Snow versus ice

Now there is white stuff falling from the sky again. We had white stuff falling a couple of times before and then there was a lot of white stuff piled up on the ground.  Then wet stuff fell and it got really warm so that us ponies could hardly stand it.  The wet stuff turned into water all over the ground and on top of the white stuff and the white stuff turned into shiny gray stuff.  Everything was turning into something else.  The creeks where the water runs that we drink got way high and over flowing and then overnight the water got hard and we couldn't drink it.  There was hard shiny gray water just about everywhere we looked.  We still had places with white stuff, so we walked on that, because everyone knows the number one horse rule is to never walk on shiny gray stuff  We walked on the white stuff to where the creek used to be and dug around with our hooves, but we couldn't find any water that wasn't hard.  The lady came out with a big stick that had a hard dark part at the top and she hit on the hard water and made banging noises.  Then the hard water fell apart and we could find water to drink again.  She went over to that Hunk Fusion's pasture and was walking on the white stuff and then  Fphumpf! --half the lady disappeared into the white stuff. Only the top half of the lady was sticking out.  The top half of the lady waved its arms and then came out of the white stuff backwards.  Then we could see the bottom half of the lady too and it was shiny.  So I guess she found water that wasn't hard and she didn't even have to bang around.  The white stuff that is falling now is covering over the shiny gray stuff.  We are waiting to see if that will be good or bad.  Sometimes it makes the ground better for walking, but sometimes it just hides the slippery parts.       .    

What if we get shot at?

Can you BELIEVE this?  The lady showed up here with these floppy things and put them on our heads!  She said we were rein dears. This is just plain embarrassing!   And it's not like there are even any reins involved.  (Harley says reins are the straps that the lady holds on to when she sits on his back.)  So there we were waiting for hay and next thing we knew, she was sticking these things on us and laughing. It is not funny.  We are not dears. 
She tried to put them on those horse mares' heads too, but the horse mares said "No way."  She didn't have any carrots so the horse mares were not playing.  So then she put the floppy things on top of the horse mares'  hay feeder. which the horse mares didn't like either.  But they checked them out anyway to see if they could eat them.  (You can't eat them -- I checked.)
  

White stuff

Wow!  There is white stuff everywhere!  Yesterday the ground had hardly any white stuff at all on it, and then after it got dark, the white stuff started to fall from the sky.  Those magic trees work really good to keep the white stuff from sitting on pony backs, but really, you have to stand under the magic trees for it to work -- Harley!  So when it got light again, we could hardly see anything because it was so bright.  The white stuff is as high as our pony knees all over where there used to be nice grass a long time ago.  We were starting to wonder where the lady was with our hay when here she came on the little orange machine and making a racket. The first problem was that she didn't have any hay with her like she does on the green truck.  Knowing how we were starving to death, you'd think she would have been considerate enough to bring us our hay before she went playing around on that orange machine. She was making the orange machine go backwards and it was spraying white stuff out in a big arc alongside it.  It took her forever to get back to our pasture gate, and when she got here, she just left again, but that time she made the machine go frontwards. And then finally, she came back with the little green truck thing and gave us our hay. It has been a trying morning, let me tell you.     

Magic in the hemlocks.

The lady has been futzing around in the woods next to our pasture every day.  She drives the little green truck thing in there and then sometimes she makes buzzing noises but most of the time, we can just hear her tromping around in there, where it is dark and there are too many bushes to see through.  So today, she came walking along where the fence tape was strung along the side of our pasture and next thing we knew, the tape was on the ground and then it just slithered away!  I saw it first, but I didn't want to say anything about it, but then Harley saw it and so he went running over to see what was going on.  And he could run right over where the fence used to be and right into the woods.  So we all went galloping after him and we could run right through all the trees, until there was new fence at the back along where stones were piled up.  So then we turned and ran in the other direction and there were apple trees and a big drop down to the creek.  We looked and looked, but there was no nice new grass. Every other time we went into a new section, there was nice grass, but not this time,  It was just lots of trees and bushes. The trees are green and smell good, not like the trees in other parts of our pasture which don't have any leaves on them.  And the trees make the woods dark.  Since there is no nice grass, we were wondering why the lady even had us go in there. You know, we have been making the trees in our pasture look very fancy by biting at the stems of them and making them light-colored, so we started to wonder if maybe she wanted us to be fancying up these trees too. So we were standing there under the green trees and then we could hear wet stuff falling out of the sky.  You know how you can hear the wet stuff hitting all around and then you can see the other ponies get wet and feel it get all cold on your back and on your ears and face?  Well, we could hear it, but we weren't getting wet!  So that was when I realized that we were in a magic forest. Which just proves my suspicions that I am a magic princess pony.  I'm so excited!           

Cold and Wet

So the weather has not been good and there is no nice grass growing at all.  Yesterday there was cold white stuff falling from the sky and then it just turned into wet stuff that made the dirt slippery and mushy.  It was really wet.  It made you feel like just biting any smaller pony's butt that came by you.  The lady was late with our hay and it took her forever to put it in the nets.  Then she went to give some feed to my dad Bob and his mares and foals in the pasture next to ours.  Those foals are getting big.  There is the one named Cracker Jack that used to be black and now he is roany like me.  The other one is Peaches' little brother.  The lady seems to have run out of names, so she just calls him Peaches' Brother, or PB.   PB was all bent about the lady showing up to feed them late.  The other ponies were nickering and milling around but PB came up to that lady as she came in the gate and swung his butt around and acted all menacing.  She didn't like that.  She whacked his butt and told him to knock it off.  He threw his head all around and was snorting and then trotted around in circles and kept turning his butt toward her.  She gave some feed to my dad Bob (who always eats first) and then went to put some in Taca's dish. But the dish had slushy water in it so after she dumped it out and stood up, PB had backed up toward her and Wham! Wham! -- he kicked her really hard!  Twice!  Personally I think that was a mistake.  You get more feed if you turn your head toward the lady than if you turn your butt toward her.  So then she had mud all over her and she called him some new names, but none of them were PB or even Peanut Butter.  She even threw a little stick at him as he cantered around in circles with his head all up and was bucking and all proud of himself.  So then he didn't get anything good to eat because he eats with his mama Taca, and he wouldn't come back over to her with the lady standing right there.  Today the sun is out so us ponies are in way better moods than when it was wet.  We just hope she gets back here quick with that hay.                 

new hay nets

So I told you about the square frame things that the lady put up in our pasture, right?  Then she came and hung up big fancy black nets on the square frames.  The black nets are pretty and they have green and blue strings wrapped around the part at the top, so we figured that the lady was giving us some sort of holiday decorations. Apparently this is a popular idea among some ladies who hang up different colored stuff on their barns depending on which holiday they decide to celebrate.  So we were surprised when the lady came down with the little green truck thing and put hay inside the nets!  Aha!  It seems like these nets are like vertical boxes.  But way way better.  You may recall we hate the boxes because they don't let us eat hay as fast as we wanted to.  Of course, in order to make this determination, first you have to get hay that is thrown out on the ground so you can eat it fast.  And then, if the hay after THAT hay is put in boxes, it is too hard to eat.  But this time, there was no initial hay for comparison.  So the choices were "no hay" versus "hay in nets".  Let me tell you -- hay in nets is WAY better than no hay at all.  Wow!  We love the hay in nets.  I will post some pics.  Even tho we are muddy in the pics.

     

slow feeder frames

So the weather is finally starting to get nice.  With breezes blowing our fuzzy fuzzy coats around and none of those flying bugs at all!  We have some of those little nasty crawling bugs that come off the bushes and then climb on our faces and necks and then get really fat.  Those bugs are itchy.  The lady comes out in the morning and pulls those bugs off and scratches our itchy necks, which is nice, but it will be nicer when the weather makes even those bugs stop climbing around.  We are excited because we got a new pasture and it had a LOT of nice grass, but that was a bunch of days ago so we ate that grass already.  That lady has been coming to visit and for a while she brought us apples, but now she doesn't so much any  more.  While she was going around where the new pasture is, she was dragging big dead trees around with that orange machine and then she would put sticks in the ground and climb over the trees so she could make hooks so that the white biting rope that goes around our pasture could hang on the sticks.  She doesn't walk as good as a pony does because her feet are really long and soft, not at all like pony feet and I think they get in the way alot.   The one day she was walking by a big tree on the ground and then she started swaying and all of the sudden she just fell down flat.  She said words that made us think she would try to bite or kick us if she was close by, but of course, she doesn't actually bite or kick us because she isn't a pony.  I think she has to say those words because she doesn't have any ears to signal that she is mad.  As you know, our ears are perfect and we can swivel them so the other ponies know if we are paying attention, or sleepy or really pissed off.  I feel sorry for the lady not having any ears.  She has some kind of pink circle things on the sides of her head, but they don't move at all, so I don't know what they are for.  Anyway, after the lady fell down, she didn't sit on our backs or give us carrots for a while.   THEN she came down to by the gate with the big orange machine and made deep holes and put square sticks in the ground.  We went over to help her while she was putting other square sticks across the tops of them.  She had a white bag that had little shiny things in it and we were investigating that when little Pinke started pawing at it with her foot so she could see the shiny metal things better.  Next thing she  knew, that bag was looped right around her foot and wiggling and horrible scary so she tried to run away.   But the bag held on to her foot and went rustling and bouncing right along with her!  There were little shiny metal things flying everywhere in the mud. But the lady didn't even say ear-pinning words, she just laughed and then went and picked up the white bag after it let go of Pinke's foot and put all the shiny metal things back inside.  So then we left.   There is no point in hanging around if you are going to be attacked by dangerous bags and don't get any carrots.  So we will just have to see what will happen with those odd square sticks. At least they aren't boxes that hide and hold on to our hay..  You know we hate the boxes.