Day Off

Richard doesn't work horses on Sunday or Monday........supposedly. What that means is that Richard finds it hard to take a day off. He enjoys what he does, so he just can't seem to keep himself out of the barn. He can always find some excuse to "have to" work a horse or two.

I really never know for sure if Sunday and Monday are really going to be a day off or if there just might be some reason to work horses. I always try to approach those days being open to whatever might happen. After all, I'm just as nuts about playing horses as Richard........

However, today, I actually did get a day off. Despite the fact it started off at 5 AM at the gym.............ok, I over slept by 15 minutes and didn't make the gym until quarter after. Which meant I fed horses late........at about 6.30.

Then before 8 a friend called wanting to come by and drop off some hay she didn't need. She'd put her horse into training and wanted to clean out her barn so she thought of me and my herd for her leftovers. That meant unloading a trailer load of hay. Finished that up about 9.

Then since the weather has been beautiful here for a couple of days, the ground is dry enough to turn horses out. I spent the next hour and a half turning over very happy, very rambunctious horses.

Each tried hard to contain herself until she was set free but it was easy to see the pent up energy oozing out everywhere. I love those walks where the feet are rising about six extra inches off the ground, the nostrils flaring, the tail at full mast as the horse tries to be good.

The only one that didn't try was poor Scarlet. She was weaned a couple of weeks ago so she's been locked up in the barn. This was her first outing and she didn't try to contain herself at all.

That filly literally tried to drag me to the closest paddock. I swear my arm must be six inches longer after wrestling with that monkey. It's a good thing she's not any bigger than she is. I might have lost that battle otherwise.

The way that filly behaved you would think she'd never had any kind of halter lessons. You can bet that a refresher course is the first thing on my list.

Lindsay didn't help with the turnouts. The horses were just to wound up to take any chances. Instead I had her go ahead of me and remove all their blankets. That way I could just grab their halters and go.

When the horses have been cooped up like this they have way too much steam to let off. They race around like fools........and each time one of their friends is added to the mix, it all starts up again. So getting them out as quickly one after the other as possible makes for a little less drama. As much as I love seeing them play, there's a certain amount of apprehension that goes along with them blowing off that kind of energy.

Today, the first thing the two year old fillies did, once they were all together, was begin to play tag running through the creek. At one time all four of them were in the middle of the creek splashing each other and then racing off, kicking and bucking and whinnying.... then heading back for the creek.

I watched for a while as they played. Each took turns throwing herself down into the water and splashing the rest of them. They must have played in that creek for over an hour. However, you can bet if I'd gone back to the house to get my camera, they would have stopped instantly.

After the horses were all turned out, I worked some on cleaning up my blanket storage. From there I was on to moving a stack of limbs to the burn pile. I couldn't burn them because we are experiencing an inversion layer, but at least I'm ready to start my fire when the weather service says it's ok.

I also transported a couple of horses today. Cleaned out one barn and sorted my blanket repairs to see what I need to get them fixed. Once that stuff was all done, it was time to put horses back in and tuck them in for the night.

Scarlet was just about as bad going in as she was coming out..........so there was another extended schooling session. By the time I got to the others it was already dark and they were now nearly as pushy as Scarlet. The little princesses all think they will turn into pumpkins if they're out past dark so they were frantic to be inside........and, of course, have dinner.

In the middle of getting them all situated, Dave called. He was all crippled up with muscle spasms in his back and needed rescuing. By the time he arrived home he couldn't even stand up to get into the house. He ended up crawling up the stairs.

It was a long night and frankly, I'm going to be really glad to get back to work!

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