Careful what you wish for...

It worked, it worked, it WORKED!! Mother came up to visit me today!

I saw her come up as I was munching my late midday hay out in the multipurpose area with my orangey red mare nearby. Mother went into the barn, and came back out with my halter and lead... and a lunge line and whip. She set the latter two offensive items against the fence, then came in the gate to get me. I did something I very rarely do. Uhhh... I left.

I skittered away before she got near and ran into the run in shed. I mean, that's why they call it a run in shed, right? I always forget that when I do that, though, I am effectively cornered, and Mother may secure me. sigh

Mother lunged me for a few minutes, then took me in the barn and used very dull clippers to hack a bridle path for me in the sproutage (she claims she keeps meaning to change the blades, but just doesn't have time. Hmmpfh.). She then put my bridle on me, led me out to the scary black box thingy, and proceeded to clamber aboard my bare back.

We went nowhere. We walked into the gardening paddock a couple times and around the barnyard. She seemed happy enough, so I humored her. The poor pathetic creature is sometimes so easily amused.

She gave me a good brushing, and dinner (YUM!!) and some Herballs a bit later when she finally left for the night. So it was quite nice, except for that working bit.

What we have to put up with for a few creature comforts...

Succulent Selections

My good buddy Fenway asked about the treats (besides the infinitely wondrous, superb, perfect Mrs. Pastures cookies) Mother feeds me. His human is also apparently overly concerned by outward appearances. I mean, he mentions celery, as if that is an equine foodstuff.

Hmmmrph.

I will say, though, I do like the treats Mother gives me, even if some were chosen because she mis-perceives my inherited metabolic adaptations to survival despite adversity and paucity of forage. There are the Hilton Herballs*, which are the first treats I ever met and the only ones I would eat for  a long time. She has some of these for me right now, although I know she gave some to interloping horses owned by people who have never even bothered to come visit me! Giving away my treats!

Another one, and one touted as being for IR horses, is Withers and Withers IR* Cookies. Grey turned me onto these... they are very yummy and Mother crushes them up in her fingers to add to my dinner to make my supplements taste better, as well as feeding them to me for kisses. Their melt in my mouth consistency, however, means Mother shares these with Jeanie, who while very attractive in her older years, has less teeth at 32 than she used to.  These are the only treats she can eat (they do melt/powder/crumble better when the package has been open awhile). Mother gives some of these to Belle and Callie, too, because they are both already very well rounded. Giving away my treats!

Something in common with these treats is their tiny size. Sigh. Human vanity is such a burden.

Speaking of human vanity.... Mother has had pointed out to her that she is woefully absent in pictures on my blog... perhaps a hand here, a leg there. She claims she prefers anonymity, but I have decided to out her. Because she was off with her human family and not me during the holidays, and that's not fair. Fenway says it is OK for the occasional straying from the strict and narrow equine viewpoint in a blog, so I place Mother in my limelight.  I frankly have never seen her as clean as this before, but her hygiene is a topic for another time, I suppose.

 Mother is the brown one in the middle. 

The black one has visited me, with various human larvae. 

The palomino... I'm not sure I know her.

See, Mother? Leave me alone all the time, and there is no telling what all I might dig up on you and present to the world. So you better start visiting me EVERY DAY again... please?





* Items viewable on SmartPak because that was the easiest place to go. Always read nutrition information and consider what is best for the equine/canine/bovine/feline/ovine/porcine involved. Not to substitute for the advice of your veterinarian or other rational human beings... I'm just a horse, after all.

Winter Dull Drums

Apparently there have been some holidays for the humans, but I wouldn't be able to tell. Mother has been listless and loggy and apparently suffering from "the cold". She has, as is typical of her of late, been woefully absent. She did come by to see me today, and gave me a good brushing, ripped out some tail hairs under guise of "brushing" it, and combed through the tufts that pass as my mane and forelock.

She did feed me dinner, and gave me a few cookies. But she also had taken Belle in and brushed her before me, and I clearly saw her give her schnozzle a kiss and cookies pass into her gullet. I am not pleased! I showed Belle I wasn't pleased by making ugly faces and chasing her away when we were back in the field together.

So while others are spouting grand New Year's Resolutions, I am simply plotting: how to get Mother to pay attention to me...  and most important, how to get more cookies.

Bah, Haybug!

Mother is crazy.

She should have been feeding me a special holiday dinner, like last year. But after a hasty dinner of normal rations, she put me in the cross ties and brought the contraption around from the barn porch. She reminded me that the holiday is not just about cookies and how much grain I get... perhaps not, but I don't think it's supposed to be about work, either! She picked my feet, brushed me off, and put my pad and surcingle on. The whole time she was making our dinners and getting my various accouterments ready, she was singing about a "one horse open sleigh" and some sort of bells.

I have to admit, this was making me a little nervous. Sleigh? I'm "one horse"... what's a sleigh? Mother just hooked up my normal pole contraption, though, and we journeyed out of the warmth and light of the barn and into the snowy dark pasture.

I've never before gone for a night drive in the snow, but it wasn't too bad because all the snow made it pretty bright out. I have no idea what got into her. I should have been eating my hay, like all the others were, not out dragging the contraption to nowhere.

Mother did give me a lot of cookies before we drove and after, and there were cookies in my dinner, and of course my goodbye kiss cookies (Hilton Herballs... yumm!!).

And finally, I was put back out to eat hay with my mare, Belle. But then Mother came out with the flashy picture taker... if you're coming out and disturbing my already late dinner, you better have cookies, lady!

We have a perfectly good run-in shed... we could have had our hay in there, instead of dining al fresco.

You know, though, I have a full belly and more hay for later and friends and a warm place to get out of wind and weather and good healthcare and Mother came to visit, even if it was a little strange to work in the dark, and I really should just stop complaining, I guess.

Merry Christmas!

Hair Club for Men: an Update

Well, hello...

My hair is slowly returning... Mother took some pictures last weekend, and wanted to show my regrowth progress.

Of course, that would not be necessary if she hadn't hacked all of it off. I like to stick a burr or two in there, partly for old times' sake, and partly to show her that her efforts didn't really work.

I realize, especially as a grey horse, that nothing stays the same. I am not as dark as in years past... in fact, I am lightening to a frightening degree. Mother tells me this is regular grey pattern lightening, and there is no cause for alarm.

I still think the next time the hair club for men ad pops up, I'm clicking.

Mother's letter to Santa...

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas.

Only a hippopotamus will dooooooo...

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

Mother told me I was to write you a list of what I wanted for Christmas.

1. More cookies. Since Mother isn't at the barn every day like she should be, it would probably be best to just put an automatic cookie dispenser in my pasture. I'd like one for my Mrs. Pastures, and one for the Withers & Withers cookies, and one for Hilton Herballs.

2. Potato chips. Mother gave me some one day, and they were perfectly salty and delicious. She says I really shouldn't eat them, but what she doesn't know won't hurt me. More, please.

3. Free choice hay 24/7... and not the boredom hay, but the good stuff!

4. A new halter that is black and fits my winter head. I would also like you to take the "raspberry purple" halter with you when you go.

5. Grass... I know this is difficult in winter, but if you can deliver presents to hundreds of thousands of horses in one night, you can probably handle a little grass out of season for one little Nokota.

6. Perhaps a little visit from the vet and some sedation. The vet was here the other day, but no sedation, sadly.

Most important of all, Santa... I would like Mother to start coming to the barn every day again. I know you are really just into material goods, but I would forgo all those other things (well, except the cookies, obviously) if Mother would just come back and spend time with me like she used to.

Thanks!

Boyfriend

The Fifth Appendage

Mother sometimes has a fifth appendage, the lunge whip. She has two different ones, the red one I've always known, and a creepy black one that's not quite the same. I've see her with other appendages, which she uses around other horses, but she pretty much only uses the red appendage for me.

She can make the whip make sharp sounds, and this reminds me to move along again... like when she would let me gallop loose in the large arena at the old barn on snowy nights, because I needed "more exercise". That's winter fur, not fat, lady. If I stopped for too long, that sharp sound would remind me to keep moving.

When she lunges me, I keep an eye on the whip as well as listening to Mother's voice, to know how quickly I should be moving. She seldom has it make sharp sounds when she lunges me.

When she ground drives me, she wraps the noodly part of the appendage around the stick part and will use it to touch me on my sides or rump to indicate motion or direction changes (or, sometimes, just a touch to remind me she's back there and she made a request... I get distracted way up there all by myself, and forget she's back there). This is where she sometimes uses the creepy black whip instead. She also has black lines to drive me with. She says they look nicer than my dirty, dingy white lines. I don't like them though. I like my red whip and white lines.

Sometimes when she props the whip up against the wall, it leaps to the ground. I don't let this bother me, because as it's Mother's appendage, it won't hurt me. I know some horses who are afraid of whip appendages, because they say they hurt. I will admit I've watched wide-eyed as Mother has wielded her appendage at others with more force than I think she uses with me, but it's never hurt me.

The other day, we walked into the barn after driving. I was turning around in the hall, when the appendage brushed my front legs. WHAT!?! I froze... peered, snorted.... why would this touch my legs? I need my legs! It's never touched my legs. Mother apologized and said she didn't make it do that, the hall is tight and it just happened, the same way it sometimes just falls from the wall.

While it didn't hurt me... uggg, that was just creepy. No wonder some horses don't like these things...