tricks

Hooray!  It is raining, so we should be getting more nice grass.  And maybe we will even get to eat nice grass by our pond, where we can see the grass is very green.  If we go out there, then my dad Bob and his mares can't eat grass in the field next to us because Bob doesn't like some of us ponies being too close to his family.  He stands by the fence and makes nasty faces at us.  So sometimes we just go out there at night.  Today it is super windy and some big branches fell off the trees.  Some of us ponies went to the white hill, but it was flapping and making a lot of noise, so it was very scary.  The lady has a new game where we have to "step up" to get carrots.  There are wood slats on top of other pieces of wood and they are about a hoof height off the ground.  And on top of them is a bouncy black mat with lots of little round holes in it.  I do not think it is very scary and I got lots of carrots for stepping on it.  But some of the ponies are pretty sure that they are going to get sucked into those little holes, so they don't want to step on it.  They got a couple of carrots for standing next to it, but I got way more carrots than they did. Harley gets lots of carrots because he is a favorite.  We are all getting our winter coats already, so Harley is jet black and looks quite stunning.  You know, he is bossy, and he really likes carrots, so he tries everything to get more of them.  If he just knows the lady has carrots in her pockets, he starts doing all the stuff that got him carrots before, but it only works if the lady asks him to do it first, but he doesn't care. So he ends up nodding and prancing and pawing and shoving his head on her shoulder or under her arm.  I get tired just watching him.  Now he has been learning about taking her hanky in his mouth and he bit her twice today.  Hard.  Actually, he still got carrots, but she yelled anyway.  I never bite the lady, but I didn't even get to see that purple hanky.  Yet.          

No leaping!

So us ponies have been getting a lot of good carrot time in the big box and the White Hill.  Almost all us ponies walked into the box after we checked it our, except for that Tux.  He is really suspicious.  He didn't want to even put his toes on the ramp. He didn't get nearly as many carrots as the rest of us.  You know, that little bossy dog goes zipping by us all the time to run back to our pond and then she jumps into the water and makes a lot of noise and sticks her head in holes.  When she comes out, she is so muddy, we are thinking of making her an honorary pony.  The geese don't like it too much, but we wish those stupid geese would go away anyway.  There are like a hundred of them and we have feathers everywhere.
   Those big dogs have not been back to bite my dad Bob and his mares, but his face got sore again and had  red blood dripping from it.  The lady puts stuff on it to keep the flies off.  The lady was trimming Taca's hooves in their shed and she asked Taca why none of the other ponies were in the shed.  She could tell there were a lot of flies around because there was a lot of buzzing, but the ponies were standing outside the shed and even Taca wanted to leave to be with the others.  Then the lady looked up and saw a round gray nest as big as Taca's head on the wall right next to them.  There were yellow buzzing bugs flying in and out alot!  So she decided to finish Taca's feet outside the shed.  And then she went down later and put white stuff on the round thing and the bugs fell out and stopped buzzing.  So now Bob and the mares go back in the shed.
   This morning the lady took Harley to the White Hill and sat on his back.  She didn't have a saddle or bridle, she just had carrots, so when Harley went the right way he got a carrot.  Harley is overly enthusiastic about carrots. He has been ridden a lot and is a good jumper, but he never played this game before.  He really wanted the carrots and he didn't think he was getting them fast enough.  It is frustrating to have to wait for the lady to ask you to do stuff and then figure out what she wants before you get a carrot.  So Harley was pretty revved up about the carrot/riding game.  So he started leaping into the air.  He was thinking he was one of those Lipizzaners.  The lady didn't like the leaping.  She told him she didn't ask for leaping, so he didn't get any carrots for that.   I will be next and I will get a lot of carrots!     

gigantic box on wheels

    So there has been much excitement around here since those big bad dogs were here.  My dad Bob had to stay in the barn for a couple of days but now he is back out with his mares, although his face has sores and looks funny and the lady comes out with a big needle a couple of times during the day and pokes it in his neck.  Bob doesn't like that too much.   But we have not seen those big bad dogs again.  The lady doesn't let Bob and his mares go out in the pasture where the big bad dogs were, but she let us ponies go out to eat the nice grass by our pond yesterday.  The grass is better since we got all that rain.  There was like a horse hoof high of rain!    
    Some of us ponies and some of the horses got to look and walk into the gigantic box with wheels.  There is a noisy, kind of bouncy, dark ramp that you have to put your foot on before you can walk into the gigantic box.  She takes Ferris in there the most.  Ferris has a bump on his face but it isn't because of the gigantic box.  Yesterday she was making hissing noises with metal tubes inside the box and then some of those skinny bugs fell down from the top of it.  Then when Harley walked up the ramp to the box, one of those skinny bugs fell right on his head!  Harley was so surprised, he didn't think walking in the box was a good idea.  So the lady said he could wait and walk in the box another day.  I walked right into the box because there was a little bucket at the front of it and I know the lady carries good grain in those buckets.  I got carrots and grain!  I didn't ever want to leave that box, but I had to back out of it anyway.  Then I got carrots for backing out.  And then we went to the White Hill and the lady sat on top of me.  I still think she doesn't know what she is doing.  But whatever -- I walk around and get carrots and she wiggles her legs and shifts her weight around up there, which is not any big deal to me. I mostly just try to ignore her until it seems like a carrot is coming my way.          

Bad dogs!

Even tho it has been hot, we have had pretty much activity here.  The lady has been taking us to the White Hill and we get lots of carrots.   I mean LOTS!  She has a bag of carrots as big as a baby pony in that little green truck thing.  We get to walk and trot around and she sits on our backs.  It is kind of fun because there are hardly any bugs at all in the White Hill.  This morning  the lady pulled this big gigantic box with wheels around the White Hill with her gray truck.  When she got out of the truck, she looked around because there was a lot of dog barking going on.  She looked at the little bossy dog that was in the truck and the other two little dogs and they were not barking.  So she ran to the top of the hill and looked down by the pond.  All us ponies had already run down to the pond because that was where all the excitement was.  There were two big dogs dancing around my dad Bob and his mares and foal.  Bob would charge at the big dogs to try to keep them away, but the one big dog would run at Bob and bite his nose or his legs.  The other big dog was happy about it and kept jumping up and down and egging his friend on.  The lady grabbed her little dogs and put them in the barn and then ran down the hill with a lead rope.  She yelled at the big nasty dogs and they stopped attacking Bob and looked at her.  Then they decided to run off and ran to the end of the pasture.  Poor Bob had blood all over him and that is not a good look for a white pony.  Now Bob and his mares are back inside their "predator proof" fence in hopes that the big dogs won't be able to bite him any more.    

wasps

    In the morning, the lady went through the gate to my dad, Bob's pasture where he lives with his mares and then she started jumping around and waving her front legs and saying loud funny words.  You know, with ladies, their front legs don't have hooves, so it's probably a good thing they don't try to walk on them.  They have skinny wiggly things like worms that they can use to open gates.  Anyway, the lady didn't even want to go close to the gate then and after she fed the ponies, she drove the little green truck thing up to the barn and then went back down to the gate.  She had a red cylinder metal thing with a picture of a skinny bug on it and she pointed the top of it at the gate and the gate turned white.   Then skinny yellow bugs like the one on the metal thing started falling off the gate.   Then it was like she was on a mission.  She came to our gates and the gates by the barn and was making those skinny bugs fall down from all the gates. She kept rubbing her one front fetlock and it was red and way bigger than the other one.  
    We have not had much rain, so there is not much nice grass.  We have been out looking for some in the field behind our regular pasture, but there is not much out there.  The little spare lady was driving the orange machine around in our pasture and picking up rocks and putting them in the big orange thing's mouth.  Then she made it spit them out by our hay boxes.  And today our lady was making lots of dust in our pasture by driving the littler orange machine out there.  When she was done, it was pretty flat.  Now we have to eat hay by the rocks.
   I don't know why everyone is getting to go into the white hill except me.  Well, maybe not everyone, but there have been a lot of ponies getting carrots and pedicures.  They don't even have to carry anything or anyone around on their back usually.  It is too hot to carry anything around.   They just get to go in there and try to figure out what that lady wants and then they get a carrot.  I need to get in on some of that action.       

summer daze

Well, now it is hot and there are many bugs. Almost every day, the lady comes out and takes some of us ponies over to the barn or the white hill.  It is nice and cool and bug-free in the barn but sometimes there are other horses in there and stuff keeps moving around so every time I go there it looks scary all over again.  The lady brushes me and combs my tail and sprays wicked-smelling stuff on me and puts gooey stuff in my ears.  Then sometimes she sticks the brown lumpy thing on my back and we go to the white hill and she sits on top of me.  I don't much care for it, but I am trying to be nice to her because I don't think she knows what she is doing.  She makes funny noises and squeezes me with her legs and then she pulls my head sideways even tho I am going a totally different direction.  It is like she can't even tell where we are going. Fortunately, she gives me carrots once in a while if I walk when she squeezes her legs and clucks her mouth.  She does the same thing with the other ponies and some of the horses.   This morning I went with her to the barn and then she made my hooves look nice. I didn't think that was necessary either, but I must admit I like the way they look and feel now.   We have a little bit of grass in our field but we would have more if there was rain.  At night, the lady gives us hay in the boxes, but sometimes we would rather stay out in the field and look for grass.  She doesn't want us to stay in that field.  She thinks we might try to go mow the neighbor's grass again. That is excellent grass, so she might be right.  

muggy and buggy

Ughhh -- now it is hot and muggy and buggy.   All us ponies want to do is stand in our shed and get away from the bugs.  Actually we would like to eat nice grass by the pond, but it is better in the shed.  Yesterday the lady took me to the white hill and I got to trot around and wear the lumpy brown thing on my back.  She had that dark horse Alexis in there earlier and she sat on top of Alexis, so I thought she was going to sit on top of me too, but she didn't.  She just wanted me and Toby to trot around and be gorgeous.  It was  nice in the white hill because the sun can't get in there and there were hardly any bugs, but that was, as I said, yesterday and today would be a different story. Even without sun in there, it is too hot to trot around.  Artie and that hunk Fusion are in the barn and they hardly ever get to hang out in stalls with fans on them.  This morning the other lady who had been riding Fusion came out in our field and got Haylie and took her up to the white hill.  I don't think she likes to ride Fusion any more because all he wants to do is jump over the jump in the arena.  He doesn't even want to trot along the sides or anything, if he gets the least bit of leeway, he will tear off and jump over that jump.  I'll bet today he wouldn't want to jump over the jump and get sweatier.  But she rode Haylie around anyway before it got so hot.