Hello Friends!

I’ve decided to not give up control of Mom’s blog.  Still trying to figure out how to change the password so she can’t use the blog, but I guess that would be easier if I knew what a password was.

Do you know that Mom and Dad left me behind again when they went on vacation?  Can you believe that?!  Mom said that they were visiting islands on a boat and that there was no room for me or my brother.  Must have been a very small boat if we couldn’t fit on it.  If that is the case, I doubt that they had a good time.  I know that things here weren’t all sun and fun while they were gone.

While they were on the boat, we had to endure another snow storm.  I again tried to eat it, but this stuff was as bland as the other stuff.  White grass is worthless.  My brother tells me that he is certain that the green grass will be back soon.  The good side of having white grass is that I didn’t have to do any work while it covered the ground.  Word around the barn is that Mom told Ms. C to ride me two or three times while she was away.  As it was, Ms. C did make me do stuff twice, but I did my best to let her know that I wasn’t thrilled with this plan.

The first time was before the storm.  Ms. C put me on a really long lead rope and made me go in circles around her.  Hmm, just because my legs are longer than hers, why do I have to do all the work?  She also had a really long stick with a rope attached.  I tried to ignore what she was saying and do whatever I wanted, but that made her shake that stick at me.  If I ignored the stick, she would shake the stick so the rope wiggled like a snake.  Meanie.  I showed her by taking off so fast that she dropped the rope.  I ran to the far end of the arena, but thought I saw that scary bird hiding in the bushes, so I ran back to Ms. C.  She was less scary than the prehistoric bird.  Along with learning what a password is, I’m planning to learn how to use that stick thing.

Then right before Mom came home, Ms. C put on my saddle to ride me.  I am usually tacked in my stall, so I cleverly walked too close to the stall door and managed to pull the stirrup away from the saddle.  Ms. C couldn’t get it reattached.  Yea!  Awesome, I thought, no work for me!  But she then put her saddle on my back.  Wait a minute, how uncool is this.  Did she really think that I was going to wear a strange saddle?  No way.  I let her know right away that I thought her saddle was a bad idea.  She mumbled something about a fairy tale called The Princess and the Pea, but I’m still not clear how that relates to me and her saddle.

The highlight of my week was the warm weather on Saturday which meant that my blanket had to come off.  Heehee.  When all the white snow went away, it left behind some gooey mud.  My brother has shared with me his mud application techniques to get full body coverage.  You first need to work the mud with your hooves to make sure that there are no dry spots that would keep parts of your body mud-free.  One also must make sure that your rolling method allows you to get full coverage on your sides as well as where the saddle goes.  Cigar says that the saddle area is the most important, but also make every effort to coat your neck and face as well.

I think I did a good job because I stopped Mom in her tracks when she came to the barn on Sunday.  I’m pretty sure she almost gave up the thought of riding, but then a determined look swept over her face and she pulled out the curry.  I made her chase me around my stall a few times too, but she stuck with it.  She worked hard enough to clean off the saddle, girth and bridle spots, but she did leave a significant amount of mud on my legs, my butt, and in my mane and tail.  She won’t win any grooming contests anytime soon.

Even though I was mad at her for leaving me, I was glad to see her especially since she brought juicy apples from her travels.  At least I’d like to think she brought them home from vacation.  It is the least she could do.  We had a good time on Sunday and a lesson with Ms. C on Monday.  They gave me a lot of praise and Stud Muffins.  Guess I will try to be good under saddle since I like getting treats.  Can’t make any promises about staying clean.

Ike