Watermelon Bliss

Wednesdays are a great day around our house. Both the girls and I are done with school early enough that we can easily spend a hour or so out at the barn and still have time to finish homework and chores at home.

E has been asking to go ride lately; she's found a "happy place" with Monte and sees riding as a fun thing rather than work. So today, when we discovered that there was tiny bit of swelling in his right hind, she was sad that she couldn't practice cantering (controlled speed is the goal) and haunch turns. She did take a moment to lead friend L around, however; Monte was very accommodating of the little person on his back. :-)

E leading L on Monte...

After removing all of his tack, E shared her afternoon snack with Monte:

What a generous friend!

We found out a few months ago that Monte and Curly both LOVE watermelon rinds. E was a little more generous today and shared some of the actual watermelon as well.

Mmmmmm, watermelon drool.....

Bath day

It was a glorious, sunny day around here yesterday - not a cloud in the sky and only a small breeze blowing through. I took advantage of this good weather and finally gave Curly a bath.

There is such a contrast between the two horses when it comes to bath time. In most aspects, Monte is the better behaved, better trained animal. But when it comes to water, I'll take Curly any day! It's not that Curly actually enjoys his bath time, but he is tons calmer about the process than Monte is.

Once I washed a year's worth of dirt off his back, Curly turned that wonderful reddy-gold brown that I absolutely love. He is amazingly beautiful when he's all spiffed up.

I had to spend a bit of time working some nasty snarls out of his mane. This was probably the only difficult part of the process. Other boarders from the barn were coming back from a fundraiser ride up at the local reservoir by this time and Curly was anxious about all the activity swirling around him. But we got the job done.

I know that when we go out again today, he'll be back to his regular dirty self. Nothing like a good roll in the dirt right after a bath! (sigh)