fall grass

All us ponies are really happy.  Today the lady came back and opened the white strings where she brings hay into our field when it is cold outside.  It is not cold outside so we did not know what she was doing.  She stood there and called us over, but we let Harley and Billy go first to see what was going on.  The lady has been out there messing around along the woods in the field next to our pasture for a couple of days now.  She made piles of brush and pulled up the brown strings that were in the woods with sticks on top of them.  So when Harley and Billy got there, she told them to walk right with her into the field of nice grass.  We could hardly believe it.  We all ran over and ran right into the nice grass too!   Except DD who got left behind somehow and then didn't notice that we were going through a place where the lady took the string down.  She ran right through the white string and pulled down two posts with her.  DD is my sister and very cute but she isn't brightest star in the sky, if you get my drift.  So then we ran through the field very excited, but there was more white string at the top of the hill, so we had to stop and eat nice grass.  All day! The lady spent the whole day with us, sitting on top of the orange machine while it picked up piles of brush with its long teeth and carried them over to our big brush pile.  We are never ever ever going to leave this nice grass.  Except maybe to get something to drink.      

Bush -hogging

The big orange machine came out and ran around in our pasture this morning,  It lets the lady ride on it's back, even tho she doesn't give it carrots.  We do not think the orange machine is very smart.  It pulls a big flat noisy red thing around behind it and makes the weeds flat.  Or flattter than before, anyway.  Mostly it runs around in the parts where the manure is, because that is where the high weeds are.  The lady thinks that making the weeds flat will help the grass to grow, but really, it is the manure we put there that makes the nice grass.  We don't eat in those areas tho, so I guess that is why there are high weeds.  The orange machine ran around on the big hill in our pasture and on part of the low areas too.  A big blue gray bird with long legs landed right next to the Orange machine, but then the machine started going towards it and the bird said "Oops" and flew away.  Then a big brown bird that was sitting in the trees flew down and landed right where the weeds were flat.  It did that couple of times.  Us ponies thought when it flew away it would have a mouse, but it didn't.  We kept an eye on the lady to see if she went to one of our apple trees to throw us the apples we can't reach.  Most of our apple trees are along the fence, so we can eat some of the apples when they fall down but there are a lot of them that we can't get. There have not been any apples at all and we do not see any apples on the trees.  And the lady didn't get us any apples either.  So now most of our pasture on the big hill is flat and part of the low field is flat too.  The orange machine went around those spindly weeds that get the pink flowers.  The lady says she likes those weeds.  Us ponies don't care one way or another.  We don't eat those weeds.  When the Orange machine was done, it was all yellow and very dusty.  Even the red flat thing was yellow. It was a kind of interesting morning, but there were no carrots.  

Excitement

Ha Ha!  That Tux is so funny!  You know, Tux used to be a big pony and live with us, but now he is a little horse and lives up at the barn with his buddy Marco.   He and Marco rotate around the small paddocks and the arena to eat grass.  They don't have any fancy sheds like the rest of us ponies do, so they get to go in the barn when it gets too hot and buggy out.   The lady rides Marco in the mornings and then she takes Tux to look at stuff and get used to all the normal things that horses are not supposed to freak out about.  They get lots of treats and Tux does not like that Marco is getting treats while he, Tux, is stuck by himself in the paddock or in the stall.  This morning, the lady rode Marco around in the arena and Tux was calling him from the small paddock. When the lady took Marco back to put him in the paddock, he stopped halfway through the gate.  Tux was pretty mad about him being out and getting lots of attention and treats, so he was thinking about biting Marco.  So Tux came around the other side of Marco, but instead of biting, he turned and slipped out the gate really fast.   He was FREE!!!!!! He was SO excited!  Now, if that was me, and I had all that fetlock-deep grass underfoot, I'd start chewing for all I was worth.  But not Tux!  He galloped off into the yard and headed right for the gate.  Of course, the gate was closed, but he ran over to check it out anyway.  Then he ran along the fence looking for a way out to the road, but he couldn't find one.,  So he bolted back past the small paddock and out in the the hay field.  Hooray!  He zoomed at a full gallop around the arena in the hay field.  And again.  And again.  Then he trotted by with his flashy trot and his head all up and his tail flagging.  The lady suggested to him that he could stop getting all sweaty and get away from the horse flies if he came over to her, but he was having none of it.  He ran around the lawn and tasted some of the small trees and then ran over to check out the solar system boxes and cables that are on the barn wall.  He went around the barn ALL BY HIMSELF and came galloping straight at the bank and slid to stop right before he hit the concrete.  It was so exciting!  He was so bold!  He made sure that Marco could see him being "all that" and would be super jealous.  Marco was just upset that his BFF was running AWAY, so he called him to come back and ran along the fence.  After a while, he had made his point and walked over the lady and told her to do something about all the horse flies that were attacking him because he was all sweaty. She took him in The Pony Palace and he got many treats.  It was a very exciting morning!        

bugs and heat

Ugh, bugs.  Bugs in our ears.  Bugs biting our bellies and our necks.  Mean mean bugs.  How are we supposed to go look for nice grass when the bugs bite us as soon as we step outside of our sheds?   The lady doesn't bring us any hay any more, so now we have to look for our own grass to eat.  She still comes to see us and we run out to see if she has carrots or other nice treats, but then the bugs bite us, so we have to run back into our sheds. Sometimes she puts gooky stuff in our ears, but we hate that.  It doesn't keep the bugs away for very long.   My mom Tudi and Harley have bugs in their ears the worst.  The lady put a thing our their heads that covers their faces and ears, I guess to keep the bugs off them.  Tudi didn't like that, so after she rubbed the second one off and lost it, she didn't get any more. Harley wears his because he thinks it makes him more important than the rest of us ponies. Sometimes the lady brings other ladies back to see us, but not like she did last year when it was hot.   She spends a lot of time in that big barn without any ponies.  Today she came out with the orange machine and was running over the big weeds outside of our pasture and making them kind of flat.  Then the machine made a big racket and when she drove over the weeds, they stood right back up.   So she left and then she came walking around with a flat round thing on a stick. The thing made a funny buzzing noise sometimes, and then the lady would dig around in the weeds, but she didn't find anything. She didn't bring that buzzing thing into our pasture, but I would have walked right up to it if she had carrots.  So then she left and that was that.  The weeds are still out there.    

Brown, yellow and gray travails

Brown and yellow and gray.  Everything in our pony world is brown and yellow and gray. It is pretty boring.  There is hardly any white stuff at all.  Sometimes there is a little at night, but then the next day it turns brown.  Where there used to be nice green grass, it is brown and yellow. There are some green trees in the magical forest, but we can't get in there any more.  Most of the ponies are brown as well.  Even the black and red and gray ones are brown.  A couple of days ago, we heard the lady coming in the little green truck thing with our morning hay so we all gathered around to wait for her.  But instead of coming across the field like it usually does, the little green truck thing started going sideways and then it went backwards right into some bushes.   Usually the little green truck thing has more sense than that, but maybe it was trying to hide from something scary.  But we didn't see anything scary.  We just saw our breakfast stopping in bushes really far away.  Then the lady walked off in the opposite direction which was really disheartening.  After a long while (like forever) the big orange machine came bouncing along on it's round feet and it went over and stood in front of the green truck thing.  The lady got out and talked to the truck thing and the orange machine and then she climbed on the orange machine's back and it started to back up and the green truck thing followed it out of the bushes.  When it was out about five pony lengths, she got off the orange machine and rode in the green truck thing to bring us our hay.  Then, that afternoon, she came a different way in the green truck thing and it got all obstinate and wouldn't climb out of some brown holes that were really wet and she had to go climb on the orange machine that was still sitting in the field from the morning and it came and talked the green truck thing into bringing us our hay AGAIN.  Like it wasn't bad enough that we had to be out in wind and water that fell all day and all night and filled up the creeks and made our pastures squishy.  But last night it got cold so the water in the pastures and the creeks turned hard and gray on top.  As you know, it is very dangerous to try to walk on the flat gray ground, so us ponies try to not do that. So this morning, the green truck came down to the field with the lady and our hay, but we couldn't get over to it because we were on the side of the creek with the sheds.  The lady came walking over to see if the bridge was washed out because there was a way lot of water and the big logs that used to be along the side of the trail where we walked to the bridge were now sideways and in the way.  She stepped over the logs and walked to where the gray ground was along the bridge and Toby went and stood on the bridge to watch to see if she fell down and disappeared.  But the gray ground just crunched and brown squishy ground came up through it and she walked right through it.  Hooray!  Toby stepped on the gray ground and it turned squishy too.!   So we knew that we were saved from starvation and we all came trotting across the bridge and said Hi! to the lady.  She went one way back toward the hay and we went the way we usually go on the trail, but that was flat shiny gray ground too, so rather than risk it, we had to turn around and follow the lady across the lumpy ground with the sticks.  We finally got our hay and it was delicious.