Horseshoeing

Our neighbor came over yesterday to put shoes on Pearl. The cut on her hoof has healed enough that it wasn't going to bother her as he was putting them on. DH asked if he minded if I took photo's, as he was doing it and he said it would be ok as long as I didn't get a photo of his face. He said he would rather not be in them...mostly just his hands or something like that, so I did my best, although there are a few that more shows in. I think for the most part he would be ok with the photos, I tried my best to respect his wishes.

That's one difference between us and the Amish...they think photos are vanity (they think it brings attention to the person in the photo) and I just consider them memories...since my memory sucks I need all the help I can get! LOL To each their own, I may not agree with their view point, but I will do my best to respect it because we don't have to agree on everything to be friends! :-))


DH held out the horseshoe's, so I could get a photo of it, and pointed out the added "traction" they put on them. I thought that was kinda neat, I had wondered how they could be so surefooted on a slippery surface.


The first step was to clean out the hoof. He made short work of that and the trimming of the hoof.


He then used his file on it to smooth it up and file it down a bit.


Then it was time to get the horseshoe to fit. He would hold it on the hoof, looking to see where it needed adjusted.


He would use this tool if it needed stretched, and an anvil that was in the back of his wagon to pound it into shape. I didn't get a photo of him at his anvil, as it was a little harder to do without getting HIM in it.


Once it was fitting as well as it could he nailed it to her foot!


With the shoe nailed on and the nail's bent over, he would go on to the next foot till they were all on...then he went back to take off the bent nail and finish the job.


When the shoes were all on, Pearl had to put each foot up on a post he had, while he nipped off the nails and smoothed them all down even with her hoof.


I'm not sure exactly what this was doing, but once he nipped off the nails so they were even with the hoof, he went around and did something on each one...maybe so it hopefully wouldn't back out of the hoof...guess I should have asked him exactly what this was doing, but I didn't. LOL


Pearl almost went to sleep several times while he was working, which I thought was kinda funny. She was so well behaved, although did sometimes get a little antsy...and tried to take her foot back, while he had a hold of it...but for the most part she did good!

It was really interesting, and kinda funny that our neighbor mentioned he's never had someone so interested in watching him shoe a horse. I just laughed and said I've never seen it done before. We are always interested in seeing what goes on at our place if someone is here to "fix" something or work on something so this was no different.  Course had I not been able to take photo's I wouldn't have been out there cause I would have been chomping at the bit to document it and it would have been to much for me if I hadn't been able to.  LOL

It certainly was an interesting evening...and this was just the beginning...tomorrow I'll share more of what our Amish neighbor helped us with last evening.

Tune in tomorrow to see why DH was so excited with what came after the shoeing!!  :-))