Bless You!
Bill is out of town this week, so I’m pretty much on my own with the horses. I did convince The Kid to help me turn them out yesterday morning, and he kept me company while I mucked out the stalls last night, but this morning he was tied up with a video game so I had to let them out of the barn on my own.
We have a routine now, and the horses have expectations. I open Moonshine’s stall door and she sticks her head out to see Bill down by the fence with carrots. She moseys out while I let Valentine out of his stall. He can’t see Bill from where he is, so he snuffles up some hay in the barn aisle while I try to convince him that carrots are MUCH better than old hay. He finally goes out, they get their carrots and I go down to join Bill and love on them before they head out to the pasture for the day.
Well, this morning Moonshine stuck her head out and no Bill. No carrots. No reason to leave the barn. There’s a storm brewing too, so she pretty much just wanted to go back in the stall. I finally got the gate closed behind her so she half-heartedly headed over to the fence. Valentine actually exited much faster than he usually does, but as soon as he saw that there was no one at the fence, he started out to the pasture. Moonshine, of course, followed him. I called but they ignored me. So I ran out to my post at the fence and whistled. They both stopped, looked back and apparently realized that hey, there really were going to be carrots today, and RAN back to the fence! It was so cool. Now, I know you cynics out there will say that they only came for the carrots…but they did respond to my whistle. They’re actually pretty well-trained about that now, they come to me at night too. (Okay, okay, they’re coming for oats then, but still.)
The best part this morning, though, was when they came back to the fence. They crowded up together and I gave Valentine his carrot and Moonshine…sneezed on me. I’m not talking a little cat sneeze either, it was a blast. All over my head. While I was telling her how gross and nasty that was I fed her a carrot too and while she was munching that down she sneezed on me AGAIN! This time with carrot puree! She got Valentine too, he had the evidence on his head. I’ll tell you what, no one can sneeze like a horse.
Then I headed down to the house for a shower.
and two other horse-related books
A few posts ago (
Last night I was in the sound room of our church helping push buttons to keep the Christmas program on track when suddenly I got a whiff of a familiar scent. I mostly detected the smell of ammonia but also a hint of day-old horse manure. But I wasn’t wearing barn clothes or my barn shoes. Oh man, I think I walked through the barn in these shoes. How embarrassing. I mean I live in the country and all and many of the people we know have horses but still, I’d prefer to not smell like horse excrement all the time. I’m hoping I haven’t doomed yet another pair of shoes to barn duties. I have a pair of Justin cowboy boots I use for horse stuff…riding, working in the barn and pasture. They hold up well and offer better protection than old sneakers. Once I tried to clean them up to wear out somewhere. Nothing fancy but more than a trip to the feed store, if you know what I mean. Soap and water and boot shine make them look almost new but they still reeked of ammonia. I suppose it soaks into the rubber sole or leather.
