Fourth of July Fireworks

Steve has started calling Danny, Patches. The flies have been terrible this year. I have been spraying Danny with fly spray....he's better behaved about it than the big guys...but I haven't put any on his face and the fly spray doesn't help much anyway. So, the result is that he ends up looking spotty especially with the new hair growing in so much darker than his baby coat.

The holiday fireworks came early to our farm. Everyone, including our vet and Huston, have been telling me that I should put Mouse and Danny out with the other horses but we all neglected to tell Mouse that this was a good idea. We opened up the gates to the large upper pasture last night and let Riley and Django go out there. Brandy lagged behind expecting her "secret" evening meal...she's a smart old girl. Then we let Mouse and Danny out into the other horses' day time pasture thinking this would allow us to introduce them to each other gently. Well Mouse is eating and Danny is running around and neither one has noticed that the other gate is open......so glad, in retrospect, that they didn't! Then Danny sees the love of his life, Brandy, and realizes that there is no longer a fence separating them. He runs up and starts aggravating the poor old girl like crazy. Then the other two boys spot Danny and they come running off the hill. That is when I  turned to Steve and said, "I don't know if this was a good idea." Steve yells at Mouse who is still grazing and unaware that any of this is happening. When Mouse looks up and sees the boys near her baby, first her eyes got huge, then she turns and gives Steve and me one of those looks, and then she takes off, screaming with her ears already pinned. What I still don't understand is why, after she bit and kicked them out of the way and then started herding Danny down the hill into a corner where she could protect him, did the boys feel compelled to chase after them. They weren't really being aggressive; it was almost like they were playing follow the leader with Mouse. They stopped a respectful distance away from her and the baby but Mouse didn't think it was far enough. She ran over kicking at Riley and climbing Django's back and biting him. Neither boy fought back but the idiots did then follow her and Danny up to the top of the hill. I thought we might be Ok to leave them together then since the boys stood and looked at them for a while, Mouse started grazing and the boys lost interest and left. The excitement wasn't over though. Danny spots Brandy, who had been observing all of this from afar, and he goes running up to her nuzzling her and then trying to nurse her! I'm running and saying Brandy don't hurt him because she's trying to at least cow kick him. But Mouse sees Brandy with her baby and it doesn't matter that Danny instigated the entire situation, she's on top of my thirty year old horse biting and kicking. We finally get them separated and the gates closed. Danny, who's been calm and respectful for over a week now, is agitated and wild and Mouse is content to stay in the other horses' pasture where we don't want her to spend the night. Finally we managed to get them both into the round pen and then back into their own pasture where I plan to keep them for a while.....or at least until Danny is ready to wean and Mouse is no longer so protective.