Fjord Horse Crossing

 

On Wednesday of Easter week, Shane woke up our resident 17 yr old with a shake of the shoulder. “Want to come to Iowa with me and take a look at a team of horses?”

As we get older, we find the best approach with teenagers is to maintain an element of surprise and in general be willing  to do stuff that makes little sense on paper but would make a great Robert Service poem.

This might be because when you are on the verge of adulthood you have to make a choice. Do you leave fairyland and the stuff of ballads behind, or do you pack it up in a saddle roll and bring it along with you? It will make the journey more difficult, but the ride a more scenic one.

In general our 17 year old moves in the morning as o
ne afflicted unduly by gravitational forces. One might even say she makes molasses appear speedy; puts the “Shhhhhhhhhhuuuuuuuuunnnnnnn” in “Hes-i-tay”, moves with the alacrity of a boulder deposited 250 million years ago on the shore of the St. Croix. On this particular morning she behaved in a manner more quark-like. She was, dare I say, a prime example of what a human electron might look like: in bed one second, the next nano: dressed and buckled up in the passenger seat with two thermos’ of hot coffee a-clutching the road atlas. (Yes they do still print those.)

the next gen figures out a better way
 to put up the round pen singlehandedly

As some of our readers may remember, we used to farm with Norwegian Fjord Horses. They are an excellent choice for a small holding. Bred to navigate the tight terrain in the mountainous regions of Norway, and subsist on less than stellar pastureland, they can perform many varied tasks on a farm while eating less than half what a typical draft horse will put away. We’ve used them for market garden prep and cultivation, manure spreading, hay making, logging, pleasure riding/driving, and emotional support. Though it has been a good 11 or 12 years since a Fjord Horse has been at work on Little Flower Farm, the memory of our days with them is remarkably vivid. 

The smell of the harness, the way the brass hames’ fit into the groove of the leather collars, the sound of  jangling as they moved, the patient curiosity in their eyes as they looked back at the implement we were hitching the evener to. Even the grass looked greener when graced with their arc-ed necks bending toward the earth like the fjords of the Norwegian hillsides plunging down their rocky ledges.

“The eyes should be like the mountain lakes on a midsummer evening,- big and bright. A bold bearing of the neck like a lad from the mountains on his way to his beloved. Well defined withers like the contours of the mountains set against an evening sky. The temperament as lively as a waterfall in spring, and still good natured.”                           -description of the Fjordhorse breed from Vestlandet

round pen ready for the geldings

Our farm has seen other horses through the intervening years; a gorgeous chestnut Tenessee Walker, a spoiled Hafflinger, a spotted Shetland cart pony named Freya, and an American Old Lady Paint horse never to be forgotten as Winona the Willing and Faithful. But when we talk about the horses we “used to have” we always mean Maj and Marta; the mother/daughter team of Fjords that taught us how to work with draft animals on the farm.

Since learning more about equines, I now realize exactly why we got them so cheap in the first place, and why our mentor, Ken, quietly insisted that we spend our first winter with them having them “lug heavy loads around on the stone- boat”. By the time spring rolled around, our team of “used to be run-aways with the cart” had seasoned into well- muscled and cooperative working mares.

Still. We were always conscious of how much more we have to learn about these wonderful animals. We’ve long looked forward to the day when we could have another go at it. But with foals starting at $4-10K, it was never something we imagined could be on our near horizon.

When our road-trippers returned with news of two shaggy fjords who had been sitting for months at their foster home on a bale of free-choice alfalfa, walking nearly on their heels on mud-caked over-grown feet, and who before that had been similarly neglected for years, we were more convinced than ever that a Little Flower Farm draft team was even more of a worn out old impractical dream than before. We were going to walk away from it. “Scenic Route” can often be just a fancy name for “side- track”. Right? At 18 and 19 years old, with a history of laminitis, these guys were somebody else’s problem. Right?

But something didn’t sit right.

We began to ask ourselves questions like:

What if we shifted our attitude from “realistically what can these horses do for us?” to a “what could we offer these horses?” one?

Could we help rehabilitate them? Could we ease their suffering and benefit from just having equines around? Certainly Eliot Coleman and Parisian Market growers have long sung the praises of aged horse manure in the garden; fresh hot manure under soil in deep beds under glass for season extension. Just that day, our 9 year old had suddenly decided to stop riding.

“That’s fine, if you want to. But why, Jane?”

“I’m afraid.”

“You’re afraid when you get up there on the horse? Are you worried he will spook or buck?”

“No. I love riding. I’m afraid to pick up the feet.”

(A pre-requisite at our local SunBorn stables where the girls do chores in exchange for English riding lessons is to pick out all 4 feet, freeing the area around the “frog” of any pebbles or debris that could cause the horse pain in the training arena.) Having horses on the farm again would refresh her courage over time, through gradual familiarity and repetition, and help her resume one of her passions- one which is both athletic and therapeutic, bringing internal and external strength with it’s pursuit.

Then came Margie’s call.

“This is Margie Diaz from the Norwegian Fjord Horse Rescue Network. I got your email about your concerns regarding Frederik and Erling and they’re being on a round bale and needing immediate farrier work. What can you do for us?”

The NFHRN gifted us the team, and assumed the financial responsibility for the vet care and farrier work needed to bring their laminitis history/ tendency under control, provided we could give the boys a good home and all the daily attention they both deserved and required.

Now, for an understanding of something of the nature of the loveable Fjord Horse, read the following, and note that the emphasis was NOT MINE, but is exactly as I found it, the author’s own, that of Mrs. Carol Rivoire in The Fjordhorse Handbook published in Nova Scotia in 1998. My signed copy reads:

“The most important things to remember about the right hay for Fjordhorses are- No high-protein hay. No legume hay. No clover or alfalfa….In general, Fjords are, as we know, Very Easy Keepers! They tend to be too fat…Fjords, unlike other horses, will never leave some of their hay. THEY NEVER GET FULL!....PADLOCK THE FEEDROOM DOOR!- While on the subject of grain, I want you to be aware of the importance of locking the feedroom door. If you’re running a good barn, there should be absolutely no way, under any circumstances whatsoever, that your horses find their way into the grain bins. There’s no excuse. Examine your barn today…..If your Fjord finds his way into the grain bin….and he will, if you give him any opportunity…he WILL eat it all, and he will most likely develop a serious colic, and will very likely die. THIS IS TOTALLY PREVENTABLE!”

 

I always get a chuckle out of these passages when I read them. Yet I have never had the privilege of seeing with my own eyes, what can happen to Fjords on alfalfa. In their defense, the foster folks were initially trying to put weight on neglected horses…and then, “got too busy to mess around with them”. When Freddie emerged from the trailer my first impression of him was that he was more Stallion-like than gelding. We could barely wrap our arms around his massive neck to halter him. When viewed from behind, his back end created an ungraceful thud of an upside-down U, his legs jlibbered when he ponderously walked.

The magnificent girth of Frederik

“To be honest with you,” Dr. Laura shyly offered, “I had to reach way in there to even find his rectum and take his temp. Those are really some impressive cheeks.”

“Aw, let’s not call him fat, exactly,” I responded, stroking his forelock.

“I will.” Shane has found it saves time to be blunt.

“Maybe ‘THICK’ with 3 Cs?” offered the assistant vet tech. “Freddie boy!” she rounded on him, gazing down at his beautiful eyes, “You gotta put some ChUGGA in that UGGA!”

We put on lead vests and they took X-rays of their front feet to aid the farrier in his work balancing the foot, and to ascertain whether they would need special shoes, or special considerations as we exercised them more, and brought them into working condition on the farm.

 “Not too bad.” Dr. Laura said, showing us the slight indentation in the coffin bone. “They definitely have indication that a past Laminitic incident has occurred, and you can see that they will always have a tendency to founder without vigilance,  but with proper attention, regular farrier work, and if you keep on doing everything you’re doing here, they have a great future ahead of them. Freddie will never be a jumper, but he can be brought back into gentle farm-work along with Erling. Erling needs more muscling, but he could even be an eventing horse for any of your daughters who like to ride.”

The vet tech, a steely eyed nearly 30 yr old barrel racer with a Pomeranian that rides on the console between the front bucket seats of her truck when she’s on the circuit, finished 7 years of school to train to be an equine anesthesiologist. She looked around the farm and gave us one last shot in the arm: “I like what you’re doing here. I have no doubt whatsoever that Freddie and Earl here are going to do great here. I honestly wish we didn’t have to go to our next call. I could stay here all day.”

I grinned. I turned to look at Agatha the hen, marshalling the new batch of chicks. The goats were milling around the barn paddock wondering why their grain ration was delayed. The garden lay waiting, transplants in the greenhouse soon to be planted out in tidy rows. Suddenly it seemed as if she had dusted the whole place with magical unicorn sparkles. The farm went from “scene of much toil and struggle in a world war II bio-epic film” to “Rainbow Bright and Strawberry Shortcake’s Christmas Special”. Anything was possible, and all of it was splendiferous. You need moments like this as a human being. Especially as a married person. You need to come into the kitchen suddenly, and see your spouse with afternoon light shining on them, and even if you’ve wanted to drop-kick them out of the universe for the past many months, you need to see them turn their head into the light, just so, and catch a glimpse of what they really are: precious.

“Just don’t give that Freddie boy any treats.” She called back over her shoulder, breaking into my distractions.

“Don’t even spell treat around that boy.”

I suppose, some things could sparkle…a little less. 

(Sparkle with just one K.)