My life continues to be an exploration of horse hair and dirt. Thanks to Kate’s help thirteen of the horses have been body clipped. I’ve clipped 9 and she’s graciously clipped four so we’ve made serious progress. I’m hoping to clip two more tomorrow. Then I’ll go in a holding pattern for a week or two with body clipping. I might be done, or there might be 2 or 3 more horses that need to be clipped. The horses in question are teetering on the line of maybe they need to be clipped and maybe they don’t, we’ll see if they finish shedding or not over the next ten days.
We’re also marching through the spring baths. Sometimes it is better described as an excavation of dirt and hair rather than as a bath. Often the same horse gets bathed more than once, along with extensive currying, to get to the bottom of the dirt and hair. Over the last couple of days we’ve body clipped four more horses and bathed eight.
I woke up last night because I was sure I heard clippers running. Thankfully no one was standing in the bedroom with clippers, so undoubtedly my mind was just replaying the humming noise it has heard for far too many hours over the last two weeks. Here’s to reaching the end of the body clipping marathon very soon.
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After all these years I finally found the most obvious way to keep Lily occupied during a bath, let her eat. Lily is a gem about being clipped, she’s not so fond of baths.
Lily had plenty of hair but I’ve clipped much more off of her in other years
Lily in progress
a clipped Lily checking out some of her hair
Maisie had lots of hair
bathing Maisie
the first few strokes
clipped Maisie; there was lots of shine underneath that old winter hair
Lily and Maisie having a post-clip grooming session
Norman and Cuffie having a pre-clip grooming session
Cuffie in progress
Cuffie being very polite for Kate
Clipped Norman; it’s a real shame I forgot to take any before or during pictures as Norman won this year for the most hair.
Gus having a bath
Grand having a bath
Miss Lyle and Mina having a very lazy morning
Silver and Flyer
Lofty and Faune
Asterik and George
Cocomo
Rubrico, Toledo and River
Traveller
