Sunday morning, far far away

Roscoe: We have movement at the house. Repeat, movement at the house.

Chestnut Number 6: Shut up.

Zeus: What's she doing now? What's she doing now?

Roscoe: Movement at middle barn. Repeat, movement at middle barn.

Chestnuts Number 2,4,5 and 6: Shut up!

Chestnut Number 1: It doesn't count until she opens the door. She probably won't even feed us. sob...

Max: Hey, she's filling the grain cart. SHE'S FILLING THE GRAIN CART!! 

Dark Bay: What? What's going on, I can't see!!

Zeus: Yeah, we can't see, what's she doing now?

Roscoe: Movement to big barn. Repeat, movement to big barn. Grain cart in sight. Grain cart in tow.

door rolls open... cue the nicker chorus

cue splashes

Max: Me me me me me me. YES!

Chestnut Number 1: Ok, we are getting fed today. But it means nothing about the future. Please step away from my feeder. I won't eat until you do.

Roscoe: Hurry, me, hurry, me, hurry, me...

Chestnut Number 2: Hurry. Hurry. Hurry. YES!

Trouble: Ha, me next. YES!

Chestnut Number 3: FEED ME!! DAMN IT!! bang

Roscoe: YES!

Appaloosa: Don't forget me. Don't forget me.

Chestnut Number 3: Now! YES! bang

Apaloosa: Don't forget me!..gup...oops. Thank you.

Jones: Thank you. (Slug! Stupid slow humans...)

Chestnut Number 8: What is taking so long?? What is taking so long?

George: YEAH, HURRY!!

Chestnut Number 4: Glum num, swallow Haven't you all noticed that our food has those other pellets? And our joints feel better? She has to add a joint supplement, and Max get's extra stuff, and... anyway, it just takes longer.

Chestnut number 6: One thing has nothing to do with the other! Joint supplement?? Freak. Hurry, stupid human. HURRY! thanks.

***

Zeus: Take your time. I'd like the sweet feed, please. Just a bit of pellets. Well, that's fine, whatever. Are we getting hay before we go out? Aren't all those Chestnuts insane? I mean, I'm chestnut and I don't act like that. Oh, yes, some of the powder, thanks. Thank you, excuse me while I eat this before... well, you know, anyway, thanks.

***

Dark Bay: Feed me before I bang the door off. I'll do it! Don't think I won't!

Chestnut Number 8: What is taking so long?!?!

Chestnut Number 7: This is disgusting! SPPPPTT!! sling sling sling

George: Me now, me now? Me? Oh, thank you tiny human.

Human: sigh
 

The Kettle White

Mother provides me with hot meals. The Aunts do, too, but they usually just bring water up from the house, already warm for cooking.

Mother uses her little electric kettle.

I used to really dislike the kettle. Mother used it to warm water for face cleaning in that first winter (and spring and summer) while battling the hole.

The worst thing about the kettle, though, is that it screams and hisses most oddly. It doesn't start out doing that... so I stare at it suspiciously until it does. Then I let Mother know it bothers me.

Mother has learned to prepare the kettle when I am not around. And since it makes my dinner all perfectly cooked and yummy, I guess I don't mind it as much.

Until it screams.

Mother's Milk

So, there have been some developments on the dinner front.

Sames:

• I get my brown grain pellets made mushy (as compared to the orange-y pellets made mushy... Mother started that back a week or so ago).
• I get my dinner in the blue tub most of the time. It is nice because Belle can't reach in as well as she can with the pan. I am in charge of my herd, don't mistake me, but sometimes I let her have some grain because a) she doesn't get grain and she whines and looks all pitiful, and b) it tasted funny with all the supplements Mother used to use, so if she wanted some, I didn't really mind.

• My IR powder that tastes pretty good.
• The bulky funny powder that tastes not too bad. Mother says it is flax seeds and other stuff; I don't really know. I just eat what she puts in the pan...
• My apple-y vinegar-y stuff. Yumm.

Differences:

• Mother's Milk. She says it is actually something called Acti-Flex 4000, but it looks all thick and creamy and it TASTES AWESOME!! It's sweet and yummy and I am so happy...
• Oh, there's also the sparkly powder now that tingles on my tongue. I've had that before in my grain and I rather like it. Mother says that is MSM to boost  the amount in the Acti-Flex. 

She also gives me special cookies...

So, this is really all I could have hoped for. In the past, some of her supplemental choices have been less than palatable... blech!

Optical Illusion

Mother gave me another stab, then a good brushing, then weight taped me.

Whenever she does the weight tape, she advocates for me to suck in my ribs so I will appear thinner. She'll pull the little strip of cloth/tape tighter and tighter, and I try to squish my ribs, but eventually I have to breath.

If I did a really good job, she gives me a cookie...

Anyway, today Mother found that upon first putting the tape on, I was easily under 950lbs. When she told me to "suck it in", it made it to 905lbs.

Mother stepped back, stared at me. Poked my ribs. Aunt Marilyn asked if we needed to change my food. Mother decided that perhaps when the current orange food runs out, she'll switch me back to the old horse mush. She wants me below 1,000 weight tape pounds and above "too skinny". I am not too skinny, especially as I have a leg that doesn't need to work harder than necessary, but Mother wants to make sure I stay "not too skinny."

She said I didn't really look any thinner, but that's why she likes to tape me. She says looks can be deceiving, and tangible evidence is better, whatever that means. She claims there is a delicate balance between healthy thin and too thin.

How's this for balanced, Mother?

I can't help but think I look a little top heavy...

Here are pictures she took while I dined on the lawn. It was warm out, so my coat is laying pretty flat, even though it is winter full.

So, is the weight tape stretching? Did I loose all the muscles on my back? Have I perfected imploding my ribcage?

Why don't you just give me my cookies and stop measuring me, Mother?

I'm afraid if I tell her I'm too thin she'll just get all worried that I am loosing weight because my leg hurts and that the wolves will notice my condition and single me out and... never mind.

Of course, I don't want to miss out on a cookie increase or more mush grain if the opportunity arises!

What to do?

A Series of Ordinary Events

It has been a very busy few days for me. Mother provided our foodstuffs at all the feeding times this weekend, as the aunts and mystery uncle were nowhere to be seen. She gave me some paste on Sunday afternoon (a little blech-y but not awful) and then a perfect dinner.

It has been warm the last few days, and my winter coat has been a bit of a disadvantage. Sigh.

Yesterday the veterinarian came and gave me some shots in the neck, but none of them sent me to my Happy Place. I don't mind them too much, though, because he is a nice guy and sometimes he does send me to my Happy Place, so it is best to stay on his good side.

It was warm and rainy, and then a huge deluge of a storm hit in the evening.

Today the hoof man was here to work on my hoovies. It was rather a humorous affair, as the donkey came in to watch and kept hovering directly over my right foot while the hoof man tried to work. Mother caught fat donkey and tied him up, since he will bang incessantly if you put him in a stall, even with food.

So I'm standing there watching the fat donkey attempt to pace while tied and then I hear hoof beats approaching from the rear. Callie and Bert appeared in the doorway of the barn, wanting entry to their favorite stall to hang out in. Mother stood back there and continually hazed them away, as shutting the barn door would have diminished the light the hoof man needed.

Other than the dancing donkey and the dancing Mother, it was an uneventful trim. Mother put me in a stall and gave me a bit of hay while she prepared my dinner. Tonight's dinner was super good, and as warm as I can eat without making the inside of my mouth hurt. I really like when my dinner is all warm and yummy.

I realized there is something I really, really want:

A heated feed pan

I like my dinner warm and on the sloppier side than the others like their feed soaked~ the closer to gruel the better. The problem during these cooler months is that the food, while perfect temperature when first presented to me, rapidly cools into a less appetizing cold slop during the time it takes me to slurp it all down. If Mother could find a good way to keep it at that perfect temperature all during my dining experience, that would be great.

Mother says she is unable to find any commercially available heated feed pans of a type suitable for horses. I think she might not be looking hard enough. Or she needs to get a manufacturer to make one. Or she needs to design something for me here at home. Perhaps a well insulated feed pan, preheated especially for me?

I don't want to be any trouble, though...

It's not my fault

It's not my fault that I am pleasingly plump, a well rounded individual. Mother has tried to reduce my grain, although if she takes out too much, I refuse to eat my suppies. She has cut back on my good hay, and I have mostly just first cutting stuff to keep me through the night, but that's OK, because there is good hay out in the field all day long. I eat, eat, eat... nap on the hay, wake up, eat, eat, ooh, water trough, eat eat...

And I run around a lot in the field, at least when the snow is on the ground. She doesn't exercise me really anymore, because of my joint, so it's not MY fault.

Mother was poking me along the side tonight. She says she can't feel any ribs... well, that's all muscle!

I do look handsome, but Mother says I would feel better if I lost a few pounds or 70. Only if I can lose weight while still eating all I want. But she deworms me regularly, and the vet did my tooth a weekend or two ago, so...

I'll just keep eating. She'll get over it.

And surely three Mrs. Pastures cookies a night isn't enough to tip the scale...

Hay

I was thinking about hay. I admit, I often think about hay. Next to Mrs.Pasture's cookies and grass, and sometimes my grain, hay is the best thing in the world!

Mother doesn't give me much grain. She says I look like a brood mare far along in her pregnancy. Is it my fault that I am from North Dakota and have a very conservative metabolism?
She does give me grain, but not much and it is ruined by all this other stuff she puts in it... weird other pellets, some even taste like seaweed! That little hint of alfalfa isn't hiding much! And other things I don't even know how to describe. She says I have to eat them, that they are good for my joints and that they'll make me more comfortable and that she spends a lot of money on them. Why does she bother? They're gross! She soaks my grain first and mixes all the other stuff in, so I really don't have a lot of choice. But the pellets are better than powder. I hate powder. Unless it's that apple-y stuff Mother calls 'bute'... yum.

Of course, when I first came to her and had a hole in my head, she used to do even weirder things to my grain. She mixed in warm oatmeal with sugar (YUMM!!) but ruined it by this weird tasting powder. Uncle Jeff, my dentist, found out I'll eat my medicine as pills and just chucked them in my grain. Sure, they do taste kind of gross, but I'd rather have a pill I can crunch and just swallow, instead of my whole grain tasting like that...

Fortunately, Mother hasn't found a way to ruin my hay. It's the best!! I like it better than the hay back home... I don't have to share it with all those other horses. She gives me a lot, too, which is VERY important. Some of it is boring, and I don't like to eat that real fast. I like the leafy alfalfa and other really green stuff best, though I don't get nearly as much as that. The boring hay is always there all night long, and I can munch at it whenever I get hungry through the night.

When I first came to Ohio, I would start eating hay, and nothing could stop me. Back in North Dakota, if you didn't eat fast, one of the others would take it.I have since figured out that the hay never stops coming here. I love Ohio. Sometimes, Mother has even bedded my entire stall with hay. Something about low shavings and needing to make room for more hay anyway. I walked in the first time and thought I might have been hallucinating. And really, was I expected to eat all that?

So now Mother is trying to figure out how much boring hay to get for this winter. I want her to get just the green alfalfa-y stuff. I do NOT look like a brood gelding!! Thank goodness she doesn't think cookies make me fat. I'd be lost without my cookies... crunchy, oaty... YUMMM!!