147. Chowhound

I hardly dare say this out loud, but Gus is still agreeing to end his grazing sessions pretty politely.  One reason might be that he’s discovered a swath of very lush, very tall grasses in a corner that never gets mowed, so a few minutes of gorging on that bounty seems to fill up his belly.  Once sated, he can accept the announcement of quitting time.

Today he avoids the spent dandelions, although his grazing buddy Henry the quarterhorse focuses intently on harvesting only dandelions, bundling a big sheaf of them, complete with their fluffy seedheads, into his capacious mouth.  Gus does scarf up some white-flowering chickweed that’s inextricable among the grass blades.  He and Henry both eat daintily around each neon-yellow buttercup, nudging its leaves aside as they pluck its neighbors.  

Over in the tall grass, there’s a weedy little mulberry tree with fresh new leaves and tight green flowerbuds.  Taking a momentary break from the grass, Gus reaches up and pulls a few tree leaves into his mouth.  If they cling to the branch and he can’t jerk them free, he adjusts his grip to bite down hard on the woody twig and detach it wholesale.  It gets noisily chewed up together with the leaves.  After Gus swallows maybe three mouthfuls of mulberry this way, he drops his head into the shoulder-deep grass again.

All the while, I’m improving my idle time by scrubbing my fingers over his back and sides, loosening great tufts of fur, in hopes of hurrying along his epic summertime shedding process.  As usual, he’s itchy and his skin is getting scurfy, and he’s losing fur in ugly patches.  Whether from scratching against a fencepost or tree or from clawing with a hind hoof, he’s now got a huge, raggedy-ass patch of bare skin on one side of his neck.  Rubbing his back today, I suddenly feel a mildly sickening release and come up with a dense hair-wad the size of a kaiser roll; parting the fur around the area, I find a matching expanse of pinkish skin.  

Every spring Sandy ponders how to respond to this asinine alopecia.  Topical remedies include CBD salve, diaper-rash cream, or cortisone ointment; systemic meds range from Benedryl pills to de-stung stinging-nettle leaves in his feed.  Every summer Gus finally ends up with a nice, smooth coat.  But in between, it’s an ugly and uncomfortable ordeal.  In paddock and stall, he suffers the tortures of the damned, don’t you know; out grazing, somehow he enjoys miraculous relief.

108. Smokin’

Standing around while an animal grazes may have its pleasures, but it’s far from intellectually engaging.  So while Gus grazes, I make it my business to shoo away the biting flies by swinging the lead rope against his legs, gently scraping my boot along his shins, and chasing them off his belly and back.  I also make myself useful with brushless pre-grooming:  running my hands all over him to scrub off dead hair and wipe away any clinging mud or shavings or other debris.  

Today the winds are gusty.  That helps keep the flies off him, but I quickly realize it also reveals just how filthy he is.  In the past couple of days, he’s rolled repeatedly in a dust-bath wallow that he and his pasturemate Henry have excavated in their sandy-soiled paddock.   Now each time I rub Gus’s fur or pat his back, a visible puff of superfine dust erupts into the air and blows away.  I rub and pat and rub and pat, and the puffs just keep rising and blowing.  Trapped between his skin and his coat is what must be a wheelbarrowful of powdered dirt.

Absorbed in his grassy feast, Gus is oblivious, but I’m having a high old time watching the billows burst from under my hand.  I begin thumping him in syncopated rhythms, emitting complex smoke signals.  As I pat his back and neck and rump like a beatnik on bongos, he just grazes on, smoldering nonchalantly in the breeze.  Summertime, and the living is hazy.

49. Donkey dander

Can it be?  I’m allergic to Gus??

Pollen washed ashore in a rain puddle

Living in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, and even the southern tier of New York State, I never had hay fever.  But as soon as I moved up to Saratoga Springs, I joined the ranks of spring sufferers.  After a couple of sneezy, snotty Mays capped by Memorial Day bronchitis attacks, I realized that trees and grasses and other plants all share a very short growing season up here.  In my particular neighborhood some dunderhead had long ago squeezed a huge blue spruce tree between my garage and the next-door house, and every spring the pollen billowed from it by the bushelful.  I had the spruce removed, but plenty of other conifers still yellow the air (and sidewalks and windshields) with their pollen.

It was no surprise this spring that I developed itchy eyes and a drippy nose and a scratchy throat.  But come June, instead of fading, it all got worse.  And what else happened in June?  Gus started to shed his prolific winter coat.  I didn’t notice the coincidence until I went to Maine for a week:  the day before I left I spent extra time brushing Gus, the day we drove to Maine I was sniffling and glurking and achooing more than ever, in Maine my sinuses were surprisingly improved, the day after I got home I resumed my donkey-dehairing duties, and the day after that I couldn’t stop blowing my nose and clearing my throat, plus that night one ear spontaneously clogged up and I got dizzy.

This is my first spring and summer with Gus, and it’s also my first summer with such persistent and severe allergy symptoms.  I never had this problem with horses shedding, but Gus’s dander is probably as different from a horse’s as are his personality and physique.

Well.  Hmmm.  I’m still half-deaf and reeling like a drunken sailor, but I’m certainly not going to drop Gus from my dance card.  So what will I do?  Plan A is to dose up on stinging-nettle extract (a fairly effective natural antihistamine for me) before each trip to the barn and also to wear a dust mask when I groom him.  If his allergens prove too virulent for such home remedies, I’ll reluctantly and cautiously try Plan B: pharmaceuticals.  In another few weeks he should be finished shedding, and I hope that will end the matter.  Until next spring . . .