More Spa Fun

To continue with the spa theme from yesterday, most of the horses gave themselves mud baths today. I think their complexions are already starting to improve.

Gentry and Jewel are the cleanest horses in the herd. I should also mention that Jewel has declared herself Queen of the Little People. As she's become more secure about herself she's also become more dominant. She's now the boss over Meghan, Willow, Radar, Sadie, and Indy. I just hope she's smart enough to stop there and not try to challenge the Brat Pack!

After the mud baths, there were many naps to be had. Check out the droopy bottom lip on Jewel -- much lower and she'll be tripping on it.

Hunter was in this position for almost an hour. Talk about a relaxed and secure pony. I hope Radar isn't supposed to be standing guard because he's failing miserably at alertness.

Is that drool?

Even Princess Kita got down and dirty in the mud. This is one mare that HATES getting dirty, but a girl's got to get her beauty sleep somehow.

Please forgive my ripped and way too big jeans. They were Glenn's. There was no way I was wearing my freshly laundered flannel-lined jeans to kneel in the mud. That would have just been wrong.

Breakfast at the OK Corral

It's been raining for the past two days. This morning we woke up to a winter wonderland, complete with snow, icicles, and about a gabillion tons of mud. Everywhere. But if you don't let the mud bog you down, it's kinda purdy.







Now that we have four standing stalls and two box stalls, feeding has become a lot easier -- no more tying up the whole herd! Indy and Dolly go in the box stalls to eat unmolested. Junior, Semi, Kita, and Sadie go in the standing stalls. The Brat Pack get tied up with their own buckets in the left section of the barn where they can't beat up on anyone else. Eventually, we'll have four more standing stalls over there. It's just a matter of finding the time since there's already a nice stack of wood in the barn just waiting to be used. Meghan, Jewel, Radar, Hunter, Mandy, and Willow are the easiest keepers and also the lowest on the herd totem pole. They all get the same amount of feed and eat it in just about the same amount of time, so I just spread their buckets out and let them have at it.



Once everyone is done eating their grain, they follow me down to the small barn for their morning hay. The big herd gets five square bales twice a day and I like to spread it out over a huge area and have at least 10 more piles than I have horses. This way there is plenty of small piles of hay and no one gets beat up over it.





Mandy heads back home as soon as we can free the trailer from it's mire of mud. The fence at Hunter's new home will hopefully be finished soon so that he can move on as well. But I'm going to miss the little guy! This will bring us back down to 13 horses in the big herd plus the three bachelors in the back. Woohoo!






Since Manny left Radar has buddied right up with Indy and now the two are inseparable. It's nice to finally see Indy have a friend.






Dear old Dolly. It's really not too cold out today, the troughs aren't even iced over, but I keep blankets on Indy and Dolly if it's below 45. Dolly has also developed cataracts. Doc says it could take anywhere from six months to two years for her to go totally blind. She is also acting like she's losing her hearing. Every morning I have to go searching for her because she's waaaaay in the back pasture by herself instead of with the rest of the herd hanging out close to the barn. I can call and call and call, but she typically doesn't pick up her head and react to my presence until I'm within 50 feet or so. Then she gives me a nicker and follows me back to the barn for breakfast. Poor old girl. She's really put some hooks into my heart recently and it's going to be tough to say goodbye when the time comes.








I sometimes have to remind myself that Junior is also getting up there in age. He'll be 23 or 24 in March, I can't remember exactly. I'll have to dig out his registration papers one of these days and take a look.






I do know that Semi is one year older than Junior, but she's in much better physical shape. The queen of the herd may outlast us all just for spite.






The token Maverick picture. What horse post of mine would complete without Maverick? I think he's going through a bit of a growth spurt, what do you think? Grow, Mavvy, GROW!!