Hooves

FarmWife trimmed them today.

FarmWife has been sick, and FarmWife isn't at her best, but FarmWife trimmed my feet today because my feet are easy. I am a gentleman.

FarmWife is a bit of a safety snob, and she's all about the "closed toe shoes," "no stirrups without heeled boots," "helmeted heads," "adult supervision at all times," "no reins before balance," yada yada yada. You won't find her children walking through the paddock in flip-flops or monkeying about in the mule shed without a parent. When it comes to doing my hooves, though, here is her dirty little secret: she sits on a big wooden block.

Yes! She sits! She sits her butt down, and she places my foot in the comfortable cradle of her lap, and she trims it. It's awfully leisurely for us both, and the only reason it is is because we have known eachother for two long years and she knows every flinch of my hide, every prick of my ear, and every widening of my assymmetrical nostrils (one of which I inherited from my horse mother, and the other from my donkey father). She knows how, when, and why I spook, and she knows that I would sooner eat a hairy caterpillar than kick, even in moments of the most severe irritation. There are mounts she wouldn't say this of.  Truthfully, being kicked is one of her phobias—she was kicked in the kneecap in 1989 by a relative's mare, and tore the ACL in the same knee in 1997 in a collision with her rambunctious wolfhound, then kicked by  another mare in the same weak knee in 2006. She's a bit sick of it, really, and that knee is all the more reason to trim while sitting, as she does today.

Don't get me wrong—FarmWife would rather do one of two alternative things: 1), hire a skilled professional trimmer, or 2) trim standing up, as is proper and safe. 1) would require that the trimmers live nearer to her, which they don't, and that she sell an extra poem every six weeks to bridge the gap in her budget*, which she ought, and 2) would hurt that darned knee.

We have a system that works, and I like it. I'm a good boy, and I'm glad she knows.

Ears to you,
Fenway Bartholomule

* Shameless plug