The Best Horseshoe Plastic Ground Control vs. Steel and Aluminum Horseshoes

          To shoe or not to shoe is often a hotly debated question, but what happens when your horse needs more hoof coverage than barefoot can give- weather it be from a hoof problem, or sore feet- what shoe should you choose? I have chosen to compare the traditional shoes, steel and aluminum to Ground Control Horseshoes. I chose Ground Control shoes as I have the most experience with them in my practice. I've tried to add an objective view to each of the shoes.

         Here are a few points to keep in mind :

• The average steel shoe weighs 9 oz or more
• The average aluminum shoes weighs 6 oz or more
• The Ground Control Polyurethane Shoe weighs 3 oz

      If your horse lifts his legs 50 times per minute, 4 feet=12,000 lifts per hour in a 2 hour workout, he's lifted 6.74 tons. 

      Steel Shoes: 

•  Steel has long wear life as opposed to aluminum shoes, often being able to be reset twice.
• It is malleable without becoming brittle and can be shaped and modified.
•  It is economical as it can be reset, whereas aluminum is good for one shoeing. 
• The downside to steel is weight, 9 oz. turns into tons in as little as 45 minutes of working.
•  Steel is known to be more 'shock absorbing' vs. Aluminum.
• Best shoe overall for horses with fractures or surgery where the hoof capsule must not move. 

      Aluminum Shoes: 

• Lighter than steel.
• More expensive.
• Cannot be reset.
• Brittle and may add more 'sting' to the hoof and joints. 
• Will wear to the breakover of the horse. 

     Both Steel and Aluminum:

• Weigh more than polyethylene shoes.
• 'Snowball' in winter.
• Do not allow the hoof to expand and contract.
• Prevent the frog from embracing the ground, leading to atrophy of the frog and collateral cartilages, leading to underrun heels, navicular. 
• Both do not allow for energy dissipation, straining joints. 
• Metal Shoes have an analgesic effect, leaching as much as 5 degrees of heat from the horses hoof. A change as little as 1/4 degree will cause a decrease in dexterity. Your horse will not be able to feel as accurately.  

    

  Polyurethane Ground Control Horseshoes: 

• Non-leaching, will not cause a change in heat or circulation. 
• Allows for expansion and contraction medially and laterally of the hoof capsule. 
• Shock absorbing. 
• Lightweight, 3 oz. 
• Thicker than aluminum and steel. 
• Outlasts metal, steel and aluminum, 2 :1 with a money back guarantee. 
• Excellent choice for arthritic horses, or horses suffering from ring bone, founder or joint/suspensery  problems. 
• Frog support bar stimulates the frog, allowing for stimulation of the internal structures.
• Easy to shape with nippers and rasp- no special tools required.
• Not as widely known as traditional horseshoes- you may have to make a special request from your farrier- or order your own. Or get an open minded farrier. 
• Come in pretty colors- pink, black, and clear. 
• More traction on varied terrain. 
• Stay on longer- will flex if caught on something (such as a fence) and not 'rip' the hoof apart. 
• Frog support is removable. 
• Flip-flop action sheds mud, but the hoof is harder to clean. 
• Can be used with pads, pour in or traditional.
• Removal is different- one nail at a time, vs. using shoe pullers as leverage.  

Do you have questions about anything in this article, or have a hoof question, contact me at www.NaturalFarrier.com. I have free hoof care videos, articles and more! 

The Hit Man, part 3

    My default emotion as a woman is to cry. I try to hide it well, but in the comfort of my own yard, and at the end of a telephone line, you're gonna hear about it. I'd tried everything with "The Hit Man", Linda Tellington Jones 'T-Touch", round penning, Monty Roberts, desensitizing work, John Lyons techniques, and nothing worked.
    You put the Hit Man in the round pen, he'd work beautifully, he'd 'Join Up' and you'd be having a special moment with lots of head petting, 'good boy's!'  and the next second you were standing there, stunned because somehow he managed to spin, kick and shatter the plastic lighter you had in your pocket, and you were now suddenly flammable, developing a chemical burn and crying before you realized just exactly had happened.

    I was not giving up yet. . .
 
   The next morning, my leg covered in lighter fluid induced rash, I suited up. Quito was tied to the industrial strength hitching post, and I had my full faced motorcycle helmet, an eventing vest, 2 dog collars, some sheepskin covers, and a claw can grabber- the thing old people use to get cans off high shelves, and a set of hobbles.
    Quito stood quietly, doped with 5cc's of ace. Even in a drug induced coma, I did not trust him. His head hung low, bobbing occasionally. I closed my helmet, and took my old-people can grabber and went to work.
     I used the claw grabbers to put the sheepskin covered collars around his pasterns, and when I was very sure he was totally asleep, I leaned down and buckled them just tight enough that they would not slide off his hooves. I then buckled the hobbles to the dog collars and left him with a set of shackles long enough to walk around the yard, but not long enough to kick.I let him go, and he walked a few steps, bucked twice, and gave up.
    Now with every trip outside, I would stop and visit him, running my hands down his flank and back legs. He gave a hearty kick a few times, and I laughed, "Good luck with that". He gave me a look, and then stomp away sounding like Jacob Marley, but just as harmless.
    He soon became used to me near his back end, I could touch his legs while he munched hay, and he no longer cared if I picked his little chained foot up to clean it.
   The real test was my weirdo neighbors, so I threw a cookout and everyone came, Danny, the electrician that just moved here from California, who didn't really like Rum Gully because there wasn't enough 'negative ions' in the air. "California has plenty of negative ions man, cuz of the beaches, this place is like, stale'."
       I laughed at him then, but as I sit here in Virginia, far from South Carolina, I find "Stale" to be a very kind and accurate representation of Rum Gully indeed.
      Joe the drunk stopped by. Most of the horses liked Joe because he smelled like a brewery, all grains and fermentation, but Quito hated every man, wheat smelling or not. He snorted, but let Joe pet his butt.
      Sean, the meth-head from down the road stopped by, his chemical breath made Quito's lip curl, but he didn't bother to raise a hoof, what was the point?
     Even Sally the potbellied pig came out of her pen to visit. My mom made tamales with pretty corn husk shells (exterior not edible) but Sally tried to eat it anyway. When she went into a chocking fit and  I had to give her the piggy version of the  Heimlich manuver, Quito just stood there, overlooking the procession with boredom. The worst behavior he exhibited that day was nudging people to get handfuls of Spanish rice.
    After the festivites and his week of visitors, I donned my motercycle helmet, and flak vest and removed the hobbles. The test run went well, I pet his flank, he didn't bother to raise a hoof. Estatic, I announced he was not only cured, but he was going to be the best- at something- I wasn't sure what yet. I was very successful at training in my area- because whenever I bought a horse, I let him pick the discipline. You want to run off with people, fine, run off with me around barrels, hate the woods? Let's try dressage!
    Quito had no outward talent that I could see, except aim, but I was determined to find out his specialty.

   Quito progressed quickly, within a week, I was tacking him and laying across his back. Though his kicking was gone, his mental quirks were still there. He would be fine, walking along like a normal horse, and then Jerry Seinfeld (the rooster) would come out of the camellia bush, the same bush, the same rooster that Quito lived with every single day, and he'd freeze. He didn't spook, his stopped. His big eyes would take on a vacant look, and he'd go somewhere else. He would walk along with you, but he would walk anywhere. Anywhere meaning the tailgate of my truck, the post of the car port. He no longer was able to steer himself, he was gone, and left behind was an 800 pound shell of meat and muscle.
   I have seen this expression before, on animals that were 'gone', but not dead. Horses in such pain that it seemed God was kind enough to send their souls along before the body, and you had this blank eyed shell standing at the end of a lead rope waiting for the vet to come out and give 'the shot'. This was Quito. He was a shell when he went 'away'. And as you walked, he would awaken again, with no apparent trigger, he would be back to his strange, quirky self, quietly insinuating that a person could give him an alfalfa cube,and that would be quite nice.
    One afternoon, with Quito tied to the hitching post, and a quite interesting program on NPR playing from the radio in the shed, I decided to try and at least sit on him. I had a bucket of alfalfa cubes, and with every step, every good deed, he would get a treat. "Look, mama's tigtening the cinch, have a cube!" Mama's laying across the saddle, "have a cube!" Mama's sitting on you, "have a cube!"
     Quito was perfect, enjoying the silly antics of his human, the constant cube dispenser. I played treat factory of several days, and when I thought he was ready, I had someone lead me around the yard on him. He tolerated the normal stuff, tack, getting on, but when we began to leave, and Newman (the other rooster, Jerry Seinfeld's nemesis) ran out of a bush, Quito did not go to his happy place, but to the 'I may just kill you all!' - disgruntled postal worker place. His head got high he snorted, and just as I thought, prepare for explosion, he went to his 'happy place' an shut down. He tripped back to the hitching post, dragging his feet and rubbing me against a tree, despite great efforts on my handlers part to push him sideways. He slugged back to the barn with the pep of a man on death row taking the final tour of his mint green hallway.
    I hopped down, and decided that Quito had done all the work he had needed to do.
    He simply was no longer mentally capable of performing any duty other than eating the dog food off the porch, and pooping on the front steps. He had tried his heart out for me, but he just could not be ridden. He would hurt himself, or his rider. Someone had broken him inside and he had given all he could give.

     I knew keeping him would be hard. I could never quite trust him around the lesson kids when he was loose in the yard, he would eat the little resources I had. I was  23 years old,  and very skinny, because the horses and dogs always ate before I did, and Quito would be a financial burden, but I would happily carry him until I found a person that wanted a weird, quirky and unpredictable bi-polar, who had frequent periods of memory loss.  Wait, that sounds like me.  . .is that a personal ad I just wrote?
   
      I was either magic, or God just pitied me, but things just 'happened' back then. Once, when I was in Lowe's I said to a friend, "I wish I had enough money to buy wood for the round pen." and out of nowhere, a woman walks up and says "Do you need a round pen?" I said yes, and a week later I had 24 panels, enough for two round pens! Once, I went to town with $24.00 to my name, I bought a voltage regulator for my truck, and lunch and when I got home, I had $25.00. Stuff like that always happened. I'd just shrug and say "I'm just the luckiest girl in the world."
     My roommate Wendy was the UN-luckiest girl in the world, a karmic black hole.If something bad could happen, it would happen to her. We both had the same insurance company, and we both were too poor to pay the bills, so our policies lapsed at the same time. In South Carolina, you were fined $5.00 a day for every day you were without insurance. Neither of us had  insurance for the past six months, so you either go to the DMV with $900 or you brought a piece of paper from the insurance company that said you did have coverage. . . I did not have $900, but I did have some pretty good computer skills.
       I made me and Wendy identical Driver's Choice insurance cards on fake letter head and took them to the DMV. We went at the same time, Wending picking one window, me the other. I got out of the fine, Wendy got her license suspended.
    Once Wendy left a bag of expensive feed through wormer in the back of her truck, that night it rained and it was ruined. Instead of buying new wormer, she called the feed store and told them the man that loaded it, didn't secure it and it fell into the street and busted. They told her not to worry, come and get a new bag, and they'd just take the $95.00 out of the man's paycheck. . . the next day someone stole her horse trailer.

   I however, could conjure songs to play on the radio. We'd be in the truck and I'd say, "You know that new song by the Dixie Chicks? I really love that!" I would flip the channel and it would play, causing her to throw up her hands and sigh.
       Any girl that can conjure songs can conjure a home for Quito, so I did, the next day. I was in the hardware store and I said  "I wish I could find a home for Quito." Without a bit of surprise a woman walks up to me and says- "Do you have a horse for sale? I really just need a pasture ornament to keep my donkey happy, she's very angry and tries to kick butterflies. When she's very mad I bake her sweet feed cookies, when's she's sad, I add raisins!"
     She did not need Quito, he needed her.
     I told her of his "condition" of his bi-polar disorder, his pipe scar mark, his dislike for all things male, and there is a possible relapse of the kicking issues. I would sell him for exactly what I paid, $85.00
     "I have to ask Neil!" she said (whoever Neil was) and she would call me, "$85 was such a great deal!

     It was December, pretty close to Christmas. Close to Christmas meant that I probably wouldn't have to buy food for a few months because stores wasted more at Christmas. They would throw away entire cellophane wrapped fruit baskets with one bruised apple, or huge slightly expired hams (It was winter so you could keep the meat you found in the dumpster- my yearly stock up sale)
       Selling Quito meant that that measly $85.00 would let me pay my light bill, so I didn't have to sit on the floor in front of the gas heater, heating up thawing french toast sticks over the little blue flames because they turned my lights off, again. I was ecstatic- I would have free food, the all you can eat dumpster dive buffet, and lights, AND heat. It would be the best Christmas ever! (It would sure beat Thanksgiving where all I had to eat was a loaf of slightly smelly deer meet someone gave me, mixed with a bottle of ranch dressing.
      I was also sick and couldn't afford the doctor, so I sat home, alone, eating smelly ranch dressing covered meat and drinking tuna flavored cat distemper medicine (works GREAT for strep throat!)

    I sighed, walking out of the hardware store, once again, the luckiest girl in the world! Until I got home.
    "Neil won't let me have him." the woman on the other line of my ringing telephone said. She was in tears. "He says we can't afford him this close to Christmas, we don't have much for the kids. I already had told Dolly the Donkey all about him, she's so sad he can't come, I had to give her EXTRA raisins, and she's still sad."

     I could take Quito back to the auction, a crooked auction where nobody knew either of us. I could ride him through, probably. I could put an add in the paper, I could put him on the internet. I was so excited about not having the glum little man get out of his South Carolina Electric and Gas car while I held back six dogs so he could lock my meter and leave me in the dark. I NEEDED that $85.00.

     "Where do you live?"
     "But I can't afford to pay you."
     "You can have him." He needed to be a friend to a donkey, he needed sweet feed cookies and people to pet his pipe-scarred head and love him. He needed a retirement home where he would be loved, and run with Dolly the Donkey and try and kill butterflies.
   
     I pulled up to screaming and clapping.
     The woman was clapping, Dolly the Donkey screaming.
    The entire family had come to watch, and much to Quito's relief, there were meth heads, choking pigs, drunks, or guys from California complaining about ions, there were just bright faced kids and people hugging me for making Dolly and her 'mom' so happy.

    I gave her a bill of sale with the price of Quito at $1.00 "You don't need to give me the dollar." I said, "I just put it on there because I think you're supposed to put on an amount."
   "No!" the woman said, "I will! Let me get my purse!"
    She returned with her giant sack and dug through the loose mints and tobacco flecks and pulled out sixty five cents in change, the rest of the family dug through their pockets, and in the end I had, ironically, 85 cents they insisted I take. (God enjoys irony I have found- I could see him waving his great cosmic hand and laughing, eighty five dollars, eighty five cents, what's the diff?)

    I handed her Quito's purple lead, attached to his bright purple halter  and cried the whole way home. I cried over the loss of a friend, and for my thawing meat I was going to loose in the freezer, I cried for having to sit in the dark and huddle by the gas heater in the bathroom, I cried because for some reason, I had lost my luck, and was now like Wendy, doomed.

       I drug my sorry behind up the steps, trying not to cry over the poop on the porch and the missing dog food. No more yelling out the screen, "Quito get the hell off that porch swing! You cannot scratch your butt on that, you're gonna get stuck!"

     I was met by a flashing light on the answering machine, and a pile of bills Wendy had left on the table. I picked up the South Carolina Electric and Gas and pushed the button on the machine. It was Quito's new mom- crap- I thought, she wants to return him already! But instead the message said  "I just wanted to say thank you and God bless you! You have made us all so happy!"

   I smiled, and began to pull open the electric bill. I had to read the note on the top twice: This is not a bill- "Our sincere apologies for our mistake, your electric bill has been credited $400."

    "God, you rock!" I pointed at the ceiling, giving the air a fist bump.

    I was indeed the luckiest girl in the world.

   

     
   
 

Quito- The Hit Man- Part 2

H        He loaded perfectly- hopped right in, like he was relieved to get out of there and I didn't blame him. I went to the office to collect my coggins and pay. Old Mac was sitting behind the counter, and when I told him what horse I bought, he tried not to smile. "Oh, you got him."  he said, his hand strategically landing on the "NO REFUNDS FOR ANY REASON!!! sign taped to the counter. He already had my money, what did he care?
       "What about him?" I asked, cautious. Maybe I didn't want to know.
       "The slaughter man broke down on the way to the plant." Mac said.
       This was back when the horse economy was half decent, and only the worst of the worst went to the plant. "He got half way to Georgia and the wheel feel off. The horses sat in that trailer all day." (it was summer) "Some of 'em got a bit beat up. The vet didn't want to put them down, so they just stayed there until they died on their own." (As sick as the story was, the deep south was as compassionate to its animals as it was to its migrant workers. . . and that's not saying much. I've heard of vet's refusing to put mortally injured horses in trailer accidents for fear of getting sued.) "Guess your guy was the lucky one." he smiled again, handing me my coggins. I walked out in a daze.

       It was dark when I got home, Guido hopped off the trailer and I put him in my quarantine stall. (this was the very same stall that once was an extension off the shed. The roof really low, but I had this beefcake of a friend come over, and like the incredible hulk, he lifted the roof, and I put blocks under it to raise it up- the same roof that I decided needed sweeping, and while I was standing on the old tin, I fell through, caught by my arms that would not fit through the hole. My brother comes out of the house, looks at me dangling, rolls his eyes and says, "Phone call."
        "Tell 'em I fell through the roof, and I'll call 'em back!")
 
        I pat old Guido on the butt as he passed, and closed the door. "Night buddy."

     That morning I woke up as any kid would do on Christmas morning. I rushed out to see my new friend. Guido was waiting at the stall door. I reached in, snapped the lead on and led him out. I tied him to the hitching post and started brushing. I noticed the leg swelling from last night. He had a long scar from his hock to his pastern, a big, jagged black scar said it had been there awhile. I went in the shed and came back with some DMSO in a spray bottle to spray on the swelling. I leaned down and pulled the trigger. I'd never seen DMSO fly before. It took a moment to realize that my pretty hot pink sprayer had not defied gravity, it had been kicked.
    In my enthusiasm, I didn't think about Guido not liking spray bottles. Some horses are afraid of the hiss sound it made, so I got a rag to wipe it on.

  Oh, how many lives have I used up? It's hard to say, but the hoof that grazed my ear said, you're damn lucky.

    All horses have legs, all horses can kick, but most don't aim. They just give you a small warning swing, but Quito was not called "The Hit Man" for nothing.

   "I suggest you just grab his back leg, and when he swings, you push it into him, and he kicks himself." My roommate Wendy said.
    "Go right ahead." I answered.
     She went back inside.
     I had a few tricks that usually cured kickers. One was a broomstick. You just laid it over their back and down their legs, letting them get the feel of something back there. You just gently rub and rub, and when they kick, you keep your hand still, and they kick the stick. You just let them kick and kick while you rub gently. Eventually they kick themselves out, and realize you mean no harm.
This worked great.
For about one minute.
Quito kicked, and I rubbed. He kicked and I rubbed, he kicked and the broomstick turned into a javelin. It soared across the yard and landed in the woods. That bastard had aim.
     Trick number two, the wall. This is a variation of the broom stick, taught to me by my first farrier. You simply rub the stick on the back legs again, but this time the horse is backed up to a solid wood wall. You rub, he kicks the wall. The wall stings their legs, and they stopped.

      It worked great on my sassy filly yearling (who HATED me because the first day I brought her home a hay truck drove by. Having never seen such a contraption, she ran away, flipped over backwards, and landed under the board fence, two legs on one side, two on the other- and this was completely my fault and I was to be hated and kicked at)
     My farrier Larry rubbed her backside with his big hand, she kicked the wall twice and that was it. Party over, she never kicked again. Quito, on the other hand, was smarter than 'the wall'. He kicked twice. The wall hurt his feet, and he never kicked again, the wall that is. I was still soft, and I didn't hurt his legs when he struck out at me.
   At a loss, I decided to end our 'session' since I was clearly going to die if I didn't, I turned him out with the herd. My horses had seen it all. They knew mommy took in every single living creature that needed a home. Horses being the most common collectible, they barely sniffed noses with newcomers. I let Quito go out with the herd and remembered the slaughter man's warning and the look on his face when I picked up Quito's back legs the night before, and suddenly realized A: I could have been decimated if it wasn't for the saving grace of Ace and B: why everyone had given up on him, and he was on the slaughter truck bound for Georgia. I, however would NOT give up on him.

   My old gelding walked up to Quito, sniffed his scarred nose, and squealed. Quito spun and ran. He ran so fast that he simply removed the electric fence tape off of fourteen posts, stepped out of the mess, and started grazing in my front yard like he was bored.
   An hour worth of fence repairs later, Quito had found his new home- in the front yard. He didn't mind the duct taped goat tied to the camellia bush   (that's another story.. . . the goat who's side fell off) the giant wild tom turkey who adopted me after I saved his life with Gatorade soaked dog food and penicillin shots in the waddle (there's not many places to give shots on turkeys) and the bands of chickens who paid as much mind to horses that kicked as they would a rock.
   It wasn't that I wanted him in the front yard, it was simply that any attempt to catch him got you a butt of two loaded cannons attached to it, pointed right at you. He was smarter than to be lured into a stall, so in the yard he stayed.
        He would accept treats, as long as you rolled them to him, slowly. Anything faster than a gentle toss would send him flying like an insane horse around the yard, upsetting Duct Tape Goat and flustering Mr.Surk, the Turkey. Quito quickly learned that he better come for his sweet feed when called, or every other animal in the yard would eat it before he decided the pan was safe.
   Life continued like this for a month. I did nothing more than ignore him while he learned how to sneak up the front steps and eat the dog food off the front porch, or undo the latch on the shed door, remove the heavy metal lid off the barrel, and eat his fill. When the latch was fortified, he learned how to ever so gently nudge the glass out of the shed window, and toss all the grooming boxes within reach, onto the floor.
   Eventually I was able to had feed alfalfa cubes, his favorite snack, out of my hand. Cubes were worth braving the crazy humans for. Once I made the mistake of introducing to Quito to a date. The cocky cowboy with his stinky knock off Stetson cologne strode up to Quito and held out his hand. I was so proud when Quito ever so gently accepted the gift of the delicious snack. He mindfully chewed it, swallowed, looked at me and spun, double barreling the guy in the chest.
    Despite the fact that the kick was well aimed, and the boy eventually proved he needed to be taken down a few notches, I did realize that Quito was still volatile and quite dangerous. . . it was now time for some serious action. The next day I was going to fix this mess once and for all. That night I assembled my arsenal. . . a full faced motorcycle helmet, a eventing vest, those grabby claw-things old people use to take cans off the top shelf of the pantry, two nylon dog collars, sheepskin covers, and a pair of hobbles. Oh ya, and one more thing. . . a shot of Ace.

The Acid Files

Did you know you can resharpen your farrier rasps with Muratic Acid? Rasps are expensive, especially the fancy Hofnoble German Hoof Plane's I like to use ($70.00 each), so I decided to save a little money.

   I'd seen muratic acid used before- they use it to etch concrete and clean sidewalks (I'd seen that done once) so I thought- hey how hard can it be to do my own rasps? 

   I bought a gallon of acid, and decided that while I vacuumed out the car, I'd let the rasps soak. It was cold outside, so working in the garage seemed like a good idea. I got a big plastic container and started pouring the acid in. I didn't pay much attention to that ugly skull and crossbones, or the directions. 

   I get bored easily, so while the acid was dumping in, I decided to read the container: Caution: highly corrosive, may cause harmful and potentially fatal vapors, use in a well ventilated area, with conditions similar to outdoors." Just then my little girl screams "Mommy, why is the water making smoke!" 

     Oops. 

     I realized I could not feel my tongue anymore, I sent her upstairs and rushed to the garage door. I ran the box o' acid, billowing plumes of white toxic fumes, outside. Looking down, with a dishtowel over my face, I thought, maybe I should have put the rasps in first. I eased one down, and it splashed corrosive juices all over my hand- it didn't hurt that bad, it just sizzled a bit and whiped it on my jeans. I had a great idea, maybe I would throw the rasps in, at a safe distance- there was only 20, how hard could that be? 

      I threw the first one, and it splashed even higher, and hit me in the face. Finally, I just hurled all the rasps into the yard, next to the box, came back with my dish towel over my face, and eased each one into the acid. 

   They're all in, I stood back with satisfaction, hands on hips, and wondered- how the heck am I going to get them back out? 

Bat Coffee- Just another service I provide: Rabid critter removal

I was so tired, I went to a total of 4 barns, and had already put shoes on, or trimmed 9 horses. It was 3pm and I'd been on the road since 7:30am with my apprentice (4 year-old Beeps). I arrived at the last barn of the day, I had 3 horses to go, and 2 needed Equisocks. I was early and the owner wasn't there yet, so I decided to get a head start so I could get home and cook dinner, maybe prop my feet up. . . or not.
       At the last barn, Beeps had found several pretty feathers, and was on a feather kick at the new barn. I told her the best place to look for them was under the big oak trees. "Don't go too far!" I called, unloading my tools and getting ready to get to work.
       Beeps ran off, collecting sticks and searching for feathers. "Look a squirrel!" she says. I give the answer every exhausted parent of a young child says "Uh huh, that's nice." I was busy counting glue tips and picking pretty Equisocks colors, I was sure the squirrel was long gone. I looked over my shoulder and Beeps was watching a tree, so I got back to work.
    "A squirrel!" she says again.
     "Uh huh."
     "No, wait, it's a baby chick!"
     Now that made me stop. I turned around, figuring a baby bird had fallen out of the tree. I had 2 thoughts. The one where you tell her "The mommy bird is probably looking for her baby right now, just leave it there and she'll be back for it (aka. the snakes will find it, circle of life and all that), but. . . being a bleeding heart vegan animal lover, I was already planning on a shoe box nest, wondering where I could get baby bird food and explaining to my husband that we needed to save this baby bird (said husband is STILL in shock over the time I brought home an -adorable to me and me only- baby vulture who I raised until she was able to fend for her own).
    I paused, looked at the rather long dived between me and Beeps and called out (before I made the long, exhausting walk in a pair of farrier chaps and a rasp attached to my calf) to see a dead bird. "Is it alive?" I yelled.
   "Ya, I poked it with a stick, and it made a 'hissss' sound like the kitty!"
    Oh crap. I dropped my rasp, tossed the apron and ran. Beeps stood with a formidable stick over a ball of soft brown fur. "What the heck is that?" I said, poking the thing with my own stick. "Hisss!" it said, lifting it's furry, nasty little head and showing off a mouth full of fangs. It unfurled a small, fleshy wing, with a tiny nasty little claw, and I suddenly knew why there was so much fear and folklore around the nasty things. "It's a bat.." I said.

   "Oh, I don't like bats." Beeps said.
    I poked it again for good measure, and it hissed and bit the stick. "A rabid bat." I declared. Then I freak out, "Did you touch it?"
   "No, I poked it with a stick."
   "Did you touch it with your hand?"
   "Nope, just the stick."
   "Put that stick down! It has diseases!" (God I sound like my mother)
   "Eww, disease stick!" Beeps wipes her hands on her pants after throwing the stick at mommy. Apparently the stick was just fine until I called it disease stick, so it must be thrown at the bearer of bad news.
    We head back to the barn, this very nice barn, with at least twenty very nice horses that do NOT need to contract rabies. We wash our hands, and I spray us down with Hoof Rx (anti-fungal and anti-viral all natural hoof spray (made by The Natural Farrier- just so you know) Safe on kids and mommy's braving rabid bats. I walk in a few nervous circles, double check that Beeps did indeed only poked the evil thing with a stick, sprayed her hands again with Hoof Rx, and then we call daddy.
     "I got a weird question for you." I say when he answers.
     "I got a weird answer." He laughs.
     "I found a rabid bat."
     "Ahh," he sighs, used to my daily antics, and bizarre stories. "Put it in a plastic bag."
    "But it will chew it's way out! It's EVIL!"
    "Hmmm," he says.
    "I'll put it in a bucket!" I say happily, and off I go, to dig through the barn trash in search of a bucket. I found a coffee cup with a lid, good enough.
      Back at the bat lair, it's furry funky little body all coiled and ready to attack at a single poke, I look down at it, the species supposedly on top of the food chain, with a Starbucks cup. I stare at the thing, Beeps stares a me, a rather large ant climbs into the cup, and eats leftover coffee moca latte while I try to figure out how to get this ball of incurable disease into my trap.
    "Go get my nippers!" I say to Beeps and off she runs at full, 4 year old warp speed to the car.
    She returns, thankfully with a. nippers and b. my old nippers.
    I look down at this poor huddled mass, and think, I've got to kill this thing. I don't eat meat. I don't eat dairy, I don't buy the Coach leather purse though I REALLY REALLY want because it's made out of dead baby cow, and here I am, about to be a murderer. "Look away, I'm going to have to cut his head off." I tell Beeps. She turns and looks even closer. (that's my girl!)
   "It's going to be gross."
    "Okay!" she says excitedly. My little girl who aspires to be a dancer and a princess is ready for the decapitation, off with it's head!
      I poke it with the nippers. It hisses and bites the metal. I clamp down on it, it still hisses, then I think, GOD these nippers are REALLY dull. Really really dull. So dull that the only thing the nippers were actually good at were picking up the bat and putting it into the cup (I dumped the poor giant ant out- much to his dismay of being ejected from sugary coffee heaven). I dropped Mr.Nasty into the cup, now very agitated at having a pair of St.Croix nippers mushing his neck in vain, and put the lid on. The smell of coffee and bat is a peculiar mixture, but a satisfying one indeed.
     The owner arrived to a jubilant 4 year old telling her mommy has a bat coffee! I hold up the cup and smile- "Just one more service I offer!"