And, as I did with all our critters, I named each and every one of those hundred chickens. So apparently I like labels. That’s what a name really is – a label. It helps me keep things orderly in my brain. So it was time to label this lead mare. I had more interaction with her than any of the others because she was not as afraid of me. I actually bought some treats at the local feed store and discovered that she would take the treats right out of my hand. According to this beautiful horse that is obviously the lead mare, it absolutely wasn’t okay for any of the others to get any of these treats. She rules with an iron hoof. She would lay her ears back if they even were thinking about wanting a treat. But that is pretty much how she led the herd on a general basis. She truly was the bossiest creature I had ever met – and that includes all the bossy people I have met!! So this horse’s name just had to be Bossie. And it fit so well that anyone that got wind of me calling this horse ‘Bossie’ also called her ‘Bossie.’ Sometimes a name just fits.
Bossie, the lead mare
Lead Mare……
I have since learned that the duties of a lead mare require her to be responsible for the well being of the herd. Her job as a lead mare comes before her job as a mother. The well-being of the herd is more important than any one horse in the herd – even if that one horse is her foal – a lot more on that later. Her partner in this job is the stallion. In this particular case these two are not great friends, but they are a great team. If the lead mare takes off running, the herd asks no questions – they follow her right now. She has to rule with that iron hoof if this is to work to keep the herd safe. I have only seen her do this a couple of times, but when she does, they follow, right now!! If the stallion takes off running, he somehow tells the mares to either follow him or to stay put and let him deal with it. If they are to follow he will often start running, then Bossie will take over the lead and the stallion will get behind them to protect from the rear. I have not figured out how they communicate all this, but there is definitely communication there that isn’t just the ears.
Winter was fast approaching as I was getting to know Bossie. I wondered if and when they would disappear. And, as if Mother Nature sends them a message, they did disappear and didn’t return all winter. That was a pretty snowy winter and most of the time there was at least 20” of the white stuff on the ground. I thought about them often and wondered if they were finding enough to eat. But there wasn’t a thing I could do to help them. I had no idea where they went and the snow was just all too much – especially for someone who was still learning to drive in the stuff.
Chapter 6 – Stranded
Finally spring arrived in 2013. It hadn’t been a particularly cold winter, just white. What that means is it snowed a lot, but the temperatures didn’t drop below zero a lot. It was cold compared to what most think of as cold. It stayed in the teens most of the time. As I wondered if I would see the horses again, at all or soon…. they showed up. There were still 3 mares (2 gray and 1 bay – Bossie), the stallion, the now nearly two year old filly from Bossie, the two yearlings from Bossie and the lightest gray mare. So that makes 7 horses total.
I continued to figure out how to name the members of this herd but life got in the way, big time. Babies. Little bitty beautiful babies were born to the mares.
Shortly after they returned, another little filly was born in the middle of April to the same light gray mare that had the reddish brown yearling. This baby was a very dark, dark gray with an even darker gray mane and tail, a white blaze on her face and one white sock. Two weeks later a little boy was born to the gray mare that hadn’t had a baby yet (that I had met). He was a really dark gray with matching dark gray mane and tale with 2 white socks. And around the first of June another little boy was born to Bossie. He was that reddish/brown color with a strawberry blonde mane and tail, with a very large wide white blaze on his face. I simply had to start naming these horses……
Shy with yearling John Boy and baby Blaze
I could tell the mothers were extremely protective of these little ones. I didn’t dare venture too close or I would probably get the same treatment the other horses received. The mothers lay their ears back, lift their heads and threaten to bite whoever isn’t making them happy. I had no real desire to get bitten by an angry mama horse!! The babies, however, had me intrigued and I decided it was time to see what sort of a relationship I was going to have with these horses. I went to the feed store in town and asked what sort of feed horses would eat. They suggested sweet COB (corn, oats and barley and plus the price was the best) so I bought a bag and then had to figure out how to get it to them. First I started giving the herd some grain in small piles on the ground around the base of a pine tree a hundred yards off to the south of the house. I also put a salt block near that tree. This seemed to work – they ate it ravenously each time, but I was seeing that pecking order really become evident and I was afraid those babies would be hurt as the larger horses all vied for the small piles of grain. I thought I probably was in danger, too, as the pecking order displayed itself.
Feeding the herd around the base of a pine
At first I put out one pile for each horse – mostly because that is all that would fit around the base of that tree. As time went along one pile each wasn’t working – not for them and certainly not for me. The herd knew what I was going to do when I would head for that tree and it was getting dangerous just to make that walk. As much as I thought it might not be right, I moved where I put the grain so that walk wasn’t as long and the herd didn’t have time to start vying for position before I got the grain out. I was still putting it in piles on the ground, but scattered out in a line along the area in front of the house and yard fence. Each pile was a long ways from the others. This seemed to work and it felt much safer because I could get some of them busy while I was putting out the rest of it and I didn’t have them all surrounding me.
Then it rained. Well, piles of grain on the wet ground didn’t work either. Back to the drawing board: How to keep the grain off the ground as the horses are all jockeying for a pile. I had a couple of Home Depot buckets – 5 gallon orange buckets with handles and I got the bright idea that maybe that if I put the grain in the buckets before I went out to feed them I could just drop the buckets and let them deal with who got which bucket. And, it would keep the grain off the ground -- if they could get their heads in them. It seemed I had a plan – a plan is good if it helps keep me safe!! As a result of putting buckets out with grain in them, I quickly realized that there was absolutely no problem with the horses putting their heads in the buckets – even the stallion’s head and the head of the big darker gray mare fit in the buckets. They would twist and turn their heads to get as much grain out of each bucket as possible. I discovered that the nearly 2 year old sorrel loved kicking the buckets around after everyone else was done with them. She was getting any grain that stuck to the sides of the bucket loose so she could scarf it up. It wasn’t very ladylike, but I started calling her ‘Bucket’ and it has stuck. She is still Bucket and I still apologize for that name every time I introduce her. And she still kicks the buckets!!!
At this point I decided if I was going to get involved with these guys, I was just going to have to name them. The gray mare this and the gray mare that….. it was just too hard to communicate that way.
I had decided that the mother of the second foal was going to be called Daisy, short for lackadaisical because she had a very laid back attitude even if she scared me more than the other horses scared me. She seemed to march to a different drummer than the rest of the herd. She was always the last coming here and the last leaving here. I couldn’t figure out why she scared me so much, but I was
