Cheat grass and sour moods

Poor Curly! He had a rough day yesterday. E. tried to exercise him right after lunch and he would have none of it. It was almost like watching the Curly she started out on months ago. After 20 minutes of pure struggle, she brought him back to the stall.

We came back to the barn right before dinner and found an "I bite!" sign taped to his stall. We were pretty surprised but could understand the desire to be left alone. All of the horses were a bit anti-social by this point and tired of being poked at by fair-goers.

A few minutes later, however, one of the girls called out that they saw something in his mouth. All us parents went over and two of the braver ones searched his gum line and came out with a handful of "cheat grass" (a.k.a. fox-tails). The poor guy felt so much better almost immediately! He then let us touch him again - as long as we stayed away from his mouth area! - and seemed much more relaxed. Thankfully, there don't appear to be any sores in his mouth.

We checked his remaining hay bale and sure enough, there are bunches of this weed throughout the bale. Needless to say, we will be tossing it.









We get to bring the horses home tonight - at 11:00 p.m.

Can't wait to be back at our own barn!