Gabriel is a big spoiled
baby. He is a thoroughbred stallion almost 17 hands tall and 1300lbs.
As stallions go he is a pretty good guy. We have learned to live with
each other. I call him my husband, we are like an old married couple.
He has always tried to bully me. Now at 27 he has trouble eating hay
so he gets hay cubes soaked in water. He loves
hay cubes. The problem is he slurps them down so fast that they are
gone in a few minutes. Then there is his head, smeared with green
slop, over the door roaring, thumping and demanding MORE! He throws
his head into my face as I walk by and rumbles his discontent at me.
I try to ignore him. Not Easy.
I am dealing with Faith's blindness, her need to be medicated several times a day, worrying over her, just wanting to be hugging her all the time, thinking of how I can make her trust me enough to be her eyes. All the while being interrupted by the big baby Gabriel, shooting his negative, selfish energy at me. I scratch his itches, pick off ticks as he directs me to them by lifting a hind leg and pointing with his nose and grunting, as he shoves me to the spot. He vibrates so violently with pleasure when I find it that I can't keep my eyes focused on it long enough to pull it off without great difficulty. He has no trouble communicating his desires to me, some important, some just plain selfish. He is extremely verbal and obnoxious most of the time. When no one is looking though he lets me know how much he really loves me. He rests his teeth on my shoulder and nuzzles me gently. He likes me to sit with him at the end of the day and just snoozes as I watch TV. He nips me a little but does not strike or kick. He has no interest in breeding mares for some unknown reason so I don't have that to deal with. That is why he gets to live here. It is extremely dangerous to geld such a big mature stallion and we would never do that to him.
He is spectacularly gorgeous! Even though he's a very old man.
Thank Jehovah for hay cubes! Years ago horses died too young. After they could no longer eat hay they basically starved to death. There was just nothing back then to feed them that they could eat that was nourishing enough. Thanks to soaked hay cubes we can feed them well into their late 20's and 30's until “time and unforseen occurrences” catch up with them. They will, of course, die of old age but not starvation. Both my old men, Solomon (30 years) and Gabriel (27 years) live on hay cubes and 4 small grain feedings a day. They both look like a million bucks!
Solomon is just a good old guy. He has never been any trouble at all, he just goes on and on. Hopefully forever!
~Nina
I am dealing with Faith's blindness, her need to be medicated several times a day, worrying over her, just wanting to be hugging her all the time, thinking of how I can make her trust me enough to be her eyes. All the while being interrupted by the big baby Gabriel, shooting his negative, selfish energy at me. I scratch his itches, pick off ticks as he directs me to them by lifting a hind leg and pointing with his nose and grunting, as he shoves me to the spot. He vibrates so violently with pleasure when I find it that I can't keep my eyes focused on it long enough to pull it off without great difficulty. He has no trouble communicating his desires to me, some important, some just plain selfish. He is extremely verbal and obnoxious most of the time. When no one is looking though he lets me know how much he really loves me. He rests his teeth on my shoulder and nuzzles me gently. He likes me to sit with him at the end of the day and just snoozes as I watch TV. He nips me a little but does not strike or kick. He has no interest in breeding mares for some unknown reason so I don't have that to deal with. That is why he gets to live here. It is extremely dangerous to geld such a big mature stallion and we would never do that to him.
He is spectacularly gorgeous! Even though he's a very old man.
Thank Jehovah for hay cubes! Years ago horses died too young. After they could no longer eat hay they basically starved to death. There was just nothing back then to feed them that they could eat that was nourishing enough. Thanks to soaked hay cubes we can feed them well into their late 20's and 30's until “time and unforseen occurrences” catch up with them. They will, of course, die of old age but not starvation. Both my old men, Solomon (30 years) and Gabriel (27 years) live on hay cubes and 4 small grain feedings a day. They both look like a million bucks!
Solomon is just a good old guy. He has never been any trouble at all, he just goes on and on. Hopefully forever!
~Nina
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1 comments:
Bless them, and you, Nina.
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