Needed: Optometrist

Mother is having trouble seeing, I suspect. This afternoon, I spied her walking into the barn and retrieving my halter.  When she came in through the pasture to our run in shed, I stepped toward her with my pleasant, "ears forward" face. She patted my nose, then threw the lead rope over Belle's neck and put my halter on her. Uh, wrong horse, Mother. She's not even the same color! How could you get that so wrong?!

Mother led Belle away, presumably to the barn porch, but since I can't see out there, for all I know she was grazing her on the lawn. The other red mares of my herd went to the stall overlooking the porch, and Bert was in the other stall (MY STALL!!) that faces the porch.

I was... alone. And no one answered my calls. Apparently, Mother is deaf now, too.



I saw Mother and Belle emerge a little while later. By this point, I was out in the small, rustling up the blades of grass brave enough to poke their heads out of the mud. Mother rode Belle for a few minutes. I didn't even know Belle knew how to do that. There are some things she prefers not to talk about...

So, finally Mother came and got me. I got a good brushing, and she tacked me up and lunged me for a very few minutes. I moved slowly on the lunge, because way back in the day when Mother rode me all the time, if I was quiet and slow on the lunge, I only did a few laps before she decided to climb aboard. I would just as soon get all this work over with, thanks.

We had a pleasant little ride, wandering around in the back pasture and over a tiny fallen tree, then Mother decided she was tired, I guess, because she had me stop and she disembarked. She rides me for less than 5 minutes... maybe she is dying of some sort of energy sapping disease. Hmmm... is there a doctor for that?

The best part was then Mother put me on the lawn, for a good half hour at least. YUMMMMM!! And then I had my dinner. And quite a bit of cookies today. Mother got more of the Withers and Withers cookies for me, which is nice. I was eating so many Herballs my eyes were turning a little greenish.

The question now, though, is do I punish Belle for spending time with Mother? Usually any horse that takes away my time with Mother hears about it later, but Belle is mine, too.. I'm not really sure how to deal with this situation. I suppose it is OK, provided this mis-attention doesn't get out of hand...