my clothing in the dryer because I was soaked to the skin.
It has rained here in Arkansas for three days straight, and we had to be out in it to trim five horses this afternoon. We also helped a vet move from her old clinic to a new one, but the new one had flooded due to a debris blocked creek. All in all, it was a miserably wet day.
Oh well, horseshoeing goes on in all kinds of weather. The only time I truly hate doing it is when it gets too cold, which I rate as 15 degrees F if I have to do it outside, lower if I have somewhere out of the wind. After all, horses are Ice Age critters, right?
Now, I've got to put all my clothing in the dryer because I was soaked to the skin.
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