Little Bleu Pills

A while back, Mother tried something different in my supplement regimen. I came in from the lawn for dinner to find a whole bunch of tablets on the top of my supper. I snarfed them up first before diving in to the rest of my mush.

Uncle Jeff discovered I was more than happy to take medications in tablet or capsule form. Well, yeah, because that way you may only have to taste them for a second if you crunch down on one before swallowing. The whole feed pan is ruined by ground up medicines. Blech! When Mother would grind up the stuff I took forever when my face was hole-y, she had to put lots of sugary oatmeal in with my food to get me to eat it.

Anyway, Mother said that these little blue tablets would help make me feel better. They kind of worked. She says she is going to try to find some other medicine that will help me feel better without having to count out so many tablets.

I will be getting a different joint supplement, too. She's just mixing everything all around. I hope whatever she gets tastes good...

She gave me a shot again the other day. I thought she had gotten over that whole obsession, but she told me I would still get them, just only once a month. I stood really still and didn't flinch or roll my eyes or anything.

I got lots of cookies, too.

The Help

It is so hard to find good help these days.

Take Mother... Mother came up today not long before the sun would go down, if there had been a sun today. She was wise enough to bring hay out for myself and the rest of the Red Mare Herd as we loitered in the Small, then she set to work.

She did a satisfactory job, I suppose. She stripped and rebedded with lots of shavings, more at my sleeping end, so that's important. But she did it with the funny green machine. If it is summer or reasonably dry, Mother tends to use the wheelbarrow. But in inclement weather or if the run-in needs stripped, she uses the green machine because the muck heap is way in the back of the Grassy Pasture and she complains that is too far for her to push. In her defense, the Aunts always use the green thing...

So after she rebeds, Belle and I like to go in to inspect and make sure there are enough shavings, and, well, just enjoy the new clean-ness. And sometimes we've been patiently waiting for the maid service to finish up because we need to use the bedding, you know? The use of the green machine, however, detracts from our enjoyment.

The green machine belches noxious gases behind it. Mother hates the green thing for the same reason. She says there is nothing wrong with it, its belches are normal, she just doesn't tolerate it very well. Well, we don't either. Couldn't you just push the green machine in, Mother, the way you push the wheelbarrow?

You can clearly see the green machine in this photo, off to the side of me. She could push that!

Mother did make dinner perfectly, and I got lots of pre- and post-dinner hay, and oodles of cookies, so I guess I won't fire her just yet. And from what I hear, I may get even poorer service if I try to find another one.

Oh, well.

Before it's ice...

The Aunts and Mother have been fussing with our water trough a lot. It has something to do with the funny piece at the bottom that these troughs always have. Mother says that funny piece it what keeps the water warm. Even though they put a new funny piece in just a week or two ago, the water gets icy and I have to keep it open so Belle and I will get water. The trough in the barnyard stays free of ice, so the funny thing at the bottom on ours apparently isn’t working. 

They are battling yet again to remove the funny piece, and said they will put a different new funny piece in. I guess Belle needs her water open.  I, as I may have mentioned before, am from North Dakota.  I know how to take care of these things myself. If there is any liquid water, I will find it.

Back in North Dakota, things were much colder than what humans here in Ohio consider to be “really cold.” Sometimes in winter we just walked out on the frozen water until we broke the surface and then drank. Note: know your water’s depth before attempting this technique.  You only want to use this for large flat puddly ponds, not for anything with depth that may suck you in.

I personally preferred the automatic waterer that was up by the main buildings in the bachelor lot, but I was more likely to run into humans up there, so I didn’t linger, or just went for one of the iced water sources.

When I first moved to Ohio with Devlin, Mother kept us at the sheepless sheep fields and she used a large muck tub for our water. She would drive up at least twice a day and fed us our hay and some oats and filled the water up for us. Sometimes she used the long green hose from the sheep humans’ house. The green hose kind of creeped me out because it looked like an enormously long snake, and snakes should not regurgitate water like that. I have since learned a bit more about hoses.  

Devlin thought it was fun and would come over and try to drink the water cascading out of the hose while Mother filled the tub, or he would splash Mother by whipping his head through the stream.

Once the weather turned colder, she didn’t use the hose and house water. She would arrive with big blue containers filled with warm water. She would empty out the muck tub, make sure it was clean, and refill it with water from the blue containers. Sometimes it was nice to drink it when it was all warm like that.Or stick my head in and blow bubbles.

Some mornings when she came up she would marvel at the ice layers she would find in the tub, showing how many times we freed the water and how cold it had really gotten. When we busted a layer, we would drain that entire level.

 Pathetic Depicition

One morning, as Mother pulled in, Devlin went over to the tub. He looked at Mother then knocked the muck tub over towards him. It started to roll down the hill. Devlin went pronging along behind it, striking it when it slowed, getting downhill of it to try to make it stop, then spinning and chasing it further. Mother stood at the top and laughed like a fool. Then she sighed and went down the hill to go collect the tub to bring it back up and fill it. The next day, she and Aunt Marilyn brought a large trough down for us. 

Of course, shortly after that a huge snow storm with ice, bigger than the other snows we had, came but we were up at Marilyn’s barn for that so it didn’t really matter.

Polite Company

Mother and Aunt Jeni came up to see me today. Mother came through the barnyard gate and said hello to me. Aunt Jeni followed suit. When Mother emerged from the barn with my halter, I was standing behind Belle. Mother laughed at me. "We are not going to make you run around like last time. Don't be afraid, silly."

Oh. Well, OK.

We went out to the porch, and Mother scraped the mud off the outside of my hoovies. Aunt Jenni started talking to me (me!) telling me all they had done that day while Mother started currying me. Mother often tells other people things, and I eavesdrop, but Aunt Jeni was talking to me about Mother's shenanigans. 

I'm going to be honest here, some of it was not fit for polite company. Apparently Mother was working with the tiny hooves of a  friend's tiny horse who has ideas above his station (and no mares), and he behaved in an uncivilized fashion that left those around him mortified and convulsed with laughter.

There is nothing funny about uncivilized behavior. I don't care how small the package.

Anyway, Mother picked my feet, commented on some personal hygiene items, asked Aunt Jeni to verify the hygiene problem (oh, mortification is now mine), then brushed my face really well. Aunt Jeni gave me cookies, I did a lawn job, ate dinner, and weaseled tons of cookies out of both of them, so all in all it was a successful evening.

But really, some topics are best left undiscussed, n'est-pas?

Rocky Road

I haven't seen Mother for a several days now. I am experiencing cookie withdrawal.
sniff... sniff...

I'm fading due to MPCD (Mrs. Pastures Cookie Deficiency)

Aunt Marilyn told me Mother is having some sort of... gravely-organ problem? (She told me which organ but I forget.)

What does that  even mean? Has she been eating rocks? I've never seen her do that, but there are lots of hours every day that she is not in my eyesight.

Horses usually only get rocks in our feet. And that is still outside of our body, really. I've never heard of one inside like that.
shudder...

Just because Mother has been eating the wrong things doesn't mean I shouldn't get my cookies. I wonder what I should do about this situation.

 Hmmm...

Good for the Goose

When Mother came up yesterday, Belle left me in the run-in to go greet Mother at the gate. I guess she thought Mother would play with her, but she only pet her and said hello, then came in for me.

As Mother was putting my halter on, Belle pushed the canvas ~thwap!~ into Mother by flipping it with her head. Mother glanced over, but Belle didn't come in. Mother turned back to me, and ~thwap~ the canvas hit her again. "Silly mare," said Mother. ~Thwap!~ Belle peered in around the edge of canvas.

~Thwap~

"We're coming out, Belle," Mother announced, and Belle followed us to the gate, hopeful for some fun, but Mother left her in the Small as she led me to the porch.

Mother pondered if Belle was "getting back at her" for the whole bear incident.

Turn about IS fair play, Mother.

Unexpected surprise

Mother fitted a new halter on me today. Well, two of them, actually. One was quite a bit larger than the other, but since they have double buckles at the top part, she took the the long top part and put it on the smaller halter, and it fits very nicely.

She says Jones will have the leftover bits. Really, Mother? I have to beg for a new halter for years, but you just up and give him one after only a few months of wheedling? Seriously?

Anyway, Mother promised to bring her camera up in the next couple days, so my black triple stitched and Personally Customized halter will be viewable to all.

Better late than never, I suppose.

So Not Snow

 This is NOT snow. 

This is just messy white stuff.

I had ventured outside when it began. I like snow, after all. I'm from North Dakota! But since the ground was still slick from the warm temperatures and rain, rain, rain we've had...

This isn't worth it, I'm going back inside.

Mother stopped up oh-so-briefly today. I heard her out in the Small, but I wasn't about to leave the run-in. She'll find me. I heard her approach, and made eye contact through the gap between the freshly hung canvas windbreaks and the post. Mother nickered. I nickered.

She started to push the canvas aside and step in. All hooves broke loose! All I know is Belle screamed BEAR! and flew into me and I ran back, too. When Mother peeked inside again, Belle stood shaking near me and I was still trying to figure out where the bear was.

Once Belle figured out it was only Mother and not a bear, she was fine. Mother apologized, telling her she didn't see her for the canvas. It takes some getting used to again, since we only have the shade cloth up the rest of the year, and you can see through that.

But you said there was a bear, Belle... where's the bear?

Mother had me follow her into the barn, where I ate some hay in the aisle while she picked my feet. She lead me back out, gave me cookies, and left.

Yeah, well, it is kind of a blah day. At least I got some cookies. (Herballs and W&W. Woohoo!)

Not so big announcement

A while back there was a poll up to see if Mother should tell you about her first horse.

Mother says she has started to tell Cappy stories. You can find that blog here.

She better not neglect my cookies. That's all I'm sayin'.