someone sent the "healing power of horses" interesting--welllllll....... certainly being around horses- and sometimes even riding them can be healing.... but in my personal opinion, it is the fact that horses ARE About the most labor intensive project going. and it is the labor in the fresh air that is healing .. not the horse.. some say boats ARE LABOR INENSIVE.... but if you leave a boat somewhere, it just sits there- maybe slowly disintegrating, but you can not leave a horse for more than 12 hours without having to make some Herculean effort involving not only wheelbarrows but hammers and nails- because gnawing on the walls and fences is something they do second only to "processing" the tons of hay and grain that went thru their gut.
time was... i would get 30 tons of hay at a time- from canada- Andre.. with his big red truck would back in and unload it- mostly by himself- it was an amazing performance because he was all of 5 foot 4 inches tall. but he was slow and steady !!
To that 30 tons we ( the 4h kids) would add maybe a ton of grain..... alot of water. so that maybe 60 tons would hAVE TO BE shoveled by these 10-12 year old kids- certainly they did ride- but even teh hours spent preparing for the long distance trail rides (the vermont 50 miler) did not equate the hours spend shoveling- we have a minor version of tht now... just figure mo at ?1700 pounds???
DO THE MAth--- a normal 1000 pound horse should get at least 20 pounds of hay a day-- mo eats more plus 5 pounds of grain.. rule of physics ... matter may neither be created nor destroyed.... it does add up- granted mo is outside alot-- that does not change things-- it only puts off teh collection til spring- when it is no longer frozen to the ground.
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on to fischer cats-- i don't know what the breeding season is for fischer cats but i think it must be around now-- we have something large screaming in the forest behind me- which is setting off the dogs-- so i set off my audiometer- and yes they are barking, but at 100 feet, the sound level is equal to the ambient sound in a library. teh formula sound goes down 6 decibel every time the disatnce is doubled
you can do that math too... a barking dog is 90 decibles at 1 foot -- at 128 feet it equals the noise a refrigerator makes.
i have been there before-- done all that.
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other large problem of the day-- is one of these dogs s t i n k s --- maybe teeth--- usta be a vet woudl scrape away with a dental pick - now they have a fancy ? water jet-? requiring anesthesia- and a big charge-- so i must go find my supply of dental picks-- or screw drivers---which also works...