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I Forge Iron

Horses


pete46

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1. Horses Are Large Animals With The I.q. Of A Retarded Dog.
2. I Love Horses Anyway!
3. I'm Look'n At Tucker's Hoof; Bigu'n Don't Like Tucker!
4. Bigu'n Chases Tucker .
5.tucker Spins Me Into The Ground Like A Lawn Dart!
6. Yep I'm Look'n At Surgury # 3 On The Old Right Knee!
7. Moral Seperate The Horses And Tie Them When You Play Vet!

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my little brother and his wife raise Morgans. they also have, for pleasure a paint, an arab, and a southwestern buro (looks a lot like me and little brother I am told)

Why it is the people see you in a forge and assume we can shoe their horses? I dont mind helping my sister in law and brother. but they say they need size oo or 5 to replace what is on there now, or whatever and I get looked at funny when I am clueless?

Just a fast rant.... I feel better now :D, Sorry yer Lame Pete, do we have to shoot you now :o ?

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Thanks Everyone .colleen I Agree With Finnr That Is Fine!
Steve: Maybe I Could Just Be Put Out To Pasture For A Year Our Twenty:p
ps I'M NOT A FARRIER EITHER,BUT THEY HAVE MY RESPECT!
DEALING WITH OTHER PEOPLES HORSES IS LIKE DEALING WITH OTHER PEOPLES KIDS !
SPEAKING OF KIDS !MY 5yr.old niece Riley ;thinks uncle pete is soooo fuunnyyy! The way he flops and beats his head on the ground!
OH I WAS BABY SITTING THAT DAY!:)

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Thanks, guys... my horse is not a patch on the real thing though!

I nearly became a farrier, well, I went so far as to enrol in college for it back when I was in Canada- before it was due to start they informed me they were no longer going to run the course due to lack of interest... (apparently I was the only one who enrolled!!) I used to ride and show Appaloosas, and sold my last horse an Appaloosa/Quarter horse mare named Jammer and used the money to go travelling, that was over 15 years ago. (and consequently I only discovered Blacksmithing 9 years ago)

The point of this story is that Jammer was born with a slightly turned in rear right hoof, which when I took her on at the age of four, (she was gifted to me as a ''problem child'' with a penchant for rearing) I discovered that it could have been corrected if she had been properly shod, but as it had been neglected was now permanent. She wasn't a "problem child'' really, she just needed some extra attention.

Moral of this story- Farriers have my respect also.

oh yes, and if only I had a penny for the number of times people come into my shop and see all the ornamental stuff and still ask," so how do you like shoeing horses?"

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My smithing hat has the horseshoe with the red circle and slash on it front and center and I usually get the same comments/questions

My stock answer is: "Horses are *bigger* than I am and *dumber* than I am and that's just too scarey a combination for me!"

If they are really interested in the differences I can go into the history of the crafts and that on the american fronteir there would often be only one smith and he did a bit of everything. For older folks I can remind them of the *old* westerns where there was both a blacksmith shop and a forge at the livery stable showing the split of the crafts.

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I get the same thing when folks see my anvil. I have the cards of two very good farriers that I hand out. If any of you are interested in taking a course in shoeing horses I can recommend Mesalands Community College in Tucumcari, NM. Their email address is Mesalands Community College . It is a wonderful small college. I was there two weeks ago for the annual iron pour. They also have a very good foundry arts program.

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  • 2 months later...

I would love horses......if we were still living in the 19th century, I think they are a beautiful animal and all but I have a truck so I don't have much use for a means of transportation that you have to feed even though your not using it....but to each his own.
Kind of like snail boats....just not real useful in this day and age.
No offense to anyone who likes snail boats or horses, just my opinion.

welder19

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welder19, If we use that logic the same could be said about blacksmithing.... I would love smithing......if we were still living in the 19th century, I think it produces a beautiful product and all, but I have a hardware store and a walmart, so I don't have much use for a means of making things that you have to work so hard at, even though you can buy it for a quarter of the effort it takes to make it....but to each his own. There is not always a well defined "use" for the things that people often chose to occupy their time, but if you look closer you will see that horses are used to work cattle, assist in search and rescue opperations in otherwise impassibe terrain, work crowd controll operations durring events like Mardi-Gras, and the US Border patroll still uses them to patroll large sections of the border that cannot be acessed by any other means. Horses roles in american history run nearly paralell with smithing by todays standards. The presence of both horses and blacksmiths are allmost entirely unnecicary by many standards, yet here we are keeping the dream alive.... I took no offense at your opinion, but just thought that I would share a diferent point ov view.

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Jose; you still have more than a dozen of them four footed converters of high grade feed into low grade fertilizer?

My neighbor is trying to build up a paint stud farm for when he's retired from being a commercial pilot. Why he was sad to find out that I wasn't a farrier when I talked with him about putting a smithy in. And why he laser levelled the field between us to grow alfalfa.

Lots of working horses out this way as they are still one of the best ways to get up into the hills/mountains to find people or cattle.

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Thomas, we are down to 14 horses of 5 different breeds (5 stallions and 9 mares), 6 miniature horses (2 of which are stallions), 2 goats, a llama, 3 dogs, 5 cats, 2 turtles, 2 canaries, a rabbit, and a platinum fox! I keep telling everyone that I am using my smithing skills to make all of the hardware for the ark that Noah is building behind my house!! Does anyone know where I can find a partrige in a pear tree? One nice thing about horses is that you can get 80 miles to a bale, which will be usefull if gas gets any more expensive!

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  • 5 months later...

Interesting discussion. We used to have horses. To make a long story short we gave up one after it kicked me and tried to stomp me to death, and found a home for another one when we finally figured out that it was too hot for us to handle. Right now we have just empty stalls because of current finances.

When people ask about shoeing horses, I just tell them that my wife would never let me try to shoe hers, but if they bring theirs by I would be willing to give it a try. That has always ended the horse type comments.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Horses are my bread and butter. When I'm not shoein them, I'm carving leather, and braiding cowhide for them. My wife trains them, and teaches leassons, so without the, we'd be nothing!
When you think about it, without the horse, civilization as we know it would be nothing. Something to think about... :rolleyes:

Edited by ollieolson
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  • 2 weeks later...

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