of horseback riding. Growing up on Spaghetti Westerns, I had often fantasized about toting dual revolvers, whipping and firing them into the air as I charged into battle on a brazen steed. But lo, to my deep shame, I had never even come within close proximity to one of the majestic beasts whose steadfast strength gave rise to the empires of old.
Not being of Amish stock or coming from a familia with an equestrian predisposition, I had previously never been clever enough to devise an excuse to amend my pitiable lack of Equidae experience. Thus when the opportunity arose to head to the rolling hills of southeastern Chenango County and help out Rebecca Rasmussen in the daily management of her full care equine boarding facility, I gleefully jumped on it. Becca’s 130-acre facility, dubbed October Glory Acres LLC, is situated on County Road 37 in Guilford and celebrated its one year anniversary last month, on Oct. 1.
Upon arriving, Becca gave me a cursory run through of her very busy day. Turns out running a full care boarding facility is hard work, and a 24/7 job.
The first item on our to do list was to empty Becca’s manure spreader. This chore entailed me one, watching Becca hook the wagon up to her tractor, two, sitting on the side of her tractor, and three, clinging for dear life as Becca maneuvered us around one of her fields, trailing a steaming line of poop behind us.
After emptying the wagon, we set about filling it up again with the horse droppings proliferating their stalls – a daily task, I might add. I used a rack to pick up the horse dung, sifting out the salvageable saw dust and dumping the remains into a wheel barrow. I was fairly surprised at the lack of smell; if I were to close my eyes, I would not have even been able to tell I was standing amidst a pile of poo.
Once the wheelbarrow had reached capacity, I clumsily maneuvered it up a hand width board, dumping the load onto the manure spreader. When the stalls were feces free, we spread fresh saw dust and refilled the horse’s water buckets.
Becca has an interesting take on horse care. She is interested in being as naturalistic as possible. Nothing extreme though, just little things really, like having the horse water buckets elevated to a height more natural for them to drink from.
