Hotspur.us

It’s that time of the year again. Time to give Villain a really good scrubbing.

So, Villian + Hose = Extremely Wet Villian & Extremely Wet Me.

You will notice in the photo below that Villain does look quite nice and shiny. And he smelled good too thanks to the awesomely expensive shampoo that I happen to have stashed in my tack trunk. Honestly, that horse has more product than I have had in my entire life.

His bath went like this….he protested by dancing about the wash stall, putting his head up as far as he possible could in order to avoid getting his face washed. He does not like having any tiny bit of water (or perceived water) getting near his ears. So when I start to get his neck wet he tosses his head WAY up in the air. What he has failed to factor in is that if he kept his gi-nor-mous noggin DOWN I wouldn’t have to spray to get the top of his neck wet.  And if he would do that….there would be no (perceived) water in his ears and I’d be a damn lot dryer.

And so after both of us getting a bath, and me ending up dirtier than when I started, I took him out and let him graze so he could dry off. And then he went back to his nicely cleaned stall to have a snack.

And so…Nice, shiny, happy Villain.

And in contrast….Tired, soaked, smelly (and on my 3rd set of clothes for the day) me.

It’s great to know that the day after I gave the mighty beast that scrubbing, it poured. He’s probably covered in mud already. Figures.

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We have three four cats. And they have three dishes: two standard cat food dishes and one of the salad plates from our dishes. I’m not sure why we have four cats and three dishes, but we do. Cats, or at least our cats, are very neat eaters. They hunker down near the food dishes and NOM. That’s it. No picking food up and moving it to a better dining spot, no digging in the dish. So here’s the conundrum -  WHY is there always cat food kibble on the floor.

It was a constant source of annoyance. And confusion.

And then we walked into the kitchen and saw Orlando standing IN the salad plate eating the cats’ food.

Well, it may not be the biggest mystery in our house, but now it’s solved. Which means we can now spend our extra time concentrating on Orlando’s little “problem”.

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After almost a month I made it back out to the barn to see Villain. He was delighted to see me, but only I suspect because I had an apple and he really wanted to come in. Oh I so can not wait for a nice warm sunny day to wash some of the stink off that horse. And trust me, it is some serious stink. It may well be June before I get the stink off him. Whew.

Of course Villain wasn’t the only one who was looking for some attention (and apples perhaps). Sammy the Percheron is too adorable. And really fuzzy too. (Also stinky.)

My attempt at taking a pic of Villain & me together didn’t go quite so well because he was wanting scratches, not photos. He is usually such a ham.

I was amazed how much snow was still in the paddock since the rest of the world was well on its way to melting and turning to mud. Guess a little elevation change will do that.

I’m still not (officially) allowed to ride, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been hanging out at the barn, lavishing attention & baths on my boy.  I did manage a two minute ride a few days ago under the guise of  making sure Villain was going to behave when I put our niece on him solo. It was probably a good thing Chad was there, otherwise I may have done something stupid exceedingly unwise.

Villain was a love, of course.  And by that I mean he was pretty much as lethargic as he could get.  The most he was up for was plodding around the arena with his quarter horse neck stretched out as far as possible.  [I'm smart enough not to try to frame him up with a bum arm.]  That two minute ride only whetted my desire to be back in the saddle for real, but at this point I’ll take what I can get & behave myself  before I end up grounded.

And so for my pleasure, more than anyone else’s, I present gratiutious shots of Villain.

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