Comical Little Guy

Photo thanks to Paula Price (excuse my pudgy, pale hand but he wouldn't turn his head to the camera:)

I realize that most "grandparents" are a bit biased when it comes to their little ones. So, it may be that no one else finds this story as amusing as I do but if so, I'll add, you had to be there.

My day with Danny really started mid-afternoon yesterday and it was a hot one, down right scorching air that was so humid it seemed to stick to you like the flies. I was hauling water to the horses which always takes several trips since the big tank is 150 gallons and I can only haul 30 gallons at a time. Usually, this is not an unpleasant task since I just hook up the hose and open the tank spout before retreating to the air conditioned cab of my truck with a good book while the water slowly leaks down the hill and into the big water trough. It was so hot and sticky yesterday that the horses were all inside, shaded from the sun and protected from the biting flies. During my second trip, Django slowly wandered out and looked toward the literally greener pastures across the road. I let them all over to the other pasture. We've been trying to keep them off the richer grass there because the boys are getting way too fat but we also know that they eat less and stay a shorter time during the heat of the day and you couldn't get much hotter and unpleasant than it was at that hour on that day. So, across went the three big horses just as the last of the water trickled out of the hose. I decided to check the big tank to see how much more water I needed to haul.  I started walking down the hill and I spotted Mr. Danny and his sweet mama waiting for me at the fence. I decided to pay them a quick visit since I hadn't been able to spend much time with them during breakfast that morning. I'd already packed all of the horse food for the evening meal because a friend, Paula Price, was dropping by around 6:00 p.m. to visit Danny and I'd thought I should go ahead and prepare the horses' food so that task would be done and not distract from her visit. The flies were all over Mouse's face and evidently irritating. I hadn't put a fly mask on her in the morning because on Wednesday she'd removed it herself for the second day in a row. At that moment though, she looked as if she'd appreciate the mask's screening. I went back to my truck and picked up both her food and the mask. She did seem happy to see both and Danny shared her enthusiasm for the small afternoon snack I let them have from her food ration. He even got down on his knees in order to eat out of her ground level bowl.

As I mentioned in my last post, Danny and I had a bad experience with his new leather halter. I thought that this might be the perfect moment to give it another try. After two failed attempts at the leather halter however, I decided to go back to the easier to apply nylon halter. It was a grand battle but I finally managed to slip the halter over his big donkey sized ears and clip the hook closed under his jaw. Then we were off to the rodeo. I've never seen such bucking and kicking or running out of him. I gave Huston a call while all of the commotion was going on. He told me to let him run himself out and to leave the halter on until nightfall or as long as possible so that he could get use to it. I would think that all of the histrionics had finally subsided when he'd start carrying on once again with drastic movement evidently intended to dislodge this hateful contraption on his face. Finally, he did calm down and came into the barn with me. By the time Paula pulled into the drive with Steve, home from work and also from picking up his tractor, right behind her, Danny was calm and standing in the barn while I brushed and groomed him. For some reason, Mouse was alerted by Paula's arrival; maybe she thought she was the vet or someone else who was up to "no good" in her horse mind. She threw her head and ears up, gave a warning whinny and took off with Danny in tow. Since she appears to be the alpha mare of our herd, her whinny was heard by the other horses on top of the hill and they all came galloping down to the lower pasture. I'm sure Paula was standing in the drive glad to be getting some good shots of such active horses but not wanting to walk out into the pasture with them. Finally all calmed down and Mouse checked Paula out and decided it was Ok for her to be around her baby. She stood guard in the barn for a while as Danny lay down and slept. She kept checking him out and making certain that none of us had harmed him and then decided that we could be trusted enough for her to go back out in the pasture and graze.

So, she left us babysitting once again and that is where the funny part of the story begins. Paula and I were talking as I filled Mouse and Danny's water buckets and fed the other horses. Danny was vying for our attention for a while and then wandering off to explore....or else see what he could get into. When I finished feeding, I put my feed containers and the cloth bag which carried fly masks and grooming tools under the shrub by the fence. Paula was petting Django and Riley and getting some really good photos of them as she and I talked. Brandy had finished her dinner and had wandered over to the fence where Danny was playing. Danny is fascinated with all of the "big horses" but mostly with Brandy. He will throw his tail up and start prancing about and showing off whenever she comes near. Because of the wrath of Mouse if she gets too close to him, Brandy has learned to keep her distance. So, she was keeping an eye on him but an eye on Mouse as well. Danny was trying his best to get her full attention. He got into my cloth bag and started pulling things out. First came the bright red scoop that should have been in the boys' feed container. He licked all of the food off of it and then picked it up and appeared to be offering it to Brandy through the fence. I was telling Paula to look and saying it looks just like he's trying to give her a gift. I didn't really think that was what was going on at the time but when Brandy didn't notice the offered food scoop, Danny goes back to the bag and begins to pull out the fly masks. He shoves an entire mouthful of them through the fence but Brandy doesn't acknowledge the offering. Instead, she turns and starts moving away along the fence. Danny starts running after her carrying the masks with him and dropping them one by one along the way. Paula and I were both laughing at his antics by then. When he tries to shove the last fly mask through the fence and didn't get any response from Brandy, he dropped it on the ground and came back to us. Of course, after that, ever effort to pick them all up and put them back in the bag was answered by him grabbing the bottom of the bag and dumping them all on the ground as soon as my back was turned.....Ok, that's the story and I warned you from word one, that you wouldn't find it as amusing as I do:)...sorry for any disappointment or anger over wasted minutes of life, lol