Summertime

It's summertime for sure. Hot weather, and Camp Kids as thick as the flies. Well, almost. There are a lot of flies in the summer and they seem to like me better than any other horse at the farm.

Summer is nice though. Lots of horses being ridden past my stall all day, horses working in the Flat Arena where I can watch them from my paddock. Exciting things going on. Yesterday there was something going on in the Rolling Arena. A whole bunch of Camp Kids were in there on horses and a person with a big loud voice was shouting out instructions to them. I'd hear the person say, "Walk please! Walk your horses!" and the kids would all walk around the arena. Then the voice would say, "Trot! Trot please!" We walked around the poop loop four times yesterday and every time we passed the Rolling Arena, the voice was yelling at those kids. Once when we went by, all the horses and riders were lined up just standing there and the voice would yell out a name. Then all the people watching would slap their hands together. It made a lot of noise.

I don't know what was going on. There's not usually a lot of people watching us ride in any arena but there were a bunch there. It was kind of exciting but I didn't get bad or anything. I just walked past and wished I could see better. I couldn't though because Mom was making me walk nicely.

Sometimes there are a lot of people watching at the Little Rolling Arena where the big horses lunge around and the kids jump on and off of them. They put up a bunch of poles with pieces of cloth tied to them and they have loud noises they call music playing while the kids do their jumping. It's not just the one group of kids either - there are a whole bunch of different kids with different horses. The kids are wearing fancy clothes with all kinds of bright colors and shiny things on them and the horses are all clean and brushed and shiny. They have a loud-voiced person too and the people watching do that thing with their hands. I used to get scared by it all but now I just walk right past.

Everyone is going riding. I see lots of my friends all the time, either going past my stall when I'm in it or when I'm out on the poop loop or in the arena with my mom. We're not allowed to stop and visit when we're being ridden though, so we just snort or nicker really quick as we pass. Sometimes Mom lets me ride along with somebody. I've taken rides with Misty and Lily before and of course I ride with Sparky a lot. That's nice because you really can visit a little when you're right beside each other. Of course, I sometimes bump into them. I do tend to drift around when I'm riding but I'm getting better about that. We rode 3 poop loops today and I was pretty good for all of them.

I saw a bunch of friends. I saw Misty and her mom. They had finished riding and were at their barn. And I saw all the pasture horses because they were near the gate so Sparky nickered to me. That was nice. I saw that handsome grey gelding that I like. He was hanging his head out of his stall and he nickered to me too. And I saw my neighbor Spencer out walking with his mom. Spencer has an abscess in his foot so he has to have a bandage on it and can't go riding right now. So they go for walks. He's nice enough even though he kicked me once. I kicked him right back so it was okay. His mom was wearing something funny on her head today and I wasn't sure I liked it much. It looked like it was made out of hay but it was sort of round and sat on her head like a bucket or something. It was pretty strange. I stepped sideways a little bit as I walked past.

My mom wears something on her head when she rides - in fact, just about everyone does - but it's different. The riding buckets are usually black or brown or sometimes silver and they fit on the person's head like an upside-down bucket. This thing was more on top of her head so it made me a little nervous. Horses don't like strange things. They're always afraid they might want to eat the horse. I'm not usually like that but sometimes things just don't seem right. This was one of those things.

Today when we finished up, Mom let me roll in the Flat Arena and then she washed me off. She was still working on that when Chip's mom brought a horse over and asked if we were almost done. She told my mom that the mare she was leading had a really bad cut on her leg and sure enough, when Mom untied me and let her get close to the hose, I could see it. It looked awful and must have hurt. I felt bad for the poor mare but she was being really good. I probably would have made a big fuss and danced around and not let anyone touch it. This mare let Chip's mom clean it out and put medicine in it and even poke her fingers inside it. I wasn't there long enough to find out how it happened - the mare was in no mood to talk - because Mom brought me back to my stall so she could help.

Well, horses do sometimes get hurt. I got the impression that the horse doctor was coming and if it was my doctor, I know he'll make her feel better. He's good at that.

I got my bucket dinner and had another roll in my shavings because I got a new bag today. We'll see what kind of interesting things happen tomorrow.