I shot this video on Juno’s 1st birthday, doing what we all love to do best – hanging out and having adventures! Of course while viewing the footage I realized how much interesting stuff was going on at the same time. You’ll get to see how they are more interested in foraging a variety of plants, rather than just eating the grass (horses naturally forage about 25 different plants per day).
You can also see their herd dynamics and how they behave in an insecure situation – the grass is long enough to hide predators. And how their human (me) is also considered part of the herd – they check in with me, play with me, tease me, and look out for my safety too.
Happy Birthday Juno!
Jini Patel Thompson is a natural health writer and Lazer Tapping instructor. She began riding at age 2 in Kenya, and got her first horse at age 8 in Alberta, and so continues a life-long journey and love affair with these amazing creatures.
Jini….I can just not think of a better birthday present then an adventure out with the herd and mom and the dogs at Liberty. Your horses looked so happy curious and excited to be alive. So cool that the baby was brave enough to jump the log and take it a bit further. Once again your area is so beautiful and rich with so many different kinds of foliage. What a treat for your herd to get to explore and taste all of what that junk of Mother Nature has to offer. This was such a fun and joyful video to watch I have a huge grin. The ending really puts the explanation point on the whole experience …the horses just look like it made them so proud and that they want to show you how they all felt so clever and appreciative to be a part of your herd. You get a huge thumbs up from me and my herd for this special outing. This is a link to a short video of Dreamer and I playing in the hose…hopefully it brings a grin to your face …. like yours did for me ✌?️❤️?https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L24A2cqx1uQ
Yes, it’s really a blessing to have this interlude there (for however long it lasts) as the city development creeps closer and closer. That land is now listed at $27 million. But we will bear witness to the life and magnificence of the land and its tree elders for as long as we can. And Dreamer sure loves that water! I wonder what would happen if he held the hose – that could be interesting! A friend of mine lives in a similar climate to yours (but without the water shortage) and she sets up sprinklers for her horses – they love them too.
Hi Jini
I have a pic of Dreamer & Bullet under the misters on the kitchen patio (they love them) but I still can’t get my pics to upload even though I make sure they are less then 1mb…just wanted you to know? Don’t know if you ever figured that out or not? Maybe it’s just my iPad? Idk?
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My computer guy will look into this on Monday – thanks for letting me know! I will test it again, but didn’t have trouble last time, so maybe something has changed… And I would LOVE to see that pic!
Hmmm… it worked fine for me – see below. Do you think maybe your iPad is not showing the file size correctly? Trying to think what else it could be… you’ve uploaded no problem before – were those all from your iPad?
Dreamer & Bullet under the misters
ok tried again and it worked this morning. This is Dreamer & I relaxing under the misters…..Sometimes they go through and other times they don’t? It might be my browser…safari? Also yes they were all from my iPad and it’s getting very old so it’s probably on my end…?
Wow, you can see how dry and hot it was by how brown everything is! Which months is it this crispy? Cause most of your photos I’ve seen are pretty green. They sure look content!
Lovely! I don’t understand when you mean unfenced 20 acres. Wouldn’t it be more acres if it isn’t fenced in?
The rest of THAT property is 20 acres, then it adjoins other people’s properties – where I have asked them not to go! And one of the neighbours is not nice, so I really don’t want them to go onto her property. We will be fencing some of it in the next month though – testing out a new elastic-type fence. I’ll blog about that when I see how/if it works for my herd and the dense number of trees there. It’s: http://www.finishlinefence.com/
Jini – this video of Juno’s first birthday has brought me so much joy and expansion! You have such a happy healthy and energized herd! I can now see and understand what you mean by an “empowered” herd of horses. They certainly are!!!! I love how all of your relate to each other too. And the land there!!!! Oh my – it is deliciously abundant with such a variety of foliage. What I love about it is that it us wild and untamed too. Anyway thank you for the shot of chi I just recieved. And tell Juno Happy Birthday. Amazing, it has been one year since our infamous Equinisity adventure.
Ohmygosh, you’re SO welcome!! And I’m SO very pleased you are able to get that gift from them. I was just thinking about you yesterday actually. We had a group of experienced meditators out for a circle meditation in the woods and the horses were amazing. Got some FANTASTIC photos (blog post coming!). And I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be fabulous to get Shivam out to do a dance experience for people with the herd – all free on wild land?! When I get my own land, you’re gonna have to come out!
Testing photo upload – this one is 651 KB
WHWWWWEEEEEEE we’re FFFWWWWWEEEEEEEEEE!!! Oh i love your Live horse TV Jini, it’s the best TV show ever! I love seeing Audelina joyfully leaping and playing, that’s a whole lotta horse she is, and so agile for a whole lotta horse!! what a beauty full baby she has in Juno… Happy Earth-birth-day young Juno….you’re having the best life a horse can have. Thank you for sharing your fabulous-ness on TV so lotsa humans get to see you! love from Sheila xoxoxoo
Awww I just love the way you put their energy into words!! And yes, Aude is some kinda mama – I saw her do a triple jump at a dead gallop in the woods once. It boggles the mind. But just shows what even the drafties are capable of if given an interesting, enlivening environment.
So grateful for this blog! I am learning and soaking this all in. I have my first two horses at 49 years old. A dream come true that never was to be I thought. Thank you. Of all the advise I get I am most at peace listening here.
Ahhh I just love that Amy, “I am most at peace listening here.” That makes my heart smile. And please upload a pic or two of your new family members!
So love your blog! A question- when foraging do horses instinctively know which plants will harm them? I always worry when my horse is out to pasture. Thanks!
Hi Faith – well, I’ve found it depends on the horse. My wildies know exactly what to eat and what to avoid. But I noticed that my domestic horse (Zorra) was eating nowhere near the variety they did. It’s like because she had grown up only eating hay or grass, that’s what she looked for and regarded as edible. However, she quickly learned to follow the wildies and tried what she saw them eating and gradually expanded her palate.
Having said that, when I had horses as a kid, I didn’t even know about noxious plants, so left the pastures as is and none of the 5 domestics I had over the years ever got sick.
So what I do is just watch the horses for a couple hours and see what they do when they encounter buttercup or some other plant that grows freely. Also, some of the plants on the “danger to horses” list are actually ok if the horse eats only a little bit, or only at a certain stage of growth and mine seem to know those ones too.
Wanted to chime in on this….Jini I like what you said about plants that are suppose to be poisonous for horses are sometimes not! I am no expert on such things but I find it very interesting that the info that comes up about horses eating acorns is that it’s a very bad toxic thing. Now they might be talking about oak tree acorns from different parts of the country then me (California) but my horses go crazy hoovering up acorns by the hour during the fall months. All the horses in our area are mostly pastured with oak tress. So I just can’t see how they can be toxic if my horses are eating them the majority of the day and after 3 years have seen no ill affects….except Bullet did crack two teeth…& it might of been because of the acorns but he has poor quality teeth…so that might just be a product of both. He still continues to gobble them up though even though he is missing two halves of two molars. Also I wanted to answer your question about my crispy looking land. Yes it is dry. We have been here 3 years starting August and have seen that we get about 6 months of green and 6 months of brown. This last wet season was our best in many years and finally broke our 5 year drought so it might of been more like 7green 5 brown. My horses went from hardly needing any food at all from me to being just up my butt and acting like they just can’t get enough. The other weird thing was a few months ago I was asking you for fly deterrent advice and feeling hopeless to now for the first time since I have had horses (9 years) I am not even using fly masks as of about 3 weeks ago? So strange how it went from we can’t even handle it to hardly any face flies. They still have the pesky teetsy flies on there barrel but the face flies are down to just a few on each of there faces and they all have said they no longer need there masks so I get to see all my beautiful horsey faces hopefully the rest of the year?…I so miss there faces when they have to ware there masks for the whole spring and summer during daylight hours. ✌?️❤️?
Thanks so much for sharing all this info Michelle. The bugs have been unusual here too. Like you, after we dialogued about that (can’t even remember on which post that was!) I noticed, ‘Hey, WHERE are all the wasps this year??’ Finally, I saw ONE nest near my hay area about 2 weeks ago. Really low flies this year too. But way more no-see-ums. It must be the changes in weather patterns, but it sure makes me nervous…