Ponies are TO Useful

For everyone who thinks horses are useless, I defy you with this story.

Yesterday the weather was... interesting. Gorgeous, but interesting. Sunday is my day to do stalls, so I went out to do them, marvelling in the WARM that came in over night. Eleven whole degrees. Celsius. That is ABOVE freezing! Snow was melting left right and centre! The laneway was almost ice free, and the sun was almost out. Whoo! While I was doing stalls though the wind picked up... to 100km... WHOO! So obviously... in my infinate wisdom, reveling in the warm, I decide to go out with my handy carrot chunks and spread the orange love.

The pasture was pretty much still an ice chunk unfortunately. But it was ok, because I could sort of jump poop pile to poop pile - gross, but effective! Pride was adorable and met me at the gate. She has decided I am her new best friend and now comes with me eveyrwhere. I think it is so cute. She gets this cute little whuffley breath when she gets happy and she always does it when I am coming now, and she looks at me all perky.

So I crossed the ice after seeing Pride, and she came to. Tucker came to say hi, so he got a little treat and then I got to Crystal and Tripp onmy way to get within yelling distance of Mo [windy...] Crystal was all OH BOY A PEOPLE! but Tripp is always more reserved, so I waited for him to come to me before giving him anything. This approach really seems to be working for ihim, Mr Skeptical, because on my way OUT of the feild later, he walked right up to me and Indy and basically said "cookie please?" which was cool. He is very polite about it, gently takes it and does the horsey equivilant of saying thank you. Cute.

Mo was out in the lower part of the pasture with Trixie and Clarisse, across a huge expanse of poop-free ice that I wasnt about to cross... so I do the clever thing adn start yelling her name at the top of my lungs [which sounds dismally silent in the wake of howling winds] and waving my arms hoping to catch her attention. As if I can possibly adore her even more, Mo looks up and comes over - as far as the fenceline, avoiding the gate where there is tons of ice. I get the "Whatcha got?" look so I give her a bunch of carrots and then go find Indy, since neither of us were crossing the ice right now.

Indy was part way out in the big pasture, so I went over to see her. She came over to me when she finally noticed me so that was nice. We played a little tag-for-cookies for a little while, and a little stick to me which was a FIRST and very fun! She LOVES food, and sort of needs to learn a little decorum when taking cookies from fingers... but I will work on that. I am still just happy with her wanting to be with me - food induced or not!

We wandered over to Mo who was watching us at the fenceline to share some more carrots with her and Candy who wandered over, that was fun. Indy got a little offended that the pony warranted carrots as much as she did so I had to be the leader enough to keep the peace. I actually got her to back up by the nose really lightly to - which is something she has always leaned on me for, so whoo!

Finally, my fingers were getting cold from all the hrosey slobbers so I decided it was time to go in, and Indy followed me like Old Faithful all the way to the ring gate where Tripp met us happily and got some more carrots. More leadership points for Indy because she doesnt like to share.

And then I had to cross the ice. The BIG ice. The ice I avoided by going all the way around the edge of the ring before. *sigh* I started doing the poop pile hop, but soon ran out. Horses arent stupid, they know not to hang out on ice! I was looking around thinking I would really like my Jax about now [he is a good balance board] when there is Mo! She is walking all happy in my direction, l;ooking proud that she navigated the ice to get to me [she is so cute] PERFECT! I spent a few mintues just loving on her and giving her carrots when she got to me and then grabbed mane and asked her forwards. AND WE WENT!

She was a perfect angel, walking us across the ice, straight to the gate. My very own guide-pony. GOtta love her!!! I was so thrilled! And, so was she because of the amount of carrot chunks she got!! Hopefully she will remember the tasty bits next time I need a hand across something.

So there you have it, my pony is not useless, she HELPS. A lot! :-)

:-)
S