Light Work

Since I have this cut on my neck, I can't do my usual work which is carrying my mom around in lessons or working hard on the stuff we've learned. My mom says that if I do too much hard work or bending I might tear my stitches and that wouldn't be good. So I'm just doing light work and it's actually pretty fun.

Yesterday my mom came out and said she was happy with the way my neck looked. My doctor had said that there would probably be a lot of swelling but there wasn't any at all and it wasn't hot or tender either. That made us both happy. I don't like it when things hurt. My mom took me for a nice walk, leading me all over the ranch. It was fun. We walked out by the pasture and I got to see all my friends out there. I got to eat some grass where it's growing near the gate and that was wonderful. The grass is just starting to grow in the pasture but of course us horses eat it as soon as it comes up so there's not too much of it. This patch of grass was nice and thick and juicy and my mom let me eat a lot of it. It tasted so good and I was hoping Sparky would come over so I could show off how lucky I was. He was busy though. He's gotten pretty attached to a new mare now that Rose isn't in the pasture and he wouldn't leave her for a minute. The two of them were nibbling on some leftover hay from breakfast and he never even looked my way. I didn't mind. I'm glad he's found a new girlfriend.

Dooley wasn't in the pasture. He was with his mom, riding in the arena. My mom took me over there and we said hello then my mom let me walk across the teeter-totter bridge thing that I like to walk on. She took me over to one of the big tires on the ground next. Those tires are kind of strange. They're lying on their sides and the middle part is filled with dirt so that there's a sort of platform in it. You can see it in the picture on top. My mom and Dooley's mom have been trying to get us to put our front feet on those stupid tires forever but we've been stepping around them because it makes more sense to us. But yesterday, my mom led me over to one and I thought I might as well step on it. I was in a good mood and it didn't seem like a big deal. So I clomped up on it with my front feet and stood there and you would have thought I had discovered the cure for cancer the way she carried on.

People are so strange. They ask horses to do things that don't make any sense and make a big fuss over us when we do them. But other times they ask us to do things that are hard or unpleasant and just get mad if we don't like it. Or they ask us to do something fun and get upset if we like it so much we want to do it all the time. They're hard to figure out but once I knew that my mom was going to be so happy about it, I kept stepping up every time she asked.

After a while, Dooley and his mom came out of the arena and my mom had me show them how I was doing it. Dooley's mom made him watch then asked him to do it. Well, of course he did. He could see how excited they got over it and figured he might as well. Then our moms had to act all surprised and pleased as if they didn't think we actually paid attention to what the other was doing or talked about it amongst ourselves. I wish we could have shows where we could make our people do stuff. We could get them to do all kinds of foolishness.

Once we were done with all that, we went back to our tack shed and I had to stand around while my mom and Dooley's mom talked and talked and talked. I kept pawing because I wanted my bucket but my mom just yelled at me and finally smacked me with a stick when I wouldn't stop. I know I'm not supposed to paw but I was just trying to remind her that I was hungry and besides, Dooley got his food first which was really unfair. She didn't seem very impressed by that though.

Once Dooley went back out to the pasture, his mom Lasered my cut. I'll try to explain what that is though I really don't understand it. The Laser is a think about the size of a carrot and kind of shaped like one. It's attached to a bigger piece by a stiff sort of thin rope. Dooley's mom pushes some buttons on the bigger piece and then moves the carrot-shaped one over whatever part she's trying to heal. It feels kind of warm, especially on a cut, but it doesn't hurt at all and it makes things feel better. Some things feel better right away and that's how it was with my cut. I was pretty good and stood fairly still for it and they both told me I was a Good Girl which was some compensation for not getting fed. Dooley's mom gave me some carrot too which was even better compensation.

Then my mom put me back in my stall and gave me my bucket. I could tell there was some Medicine in it but it tasted okay so I ate it all.

Today when my mom came out, she saddled me up and rode me around the ranch. She said that my neck looked so good that it would be okay as long as we didn't work hard. It was a lot of fun. We walked all over the place and visited lots of horses. We went all the way to the far end where the paddocks are on the hill. There's a lane that runs along between the rows of paddocks and we went up the lane and across the top and down the lane on the other side. The last paddock before the end of the lane is where one of the Foals lives. She's pretty cute and I sniffed her nose. Her name is Belle which is a lot like Bella and her mom died when she was just a baby which is very sad. She had a nice foster mom though and now she's living on her own because she's old enough.

The other Foal is named Luna. She lived with her mom until recently when they got separated. That's what happens with Foals. They get taken away from their moms so they can learn to be grown-up horses. Luna goes out in a field next to the pasture so I get to sniff noses with her a lot. She used to be in there with her mom but now she goes in with Poncho who is a gelding in her family. He's really nice and takes good care of her. Luna lives in the same barn as me now and I can see her from my stall.

We rode up the other lane that goes behind the houses and next to more paddocks where we saw Soldier and some other horses I know. And we went out in the field where Luna goes because no one was out there and there's a road that leads out to the back pasture gate. We rode down to the main pasture gate too but I couldn't eat grass because I had my bit in my mouth and that's not Manners. Then we rode to the obstacle course and I went over the teeter-totter a few times and put my front feet on the tire things and I even backed all the way through the little road thing with the poles that mark the sides. That's not easy because it makes a turn about halfway through so you have to listen to your mom when she tells you to turn.

It was a nice time and I felt good when we were done. My mom cleaned my neck and put some gooey stuff on, then she put me away and fed me my bucket. I'm sorry I got hurt but at least I can spend my time doing fun stuff.