Santannah Being a Horse

August 2013

     I love our home in Mesa,Arizona. We live an easy walking distance from Usery Park where we can hike,walk the dogs and I can ride my horses. Living here also allows us to keep our horses here at home with us. Growing up I was fortunate and my horses were also home. I was spoiled. When Steve and I bought horses 17 years ago we had to board our horses. The facility was only a five minute walk from our house but even with that it is just different to board. I love looking out the windows or stepping out on our patio and just watching them. Many of you will find it hard to believe but I actually love the smell of horses! I love caring for them,yep..... even shoveling manure is relaxing for me! 

     Horses have a very interesting digestive system. Their stomach is small considering how large an animal they are. A horse's stomach only holds 2.1 to 4 gallons of feed. Ingested food only stays in the stomach for 2 hours or less. A horse in its natural state grazes for food all day long. Wild horses will travel up to 30 miles a day in search of food.  The horse is designed to continuously eat and his stomach empties and refills throughout the day. We have domesticated the horse and house them in small corrals with infrequent pasture turnout and feed them instead only 2 meals a day. This has created many health issues in our domestic horses.

     Where Steve and I live we share a well with two other homes. We are not allowed to have grass as it could potentially place a strain on our water supply trying to water a lawn during the hot summer months. So no pasture is available for our horses.

     Trey and Jenna purchased a home in San Tan Valley,Arizona on three acres of irrigated land. They have PASTURE! Their cow (Betsy) and two pygmy goats (Gogo and Jabu) needed a little help eating that pasture down. Trey and Jenna invited my horse Santannah to come and spend a fews days grazing in their pasture. It did my heart good to see Santannah grazing as a horse should, in a pasture.

He loved it!

   

Papa teaching Harlee to stick out her tongue.

As far as I know, this is the only time Santannah has hung out with a cow. He wasn't too sure at first but he and Betsy became friends.  Betsy was a little put out when Santannah came home.