Action at the park with the square rocks

The lady opened the big gate by the road in the morning before she gave us hay and pretty soon, trucks started coming in the gate. They drove right by us and went to the park with the square rocks sticking up. Then men got out of the trucks and started making lots of noise. They made trees fall down and pulled big piles of dead brush out of the park and put it in the field. The lady drove up there with the big orange machine and took some of the brush and tree parts down to a big pile by our pond. After the men left, the lady went back up with the big orange machine and turned some of the tree parts into little wood pieces that she put in the White Hill. She was very busy. Now it is cold and windy, so I don't think she wants to do that. When she tells us to get back from the hay boxes before she puts the hay in, her words are squeaky and she is coughing like she got into bad hay. This hay doesn't make us cough, so I don't know what hay she is eating.

Deer parts

The lady came out to our pasture and had her pockets full of carrots, so we all crowded around and wanted her to give them to us. But she put a halter on Tux and took him out of the gate. Tux is just a three year old and he hardly ever gets to go anywhere, so he was surprised. But he thought getting the carrots was worth the weirdness, so he followed along and they went into the barn and stood on the kind of bouncy ground with the lines on it. The lady got a funny looking nubby comb and scratched it on Tux and tried to get the dirt off him, but he was really dirty, so it didn't work real good. I think it is because he is a boy. Boys are always dirtier than us pretty girls. Then she took the metal stick and put it next to him to see how tall he is. I don't know why she did that. It is pretty easy to see that he is the same size as my brother Harley. Tux didn't want to have the stick next to him, but he put up with it even tho he was a little nervous. Then they got to go into the white hill and he trotted around a little bit and checked it out. He was pretty pleased with his little adventure when he got back out to see us. So no sooner did she let him go and there was Toby barging up and wanting some attention. Toby always wants to be in the middle of everything. So she put the halter on Toby and took him to the barn and put the metal stick next to him too. He didn't care, he was only interested in the lumpy brown thing that I was wearing the day before. So she strapped that lumpy brown thing on his back too and they went to the white hill. Toby thought he was pretty great carrying that lumpy thing around and he had his head all up and was trotting and acting like he owned that place. You know, the footing in there is little pieces of wood that are all chopped up and it is kind of soft and in some parts it is deeper than others. Toby was trotting along the sides of the walls mostly and the lady was cutting across some of the deeper stuff that was almost like a little pile and she tripped and almost fell down. Toby even stopped to see what was going on. The lady turned around and pawed at the wood stuff and a long skinny thing came out of it with a black pointy hoof on the end of it. So the lady pawed at it some more and it was a whole leg of a deer. Not just the part by the foot, but the whole way up to the slanty part. It was almost as long as Toby's leg. "Do you think the cat drug this in?" the lady asked Toby. Toby didn't know what to think. It seemed way too big and heavy for a cat to drag anywhere, but Toby really doesn't know much about cats. So the lady took the lumpy thing off his back and put him out with us. We all thought the deer leg story was the most interesting story we heard all day.

A good day

Well, even tho the weather has been not very cold and there has only been a bit of white stuff on the ground in the mornings, we have been totally neglected ponies and have hardly got any carrots at all forever. Oh sure, the lady brings us nice hay and puts it in the boxes and our big hay net, and she files our hooves so they look pretty and sometimes she pets us, but really, doesn't she realize how much we need carrots just to be appreciated? Of course, it has been a little windy and that big metal thing that she dragged out of the woods some time back is all noisy and trying to escape from where she tied it, but I still think she could pay more attention to us. Yesterday she rode around by our field on Artie and that hunk of a pony Fusion. We ran over to the fence and watched them go by. Today she was messing around with that white mare and then she drove back and filed the hooves on the mares that live with my dad and FINALLY, she came and got me and took me to the white hill. There were carrots already there waiting for me, but there was also a big brown lumpy thing that she picked up off the fence and put on top of me. It was gigantic, but it hardly weighed anything at all. And it had some shiny metal parts that were jingly. After she tightened a strap around my belly and gave me carrots, she let the metal things fall down by my sides and they were even more jingly, which I didn't like too much. So I trotted around and looked at them a couple of times, and then I just stopped and got carrots. So that actually worked out pretty well. The lady would say Trot and point which way she wanted me to go, so I would trot a little bit and then when she said Whoa, I stopped and got carrots. It was a really simple game and quite rewarding. So then I got to go back out with my friends, (but without the big lumpy thing on my back) and got to eat hay. It was finally a good day. We need more of those.

rain bat

Now the ground is hard and shiny and us ponies are sliding around on top of it. A little bit, not a whole lot. Yesterday it was raining and the lady came to see us with some other ladies. The other ladies were scary because they had a giant bat over top of their heads. It was black and just flapping a little bit, so I am not sure how it was staying up there. Mak and Ferris didn't like that bat at all and trotted around looking pretty. Us ponies, we just stayed back and snorted a little bit so the bat would know to not come over here. The ladies said we were cute and they took their bat and left. Then last night, the wind was blowing and making a lot of noise, so we had to stay in our sheds. But there was still hay in our nets, so we tore one off the fence and put big holes in both of them so we could eat that hay faster. The lady took string from the hay bales this morning and made the holes go away. After she walked all over the field looking for the board and hay net that we pulled down. It is too bad she messes up all our good work. But it was good that she went down to the creek the other day with a big hammer and made holes for us there. That water was too hard to drink! We were even walking on top of the hard water. So now the white hill is making lots of flapping noises and it would probably be too scary to go in there. I could maybe do it for enough carrots tho.

visitors

The lady was so late with our breakfast -- I mean really really late and we were starting to think maybe we were never going to ever get breakfast again. We played a fun trick on her by biting a big hole in the bottom of one of our hay nets the day before, so when she put the hay in the net, it all fell right back out of the bottom! It was grand and we all ran in to grab as much as we could stuff in our mouths before she could take it away from us. So we were thinking maybe she was mad about that hole in the net and wasn't going to bring us any hay at all. And then she showed up with this whole bunch of other ladies, well actually, they were like ladies, but more like fillies, you know, not all grown up, but they were obviously smart because they wanted to know which of us was me and then they wanted to pet me. We all gathered around them and looked for our hay or carrots or SOMETHING, but all we got was petted. It was nice, but not breakfast. The filly ladies said we were beautiful. They did not give me a chance to bite any of their hats. They were talking about how fun and clever Fusion is because he did his tricks for them and they said he was entertaining. Then they left and finally we got our hay. The lady has not been spending much time with us because she has been messing with those big horse mares. She takes Jewel into the white hill and she gives all of them carrots. Today, that white stuff got all over the ground, so it is easier to walk around now, but we got wet. Sometimes there was rain and sometimes it was hard and stung our noses when it hit them. We mostly stayed in our shed except when there was hay to eat.

Misplaced priorities

Yesterday, the lady came walking right by our pasture with that big horse Jewel. Like always when we see her, Jewel was worried, so she was turning her head to look at the young horses on the other side of her and then sidestepping and turning to look at us and trying to look back over her shoulders. We should have known she was coming because that dark cute mare Alexis was yelling like crazy from her pasture. I guess Alexis might be sad because first her dad died in the field next to hers and then her mom moved out and lives way in the back, and I know that Jewel is her big sister, but I don't think Jewel even likes her. And really, when one of us ponies leaves with the lady, the rest of us don't get all upset and run along the fence looking for her or yelling, but then we know the lady is probably going to give that pony carrots. So if anything we are jealous about that pony getting to leave. Maybe Alexis doesn't know about the carrots because she hardly ever gets to go to the white hill or get any carrots. So anyway, Jewel was additionally worried about Alexis being all by herself in the field (with the two other horses,) on top of the fact that Jewel is worried about everything all the time. But she was being nice about it anyway. She followed the lady over the wood posts laying on top of the blue thing on the ground and walked right over top of them and she agreed to walk almost all the way over to the side of the white hill even tho it was making a funny flappy noise and moving in and out. I know that lady had carrots in her pockets because I could smell them so I stood right next to the gate in hopes that she would decide I was a whole lot less trouble than that big horse and give some of those carrots to me. But she didn't. She took Jewel into the white hill and I could hear Jewel's feet clicking around in there and sometimes her head would stick out at the end and she would make blowing nose noises in the direction of that yelling Alexis. After a while they came out and the lady had hardly any carrots in her pockets at all. That was disappointing. And Jewel looked fuzzier, so probably that lady was brushing her in there too. They went in the barn so then I couldn't see them. I wanted some carrots, but I still had hay to eat in the big hay nets, so I went back to eating it. Then I think that Alexis wasn't yelling so much and the lady walked back to their pasture with Jewel and put her inside. The other horses were all excited to see Jewel because she had been gone for such a long time. But you know, those horses actually have grass out in their field yet, because there is no white stuff covering it up, so they should have been eating that grass instead of standing by the gate all worried. Horses certainly have misplaced priorities.

hats

The lady is neglecting us horribly and just not coming through with the carrots like she ought to. Oh sure, she shows up every morning and night and throws hay in our boxes and in the big nets, but she has only taken me to the white hill twice since the last time I blogged. It is not even that cold out, there is no white stuff on the ground and the mud is so deep that we sink in to our fetlocks, so I don't know why we are being neglected. It is so warm we are almost sweating out here. Even so, the lady wears these big fuzzy hats that are just asking to be bit and I have to really restrain myself so that I don't actually take a piece out of them. She can tell that I am eying her hats and she waves her glove at me and tells me to back away, but you know, they really are enticing fuzzy hats. One has hair like a bunny and one is red and looks like a coyote died and pieces got stuck together for the hat. Yesterday she got that hunk Fusion out and rode him all around in the mud. They walked right by our pasture, but he didn't stop to talk to us, even tho Harley and Billy and Toby went over to the fence and said things to him try to make him mad. They went down to the pond and walked around there and then went over to where the garden for dead people is with the stones sticking out of the ground. Fusion was trotting and looking very handsome. The lady didn't have on a fuzzy hat while she rode Fusion, she had on a shiny dark green hat. Maybe she thought Fusion would bite those fuzzy hats.