All Grown Up

Wow, it's been a long time since I blogged! It's not that I've run out of things to talk about - I always have things to talk about. I've just been busy with other things.

A lot has changed since I last posted. For one thing, I'm 9 years old now! That's pretty amazing, isn't it? I was looking at some of my old posts and thinking about what a baby I used to be. I was an awful brat. But I've grown up so much. My mom sometimes asks me who I am and what did I do with her silly mare? I know she's just joking though. She likes that I'm a Good Girl all the time.

It's funny, but I like it too. It's a lot nicer when my mom isn't mad at me or nagging me about my manners. We go for nice walks together and she lets me stop to eat grass sometimes because she knows I'll be polite and leave it when she wants to go on. And she cleans my stall with me inside it a lot because I don't buffalo into her and push her around. And it's nice. We do a lot of fun stuff together and she hardly ever gets mad at me. She says Sparky is more of a Bad Horse than I am now!

Another big change is that Dooley lives next to me. Dooley used to live in the pasture with Sparky but he hurt a tendon in his leg so he had to be on Stall Rest. His mom is my mom's friend, and he's Sparky's friend, so they were all happy that the stall where Indy used to be was available and I was too because the horse that moved in there after Indy moved was a pain in the butt. His name is Shadow and he's an old, cranky, grey Arab. As soon as he moved in, he took one sniff of me and started squealing and kicking the walls! I didn't even do anything. Everyone says I'm a nice neighbor. I always get along with other horses and all I did was try to sniff noses. He was a jerk and he made me nervous. Every time I moved, he'd squeal and kick. It got so bad that I started kicking too. Plus I got bad about my food again. I used to be really nasty about my food and I'd make faces at my neighbors and rush at the bars of my stall so they wouldn't try to take it. It was silly, baby behavior but it was a Habit. Well, it kind of came back when Shadow was there and my mom was upset. She knew it was because of him but she still didn't like it.

Luckily, another stall opened up and Shadow moved into it. It was Chip's stall on the end. Chip went to a new barn with his mom. I miss him but I know he's happy there. He has a nice pasture to live in and lots of friends. I see him on Facebook sometimes so I know he's okay. It's not like it is sometimes when horses move but you don't know it until you just don't ever see them anymore. My mom told me he was moving, and he knew he was too. We got to have some nice turnouts together before he left and that was good. Then I saw him get on his Trailer and go so I didn't wonder where he was. This is me and Chip in one of our turnouts together. We were playing with a whip. That's what I liked about Chip - he loved to play with stuff like I do.

Dooley is like that too, though. We've become good friends. Even though he was Sparky's friend first, he's mine too now. I like his mom, too. She's my Doctor sometimes. She's a carrot doctor, the kind who pokes you and pushes you and makes your hurty parts feel better. Chiropractor. That's the word. But she also takes care of me sometimes. My mom takes care of Dooley some days and Dooley's mom takes care of me some days. It's nice. I had to get used to it at first. I was kind of upset. I wondered where my mom was and acted kind of sassy. But Dooley's mom told me to behave and she also gave me treats and carrots and stuff so it wasn't so bad and now I like it because it's like having two moms. Dooley and I both mooch treats from both of them. It works out well.

Anyway, Dooley loves to play. He has lots of toys in his stall just like I do in mine. He used to have a pair of his mom's old pants hanging near his bars and we'd play with those all the time. I'd get hold of them and pull them through to my side, then he'd pull them back to his. One day, I pulled them right down and put them in my water bucket. That was fun. But his mom finally took them down for good because we kept pulling them down after that so now we play with my food bucket.

My mom got me some buckets that are soft instead of hard. They're easy to pick up and throw around and you can stomp on them and they don't break, they just bend. I like to toss it around my stall when I eat because it mixes up the food and helps me find the carrots. Usually I end up spilling my food on the floor and eating it there. Then I bring the bucket outside and play with it in my paddock. I'll throw it over the fence and then Dooley gets to play with it too. It's lots of fun. We tease each other with it and throw it back and forth. Grace thinks we're silly but she just doesn't know how to play properly.

We've also had a lot of Rats this year. My mom thinks it's because of the drought. That's when you don't have enough rain. I don't know what it is but I do know the Rats have been terrible. For a while, they were going into Dooley's stall and chewing on his hooves! Dooley is just too nice. He loves little animals. Well, I do too but I draw the line when they start chewing on me! Dooley said it didn't hurt and they just wanted to nibble. But one of them finally came in my stall and nibbled on me and I didn't like it at all! I warned the Rat and told it to go bother someone else but it didn't listen so I finally stomped it. Rats aren't like buckets - they don't just bounce back when you stomp them. They just die.

Our moms were really happy when they found that dead Rat in my paddock. I got treats and pets and got to graze a lot. The Rats still go in Dooley's stall sometimes but they keep away from mine.

I haven't been riding much. My mom is in Law School and apparently that takes more time than a Job does. She's always too busy to ride so we go for walks or she turns me out. She says we're going to move soon and I'm going to live in a big paddock with another horse. She says I'll have room to run around. I'm kind of excited about that but a little nervous about living with another horse all the time. I guess we'll see how it goes. If it's a horse like Chip or Dooley, it could be fun.