Mouse Update

It's still loose, somewhere in the house :(

It didn't take our bait. Alas, outsmarted by a MOUSE!

Eck!

Life as I know it....for now...

This Holiday Week has seemed long to me. Not that I mind; I guess I just have felt unproductive during the whole thing! You know me, I always need to be doing something.

I've been educated that this weekend marked the opening of 'shotgun season', or aka, every hillbilly in a 50 mile radius of my house in blowing off guns. No disrespect the the hillbillies :) My husband is included in this cult, however, my husband hunts in a remote area, not around homes and horse pastures!

So far so good with the dogs minding the Christmas tree and not trying to rambo it! Same with Houdini; so far so good.

So this morning, again, my husband was up at some insane hour to go hunting. Yesterday when he got up and left, I was dead to the world and didn't even realize he was gone until my alarm went off to get up and feed the horses.

Today, I had the pleasure of him waking me up by saying, "Hon, I know you don't want to hear this right now, but there is a mouse in the house. I am going to leave Houdini out".


Ok - let's examine this statement.
1.) WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE IS A MOUSE IN THE HOUSE?
2.) With all the 'mousing' Savannah and Lucky do outside, WHY is there a MOUSE in my HOUSE?
3.) Why do you think leaving a 3 month old kitten to roam the house is going to do anything for a LOOSE MOUSE in my HOUSE?
4.) Most importantly, why are YOU leaving without catching this damn thing?

So, ring the alarm at 6am and now I am up to feed. I vaguely remember being told, while I was half asleep, about a loose mouse in the house. Was I dreaming? Then I enter the back room and see a broom, things out of place, turned over and upside down and instantly frown :( I wasn't dreaming!

So I call my lovely husband to ask him where the HELL a mouse came from. He proceeds to tell me he was flipping channels on the tv, enjoying his coffee and then Girls Gone Wild came on. (This is the part where he thinks he is being funny, meanwhile, I am HARDLY laughing). He proceeds to explain he was enjoying watching "the girls" and heard a noise. He thinks, 'What the heck, we don't have a ghost anymore...." and then looks to see a mouse coming from the heating vent. He claims he tried to get it with no luck and so apparently his solution was to leave it for me to deal with. THEN he proceeds to tell me on the phone to "Bring Savannah in the house and let her roam for awhile".

For my readers information, Savannah is our 'A+ Resident Farm Mouser'. Savannah is also a tempermental bitch and she only does what she wants to do. For me to go outside and find her, and then try to pick her up and tell her she's going in the house, would probably result in me looking like Emily, Sam the Werewolf's Girlfriend, from New Moon ;) {For those non-twilighters out there, this means my face will get torn to shreds}

So, my solution to this whole fiasco? To enjoy my morning coffee, browse my blog reading list, and wait for Allen to come home and figure it out. He tells me "poke around in the couch and see if that is where it went". Um, EXCUSE ME?

The Annual Christmas Tree Hunt

Today we embarked on our annual tradition of finding the perfect Christmas Tree. It's tradition that we always go the day after Thanksgiving. We threw around the idea of getting one that we can replant after the holiday, but from what I hear, their survial chances are better if you only have them in the house or week or two and right now we're about 5 weeks out ;)

Here are some pictures from the day. Enjoy!

Allen, Whinny, Me & Mossy

Allen & Mossy

Getting ready to cut down our tree

All Decorated :)

A New Tradition, An Old Tradition

Today flew by! It's amazing how a day off work goes so quickly!

For tomorrow's dinner with my family, I am in charge of bringing Apple Sauce & Apple Pie [which I assume I am not to buy and bring!] and I also volunteered my Apple Bread :) Somehow, I see, for as long as we live on an orchard, this possibly becoming tradition that I am the one who brings the Apple Filled Foods!

I used the red fleshed apples we have for my homemade Apple Sauce and I must say, it is dang good :) Even my husband had a pleasantly shocked look on his face when I saw him taste it!

I'll pop the apple pie in the oven tomorrow morning. Half that battle is already over since I have my Homemade Apple Pie filling canned and ready for use!

And last, but not least, I baked up some of my 'Homemadefromscratch' Apple Bread :) This makes my whole house smell wonderful as it bakes. It takes some time to whip up, but it's well worth it. I wanted to simmer a crock pot of apple butter to can in the morning too, but I was bummed because I was out of a few ingredients and just didn't have the energy to go to the store and get them!

I am excited to taste the full spread tomorrow. Mom has to work during the day so Kyle is in charge of the Turkey and sides! He's a good cook so I am happy to try it out!

To close out my to-do list today, I wrapped our BINGO gifts! Bingo gifts you say? Well, ever since I was little, we always played BINGO on Thanksgiving at my Great Grandmothers house. This is a tradition that goes back to the days when my dad was a kid at Great Grandma Kulon's (his grandma). One of his great Uncles I believe it was, decided to play BINGO to keep all the kids occupied. It turned into a yearly tradition where everyone coming to Grandma Kulon's on Thanksgiving would bring some BINGO gifts, wrapped [usually in Xmas paper] and marked with a description of 'boy', 'girl', 'adult', 'anyone', or some even were marked 'Grandma' and we all knew those were usually paper plates or paper towels! Why she always got that, I have no idea, since she'd set out her finest dishes for mobs of people to dine on!

One year, myself or maybe it was one of my sisters, got a BINGO gifts that was two brass seagulls! I guess they were supposed to be a wall decoration, but to young kids, it seemed more like someone who robbed their attic because they had no time to go pick up some BINGO gifts at the store. We laughed about the brass seagulls for years to come and they became an inside joke!

After Grandma Kulon passed and the tradition of going to her house on the holidays was no longer, we still carried on the traditions, including BINGO, with our immediate family and grandparents. And of course, those brass seagulls show up every year as one of the BINGO gifts! We even somehow managed to get a second gag BINGO gift in the mix now too; this one rock hard, age old Peanut Brittle, that crazy Aunt 'Darla' won one year, opened, and ate a piece! I had the honor of wrapping that beauty up for this years BINGO so those who dare play, chose your gifts carefully!!

Time to Give Thanks

...or at least try to relax!

I cannot believe Thanksgiving is upon us! I feel like we should still be picking apples. However, I still have enough in the garage that I should be making sauce with. And that is exactly what I will most likely find myself doing tomorrow, on a day I took off work, to try and relax ;)

Houdini went in last night for a check-up and testing. I am happy to say he tested negative for Aids and Feline Leukemia and he made weight for neutering so that is where he is today. I am sure he'll be a ball of fury and fire when I go to pick him up. He wasn't thrilled about the shots he had to get last night. Allen is getting attached...

The Dramatics

In following along with the never a dull moment theme, I thought I would touch on a nice, dramatic event from the weekend!

Saturday my niece came over. We were getting ready to take her to the Candlelight Walk and I UNintentionally locked us all out of the house. I figured this out when I realized I didn't have my purse! In true dramatic fashion for my husband, this was the worst thing that could EVER happen to us. Well, when you have a 5 year old with you, how do you think they react to this!

As Allen is ranting and raving and telling me how stupid I am, my niece proceeds to tell him "Auntie is NOT stupid, you are!" - oh I could see how well this was going to go.

So I asked Allen if he has a credit card on him and he keeps saying no. I can't understand this because he has his wallet on him. I wanted the card to try and pry open a door lock - he thought I wanted to card to charge a locksmith fee to it! (WTF?!)

To make this long story less long, after a good 15-20 minutes of trying to figure out what to do and my husband freaking out, I now have my 5 year old niece worried that we were going to have to sleep outside, that we'd never get into the house again, and wanted to be reassured we really were locked out of the house!

I voted to bash in a window on the garage door - my husband disagreed. Finally, I got through to him in regards to my credit card idea. Without elaboration, we finally got into the house with a few extra tools we happened upon! The first things out of my nieces mouth then were, "I have to pee and Auntie, I am so happy were are back in the house. Aren't you glad we are back in the house? Now we don't have to sleep outside"!

Materialism on a Farm!

Sometimes it is more than just the material things in life that matter. And the longer I live on my farm, the more I realize that so few people actually see things this way. *Sigh*

I am usually one to handle criticism, albeit constructive! And the usual, casual remark here and there, but lately, it seems as if my moto should be "If you don't have anything nice to say, then SHUT UP because I didn't ask you anyways!"

Although when I say we live on a farm, it isn't a full blown working dairy farm or anything of that nature. But for just my husband and I, it sure seems like it; 4 horses, 2 dogs, cats coming and going, 120-ish fruit trees and 5.5 acres to maintain PLUS the home. Without rehashing what a typical day consist of for us, after our 8-hour work day, I can assure you, it doesn't leave time for much more.

In addition to the time it requires, it doesn't all come without a price. My horses ARE NOT livestock. They are my pets....my children. They EAT - I have to FEED them. Their care cost money. Same with the dogs. Same with the cats.

The trees don't produce an apple (or pear or quince) worth selling or eating on their own. They need nurtured and cared for. And as sweet as "organic" sounds, it ain't that easy so chemicals and equipment are required from time to time. And that is not anymore easier either!

So where I am going with this is, when people are over and constantly making comments about how we should be doing things, I would like to tell them, that if they feel so strongly about it, maybe they should walk a week in my shoes....or donate their paychecks to me.

Let me give you some examples that as of late, come across to me the same way as nails on a chalkboard!

- Allison, you need a leaf blower/weed wacker, mulcher mower
* You're right, those things would all be nice. Do you know what the grand total on that would be?

- Allison, you NEED city water. Then you wouldn't have so many issues with your water.
*Really? I don't NEED anything. City water would run us upwards of $8,000-ish to install and THEN you now have a monthly water bill. I realize half of that $8k can be financed - super, another monthly payment for something - but the other half cannot. I am not growing money on my fruit trees.

-Allison, I'd like to see a mantle over your fireplace.
* Me too, wanna build one for me?

-Allison, your dogs need shocker collars or professional training.
*That'd be great! Are you a professional trainer looking for a pro bono case or possibly you have 2 training collars you no longer need? You know, for 2 of those collars in a range distance of what we need, we looking at $250 minimum

-Allison, you need some furniture in this room.
*Really? I thought that the couch is furniture?

-You need a truck! Your poor car has taken a beating
*SIGH - no comment!!!

This is just a FEW EXAMPLES of things I am constantly told. I seem to be managing just fine without all these added adjustments. Sure, some would make my life easier, but having bills we cannot afford to pay sure wouldn't! Sometimes, it is just more important to me that my horses have hay to eat, rather than me having a mantle over my fireplace. But I guess so few see this.

Little House on the Prairie

Last night was just another hectic evening of scrambling to get dinner on, get all the chores done, spend quality time with all the animals and try to relax somewhere in between.

Allen got home from work late, the cistern pump was being a PITA again, as usual, [whats new] and it took Mossy a whole 5 minutes to chew up a BRAND NEW floor mat I bought to put inside by the door we come in and out of. AGHHHHHH - In the time it took me to clean 2 stalls (the mini's I might add), I went back to the house to check on the dogs and my new $6 (lol) door mat was on the couch and chewed to resemble Texas :(

As if it couldn't get any better, I went into the bathroom and for whatever reason, looked at the ceiling and thought 'hmmm, that spot on the ceiling looks funny'; so I stood on the toilet so I could touch the funny looking spot and the next thing I know, my finger is sticking THROUGH the ceiling. UGHHHHHHHHHHHH

I told Allen we are one more thing breaking or falling apart from becoming Little House on the Prairie. Daisy better start learning how to carry buckets of water draped over her back!

All is Well

I returned home last evening from my 'vacation' - ha!

All seemed to go reasonably well. Nothing chewed, torn or destroyed other than a dish towel - so I guess that's a success. What gets me is my husband LEAVES the torn dish towel laying in the middle of the floor!!

We still have the kitty from Saturday; he's now taken up headquarters in my office at home. We named him Houdini since he appeared out of nowhere, however, in true Allen fashion, my husband has already given him 10 nicknames. The most popular one he goes by is 'Dini' and he will come when you call him....unlike our dogs ;?

Thanksgiving is right around the corner. We'll be traveling from family to family for the holiday, however, I am making it my goal to try and have it at the farm next year!

This weekend I have the 'ghostbuster' coming. I haven't mentioned this on the blog yet, but maybe after Saturday I will have a report ;)

It's been raining now almost a day so I am so 'psyched' to see what my barn looks like when I get home too!!

Vacation

I am leaving to go out of town today - just for one night - work related.

My husband calls it 'my vacation'! Aka, I am gone and he has to handle horses, dogs and cats all by himself for the evening and again in the morning!

It's sad that living on a farm, this is what you resort to as a vacation - a evening eating banquet food, with no alochol served, for an awards dinner. Then you sleep in a nasty Comfot Inn, get up in the morning and drive 2.5 hours to get back to work.

I think I'll trade him; he can have the 'vacation'!

You are NOT a horse

Another interesting weekend of events on the farm.

Saturday Whinny ate a pound and a half of horse feed I had soaking for Romeo & Gypsy!!! Her poor little belly swelled about 5x its normal size and you could tell she was in pain.

I gave her 2.5 tablespoons of Hydrogen Peroxide via a syringe to get her to throw up. Needless to say, she was moving it out both ends for the next 24 hours or so!! Allen slept with her on the couch so he could take her out easily when she needed to go. Oddly enough, he had to leave at 4am the next morning for hunting and I woke up to a few accidents on the wood floor, which was ok. However, the front [carpeted] room was blocked with chairs and I walked in to see throw-up EVERYWHERE with a strategically placed lysol can and roll of paper towels! I guess he was trying to make it look as though he attempted to clean it before he left, but a spray can of lysol is NOT what you clean up a soiled carpet with!!!

For a good hour or so, I felt like Cinderella, on her hands and knees, scrubbing the carpet. I swear, if the carpet wasn't attached, I would have just pulled it up and threw it out!!

SO - on top of all this, later in the evening on Saturday night, Allen and I took the dogs for a walk in the orchard. It was dark out and I head a 'meow' - I turned around and asked "is that the cat" as sometimes Lucky or Savannah will follow us on our walks. The next thing I know, I see a gray kitty and for a split second, assume it's Lucky until I see it is much smaller than Lucky and lurches onto Allen's pant leg....still meowing! It's then that I realize it is a kitten so I tell Allen to hurry up and get it in the house.

He is the friendliest little thing - I am guessing he is about 3-4 months, very playful and LOVES people. So here he is, at work with me today! I swear, my house must have a neon sign on it that says "CATS COME HERE"!

Remind you of you?

I found this on a blog I read called "House of the Discarded".

Too funny! This exactly how our bed looks at night if you replace the cats with a 50 lb boxer mix and a 70 lb hound!

I have a lovely story (or two) to share from this weekend, but I am short on time so I will blog tomorrow. Stay Tuned!

Kitty Update

After I told Allen about the kittens that were dumped at my work, he said bring them home! OK, this man is NUTS! I will never have willpower to say we have enough pets with a husband like this!!

Anyways, I am happy to say that all three of them found good homes with co-workers of mine!! Whew! That one was way to easy!

So now I am scheduled to take in 3 little gray kitties to foster for Kitten Krazy next week. Ok, maybe I am nuts!

Jingle Hell

Here is a new song I made up while walking Apollo, in the dark, through the orchard last night. It is sung to the tune of Jingle Bells.....

Dashing thru the trees
With one horse on my lead
Through the dark we go
Panting all the way
ha ha ha
Monsters jump from trees
Making apollo flee
Oh what fun it is to walk at night
Through an orchard full of fright
Ohhhhh spook at trees, spook at trees
Spook just to irritate meeeeeeeeeee
Oh what fun
It is to be dragged
With a spooked horse on my lead
HEY!
Spook at trees, spook at trees..........

Ok, you get the point. Let's refresh:
1.) Again, another reason I hate daylight savings
2.) Give the horse credit, I am SURE there were gremlins hiding in the trees waiting to get him ;)

You Have Visitors

So today when I arrived at work, I noticed a kitty in the road :( It was sad. I tried not to look.

Then, when I got into my office, one of the guys came up and said "Allison, there is some people out back asking for you". HUH? I was so confused - Who? What do they Want? Why? I tried to look out my window to see if I could see anyone with no luck. So I get my coffee and head back.

Sure enough, I get back there and there are 3 kitties swirling themselves around the legs of the guys stocking up their trucks for the day.

Clearly, someone dumped them. They are maybe 5 months, good weight and clean. Someone was caring for them and it probably got to be too much so they dumped them! :( And one didn't make it until we got here....he got caught in the road :( RIP

I seriously wonder if someone hadn't seen my adoption show on our local cable channel and figured they could dump them here.

So, now we have 3 kitties in the office today. The calico already has a home with one of the guys. Now the black and gray ones need homes.

Notice in the first picture, the black cat curled up on the desk next to the phone!

The gray kitten has taken up space with my co-worker, Laura, at her desk!

The Horseshoe Barn

It's funny; today I was thinking about the barn I drew up 'blueprints' for when I was little. While most little girls were dreaming of pretty dresses and planning their weddings, I was drawing up blueprints for the barn I was going to have where I could keep all my horses. I usually did this when I would spend days during the summer with my grandparents while my parents worked.

Grandma would take us to the dollar store and we'd each get to pick out one thing! I would price out things like shampoo to make notes of which kind was the cheapest; that was because I was going to buy whatever was cheapest so I would have enough money for my horses. Funny - back then I had not a clue about money and making a living and the cost of owning horses, but somehow I knew that there were areas where brand names wouldn't matter because I needed to put my money with my horses!

I wish I still had those old 'blueprints'. Maybe I do somewhere. I remember I was going to have a barn in the shape of a horseshoe. I really can still picture it in my head, clear as day, the exact same way I did when I was little. My stalls were all going to border along the outside wall of the horseshoe, each with a window and/or run attached. This way, the middle/inside area of the horseshoe would be used to store hay, house a wash rack and also have an area for the tack room and grooming area.

On Sundays, when my Dad would get the Plain Dealer, I would go through the classifieds and read all about the horses for sale. I would make notes on how much the horses cost and even tried to convince my dad if he bought me one, I would take care of it and get a job to pay him back. I made notes on all the kinds of horses for sale and their cost and also all the tack that would be listed. I taught myself the classified 'slang'; like TB stood for Thoroughbred and 'hh' meant Hands High, in reference to the height of the horse. W/T/C meant walk, trot and canter...meaning the horse was trained to do all three, usually under saddle.

I envisioned myself buying those horses and filling up my horseshoe shaped barn with them! And here I am, years down the road later, and I may not have a horseshoe barn, but I have my dream! And I am more proud of it than I think I even realize!

Being Resourceful

So, I call this blog "How I am Resourceful!"

Today I was 30 minutes late in getting home due to a chiro appt after work. Usually not a huge deal, however, Allen was also running VERY late and with daylight savings (boo), by the time i did get home, it was pitch black out! UGH

So I hurry in, get Whinny and take her out to piddle ;) Then I go grab Mossy to do the same thing. THEN, I go to hurry back inside so I can feed them, change and then get them back out to do their other business and then I can get started on the horses.

WELL - I cannot follow the routine when the DOOR LOCKS on me! WTF? Like I really needed this. The sliding door some how managed to lock behind Mossy & I when we went out. I don't think I can give Whinny the credit as it wasn't the latch by the handle, but the stop you have to PRESS into the track-kind-of-lock!!!

So there is Whinny, on the inside, flipping out because she is hungry and we're outside. I go to the front to see if I perhaps left the front door open when I came home - NOPE. I check the 'fake rock' to see if by chance our spare key is in it - NOPE. Why would we do something like that!!?? And my cell was sitting inside on the counter so I had no way of calling Allen to ask how long until he got home.

So, there I am, myself having to 'piddle' badly, Whinny having a fit, Mossy being an ass, the weather cold and dark and the horses all screaming at me that they want to eat too. Oh yeah, and the cats! UGHHHHHHHHH

Soooo, Mossy and I went for his walk. Then I tied him up after a brief encounter with the STUPID chow next door - UGH - why can that dog NOT stay in it's own damn yard!! Thankfully, no drama this time other than my arm getting tugged out of the socket.

So anyways, I tie Mossy up and dig through all the pockets of coats hanging in the barn, for a tissue, then scoot past Apollo and retreat to the corner of his stall to relieve myself. YES, I pee'd in the stall - so what, get over it! Then, I began cleaning my stalls, in my dress clothes, for the next 45 minutes until Allen got home.

Where's the wine?

And one more beautiful morning to share!

November 5, 2009 Sunrise - Apolloson Acres

Mossy goes to the vet tonight for his yearly check-up so I am sure it will be something to blog about tomorrow :)

Good Morning!

We have the most beautiful sunrises (& sunsets for that matter!) on the farm. I wish I had a good camera to capture them all! I could do a daily blog just posting the pictures of the days sunrise and set!

Anyways, here is this mornings sunrise, courtesy of my cell camera. This is the second or so morning this season that we woke up to a complete frost over everything. Although it means the snow is right around the corner, it looked beautiful. The picture doesn't even do it justice!

On another note, I am pleased to announce the our first apple picking season has officially ended! We still have apples & quince for sale, but the picking is D.O.N.E!

We have learned SO much this past season and although we are well ready for a long rest, we're also anxious to get started on next season, putting to use some of the knowledge and things we have taken away from this year. And I suspect we won't be resting long; pruning starts right after the first of the year!

Line 1, Loose Horse!

Yesterday I was counting down the hours until it was time to leave work. Lucky for me, or maybe not so lucky, I was able to leave early...unexpectedly....like a bat outta hell!

One of the girls up front paged me on the intercom to say "Allison, line one is the CSC (customer service center for work in PA). They say they have someone claiming to be your neighbor on the phone calling about a loose horse.....do you want to talk to them?" OF COURSE I WANT TO TALK TO THEM! PUT THEM THROUGH!

So, I get through to my neighbor; I have only spoken to her once since we've lived at our place! We speak with her kids, but don't see her much. From the one time I spoke with her, which just happened to be Sept. of this year, she remembered that I said I worked for a local cable company so she found our publicly listed #, which directs to our customer service center in PA, and told them she needed to speak with Allison in the Medina office and that is was urgent.

As I am speaking with her on the phone, mind you, freaking out and sweating in anxiety thinking one of my horses is loose, she says "The white horse has his head out and is shaking it" - ok I think, that must be Apollo so he is in his stall, but that doesn't account for the other 3! Then she says "it's a brown horse, maybe a pony", so I instantly think Romeo because if it was Daisy, she probably would have said it was a really small horse! So I run into full panic mode and ask if it is a white and brown horse and she is flustered and cannot answer so I tell her I will be there is 15 minutes and to go into my barn and get a halter and lead to try and catch him. Her response "It's been so many years, I don't know how to do anything with a horse" - SUPER is my thought!! Looks like I better FLY home!

As I am driving home like a nut, once I get close to home, I start panning the road and yards as I drive by to see if I see a loose horse anywhere! When I pull into the drive around the back of the horse, I find no horse loose in the yard. I slam the car into park, run out and quickly do a head count to see all my horses are in their stalls, safe & sound! WHEWWWWWWWW

Now, whose horse was it and is it still loose? The neighbor comes running over and now she tells me the horse was big (I thought she said it was a pony!) and that it had a black tail! *Sigh* had she said that on the phone, I would have known it wasn't any of my horses and could have at least drove the speed limit home!!

As I pan over the yard, I see skid marks, hoof prints and half eaten apples out of the apple baskets sitting by the barn! Looks like the horse was having a grand old time! Then I notice that the dirt in front of the barn by Apollo's window is all torn up so I can only assume the horse was standing in front of Apollos window having a grand old time instigating Apollo! And of course, I found I was right!

The garage wall that backs up to Apollo's stall wall is where Allen lines up all his beers bottles from unique and odd beers he has had. 3 of them had fallen and shattered. We also discovered Savannah, one of the barn cats, was locked in the garage all day! I suggested Savannah probably got up on the shelf and knocked them over. Allen begged to differ and said Apollo was probably kicking the wall when the loose horse was instigating him! I didn't believe it!

To prove him wrong, I went into Apollo's stall to examine the walls. Sure enough, there were hoof marks indented into the wall that backs to Allen's 'beer wall'! I could just picture it. A horse comes strolling onto Apollo's turf, "Nana nana na NA! I am loose and you aren't and I am going to stand here and instigate you and enjoy these yummy apples sitting here while you watch!" And that was probably enough to get Apollo bucking at him and hitting the wall instead.

Luckily no one was hurt. My mares seemed to have had a 'case of the runs', which I imagine, came from them being worked up! Apollo was rearing to go when I turned him out as was Romeo. The other horse was back safe at his own home, in his stall, and I was left with a mess of stalls to clean, and Allen broken glass to sweep.

Ultimately, I feel bad as this loose horse is an "only horse" His companion had to be put down in the spring. He's been alone ever since and always calls to my horses when they are out...yesterday he was even calling from his barn and Apollo was answering back! He's lonely and he needs another horse over there with him! Horses are social, herd creatures and are not meant to be by themselves. It should serve as a wake up call to his owner that he NEEDS another horse there with him!