After a very busy and enjoyable summer, with many guests enjoying our horse riding facilities, and lots of lovely long picnic and restaurant hacks, we were ready for a quieter autumn, with a chance to catch up on odd jobs and relax a bit. Though our holiday bookings continue throughout the winter, we at least get a few gaps. We have plans to build a lovely second guest cottage, with spectacular views of the mountain and its own private courtyard and roof terrace. We managed to get the footings in, and lay the floor before the first rain of the autumn, and will continue to work on it as and when we can, working around any guest bookings, so as not to cause inconvenience. We are really looking forward to having the extra accommodation, as we find that we get booked up for all the major holidays about a year in advance, so it will be great to be able to take a few more people, especially as a lot of our guests say that they would love to return with friends or family, and at the moment we do not have the room. We do take the odd short break in our farm house, for people wanting to do a riding holiday. We provide all their meals and it has been very successful and enjoyable, but ideally it would be nice to offer more private accommodation for these extra guests.
We have a very good reason to want to have the extra accommodation ready for this summer, as our eldest son John, who is twenty one in April, is getting married. He announced his good news on New Years Eve, and the wedding is to be held at a nearby hotel, with an evening reception here at the farm for all our friends. Our neighbor is the Justice of the peace in Trabuco, and is going to do the ceremony, which will be lovely. John first met his fiancée, Rebecca, at playschool when he was two and a half, though they didn’t take much notice of each other at the time. Rebecca is the best friend of the daughter of our friends in England, and when the girls were sixteen they came to stay with us in our guest cottage, for their first ‘grown up’ holiday. John and Rebecca got together then, but when John went to join the army college that September they split up. They met again three years later, when Rebecca came to the coast on holiday with another friend, and have been together ever since. They now live on the coast, where John is working at an I.T company and Rebecca is attending a hair dressing college. Harry, our nineteen year old son, is going to be Best Man, and Elizabeth who will be eighteen in July is to be a bridesmaid. The wedding has been planned to coincide with our friends annual holiday with us in August, so it should be one big long party.
Last October we found a stray new born lamb, who we named Minty (as in mint sauce). Clive jokes that we will eat him at the wedding, but we all know he doesn’t mean it – he loves Minty to bits, and Minty thinks that Clive is his Dad, following him everywhere.
It was fate that brought them together really, as we were having problems with a lovely little dog that lived at the farm near us. Every time we rode the horses past he followed us home. As he was so small he could fit through the wire fencing so we couldn’t deter him. He was so cute that it was tempting to keep him, as his owners just laughed when we took him back, and said we could have him. Anyway, we already had enough dogs, so much as we liked him, he had to go back, so we were forever putting him in the car and driving him home, only to have him back again the next time we passed his farm.
On one of the trips back with him, Clive had just dropped him off and was driving on when he saw something in his rear view mirror, running after the car. He at first thought that it was ’ Little dog’ again, but then noticed that it was a different colour so he stopped the car to investigate. Instead of a dog, it was a tiny new born lamb, hiding under the car. Clive picked him up and drove to all the nearby farms to ask if it was theirs, but nobody wanted to admit to owning him, so we had no choice but to bottle feed him. He was so pathetic and tiny those first few nights that we had him in a box beside our bed. Clive had him on his side, as there was more room, and woke to feed him every time he cried. I did try to take a turn, but it felt strange sleeping on the wrong side of the bed (good excuse) so Clive ended up doing all the night feeds. Much as he hates to admit it, he was besotted with Minty, and even now that Minty is four months old, and living with the goats, he lets him out to ‘play’ if he hears him crying. He is a lovely little character and follows me around when I am gardening, though I have to keep a close eye on him as he will eat everything. I did start putting a dog muzzle on him so that he could run around (he thinks he’s a dog, and loves to run with them, putting in a skip and a jump every few strides) without wrecking the garden, but now that he is bigger he spends most of the time with the goats, and though they bullied him to start with, they seem to be accepting him more now. Of course, we have now given ourselves another chore to add to our large list– sheep shearing.
When Minty was a couple of weeks old and started to live outside in the courtyard, Buster, our young dog had bonded with him so much that he also asked to sleep outside at night, and cuddled up next to Minty, as if he was protecting him. It was so sweet. We also still had ‘Little dog’, who had decided that he much preferred our farm to his, and a litter of three puppies that we had found abandoned in the olives. They all lived together in the courtyard and were such good friends. Thankfully, we gradually found homes for the puppies. The people that came to see the last puppy also fell in love with ‘ Little dog’, as they could see that they were such good friends, and took him as well, so that was another problem solved, but poor Minty then just had Buster to play with. Tragically, on the very day that the last puppy and ‘Little dog’ were re- homed, Buster was accidently let out of the gates by the kids and got run over. Clive and I were in England when we heard the bad news. Buster had run off and Elizabeth found him the following day, lying in a ditch with a broken leg. He was in a really bad way, as he could not put any weight on either back leg, and so had been unable to move, probably lying in the ditch in the cold all night. The kids got him to the vet, who said that he could either have an expensive operation to pin his leg together, be put to sleep or just be left to heal with a limp. He advised the third option, and being the other end of the phone we didn’t know what to say, so we went along with the decision. When we arrived home, two days later, Buster looked so terrible that I was distraught that he hadn’t been put to sleep. He was in a lot of pain and couldn’t even get up to got to the toilet. Amazingly, within a couple of days, he was so much better, and able to move on his own. In hindsight, I was glad that I hadn’t been here at the time of the accident as I think I would have been too emotional and would have made the wrong decision. Now, only three months later, he is walking almost normally, despite the break being in his thigh, where it was impossible to splint or strap up in any way. When we first saw him after the accident, the leg just dangled pathetically and I thought that it would definitely have to be amputated, so it just goes to show how incredible the body is at healing itself.
I had another slightly traumatic occurrence with one of our hens. The poor thing had hopped up to have a drink out of the horse’s water trough and fallen in. Luckily one of our guests raised the alarm, but by the time I got there the poor thing was almost completely submerged in the water, with only its eyes and beak visible. I plucked it out and wrapped it in towels, rubbing it continuously to try to warm it. Every time the towel became too wet I wrapped it in another straight from the tumble drier to try to get it warm. Its body temperature had fallen so low that it felt like it was an oven ready chicken straight from the fridge. The pathetic little thing remained very calm and let me work on it for a couple of hours, until finally it felt warm and dry and was able to walk around. Incredibly it was fine, with nothing to show for its ordeal. I was totally amazed as I really thought that it would die.
I just hope that it doesn’t happen again, as there is no way that I can stop the chickens drinking from the trough if that’s what they want to do, they will even drink at the same time as the horses, they are totally fearless.
We have had the horses ‘bare hoofed’ for about 18 months now. It has proved to be incredibly successful, and a bonus in so many ways. Their feet are stronger and healthier than they have ever been, with absolutely no cracks, or any problems at all, whatever the weather or terrain. They are all completely sound, even those that are ridden a lot, and are as sure footed as mountain goats to ride, which is lovely. To start with we had some special boots for Hercules, as being an English Cob, his feet were not as good as the Spanish horses. Now though, if anything, he has the best feet, and they are certainly better than they ever were when he had shoes on, despite the fact that he is one of our most popular, and therefore most regularly ridden horses.
It is so lovely to be able to do their feet ourselves, without the trauma of a farrier’s visit. It’s especially good for the foals and young horses, who will never have to suffer the bad treatment that some of the old horses have had to put up with in their lives. I have had a couple of good farriers in the past, but there are some that will hit the horse with whatever tool they have in their hand if they don’t behave.
The young horses have such perfect feet, and now they will never have to have them spoilt by having nails banged into them.
Our two youngest riding horses, Bonny and Leo have proved to be two of our most popular horses for our riding clients. It is so rewarding, as we have had them from foals and we can take pride in the fact that they are the product of our making. Elizabeth did most of the work when they were first backed and ridden, with John taking on Leo to continue his training. They have been a delight from the beginning, and we can’t wait now to work with our three year olds this summer.
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