dressagetraks
Sep. 3, 2009, 05:07 PM
We had fun on the farm this morning! More than I'd intended, in fact. I'm never bored, but once in a while, I'd kind of like to be, just to know what it feels like.
I headed out to throw morning hay over the fence into widely separated piles, as usual. Kate, the drama queen, she who must make a Shakespearean production about EVERYTHING with herd dynamics, was munching her pile, as always the first pile. Pixie, more talented than Kate but much less ambitious on the herd ladder, was munching her pile.
Kate abruptly decided to go chase Pixie out of her pile. Not that Pixie's pile was anywhere close, but Kate just decides sometimes to chase somebody else out of their pile, just because she can. She should run for office - always does things from a platform and wants all media present and the widest reporting possible.
I don't know what got into Pixie this morning, but as Kate came trotting in with flattened ears and lowered head, Pixie for once in her life refused to immediately yield and move to an unclaimed pile, which there always are since I always throw more piles than I have horses. Kate bit her on the neck, and Pixie whirled around and double-barreled her, scoring a direct hit. WHAP! I always cringe hearing sounds like that, although it's amazingly an event without consequences most of the time. Kate squealed, something else she specializes in ("How DARE you!"), and turned to present her own well-aimed hindquarters.
Pixie abruptly remembered who she was and made a swift exit, stage left, but Kate was irked now, blood bay steam rising from her ears, and she followed Pixie to the unclaimed hay pile Pixie had now taken. Meanwhile, I had picked up the lunging whip from its resting place just along the fence to defend poor Pixie in the interests of not wasting the entire breakfast on Kate's dramatics - Kate in full drama mode can soliloquize for 15 minutes straight - and winding up with neither of them getting any while the other horses opportunistically took it all. Time to break up this fight, and while Kate insists on her due respect (and she will define the appropriate levels of due respect) from the horses, she realizes she can't pull that on me. Nope, I am the BIG BOSS MARE, and Kate in particular is reminded of that regularly, because that's how you have to deal with Kate.
So I grabbed the lunging whip and, not wanting to actually take time to unchain the gate and enter, snapped it over the fence at Kate and said, "Kate! Back off and go back to your hay!" However, between my over-the-fence snap and Kate's moving hindquarters, I missed my target of her haunch, and instead the lash coiled just under her tail, which was streaming out behind her. She immediately clamped her tail, thus trapping the lash, and she jerked the whole whip out of my hand and over the fence.
So now Kate had a lunging whip attached to her back end. Of course, all she had to do was unclench and it would have fallen free, but NO! She was INSULTED!!! How DARE the world attach a lunging whip to her tail, thus refusing to recognize her rightful status as supreme queen of all equines and bowing only to the BIG BOSS MARE. She whipped around to try to bite it, as if it were a horse fly, and of course, the whip spun with her, and the hard handle banged her legs. She twirled faster, trying to reach it, and it twirled faster away. She stopped and reversed direction, and it still went with her. She was spinning like a reining horse in the pasture, never once unclamping her tail, and everybody had stopped eating to watch this performance at this point. I was dying laughing. Finally, Kate gave up on pirouetting herself out of this and gave the biggest, most dramatic buck imaginable. The whip went flying free. This at least provided Kate with her dramatic victory that she required, and content in the knowledge that she had vanquished SOMETHING, even if not her original target, she returned proudly to her hay.
Where is a camera when you need it? :lol::lol:
I headed out to throw morning hay over the fence into widely separated piles, as usual. Kate, the drama queen, she who must make a Shakespearean production about EVERYTHING with herd dynamics, was munching her pile, as always the first pile. Pixie, more talented than Kate but much less ambitious on the herd ladder, was munching her pile.
Kate abruptly decided to go chase Pixie out of her pile. Not that Pixie's pile was anywhere close, but Kate just decides sometimes to chase somebody else out of their pile, just because she can. She should run for office - always does things from a platform and wants all media present and the widest reporting possible.
I don't know what got into Pixie this morning, but as Kate came trotting in with flattened ears and lowered head, Pixie for once in her life refused to immediately yield and move to an unclaimed pile, which there always are since I always throw more piles than I have horses. Kate bit her on the neck, and Pixie whirled around and double-barreled her, scoring a direct hit. WHAP! I always cringe hearing sounds like that, although it's amazingly an event without consequences most of the time. Kate squealed, something else she specializes in ("How DARE you!"), and turned to present her own well-aimed hindquarters.
Pixie abruptly remembered who she was and made a swift exit, stage left, but Kate was irked now, blood bay steam rising from her ears, and she followed Pixie to the unclaimed hay pile Pixie had now taken. Meanwhile, I had picked up the lunging whip from its resting place just along the fence to defend poor Pixie in the interests of not wasting the entire breakfast on Kate's dramatics - Kate in full drama mode can soliloquize for 15 minutes straight - and winding up with neither of them getting any while the other horses opportunistically took it all. Time to break up this fight, and while Kate insists on her due respect (and she will define the appropriate levels of due respect) from the horses, she realizes she can't pull that on me. Nope, I am the BIG BOSS MARE, and Kate in particular is reminded of that regularly, because that's how you have to deal with Kate.
So I grabbed the lunging whip and, not wanting to actually take time to unchain the gate and enter, snapped it over the fence at Kate and said, "Kate! Back off and go back to your hay!" However, between my over-the-fence snap and Kate's moving hindquarters, I missed my target of her haunch, and instead the lash coiled just under her tail, which was streaming out behind her. She immediately clamped her tail, thus trapping the lash, and she jerked the whole whip out of my hand and over the fence.
So now Kate had a lunging whip attached to her back end. Of course, all she had to do was unclench and it would have fallen free, but NO! She was INSULTED!!! How DARE the world attach a lunging whip to her tail, thus refusing to recognize her rightful status as supreme queen of all equines and bowing only to the BIG BOSS MARE. She whipped around to try to bite it, as if it were a horse fly, and of course, the whip spun with her, and the hard handle banged her legs. She twirled faster, trying to reach it, and it twirled faster away. She stopped and reversed direction, and it still went with her. She was spinning like a reining horse in the pasture, never once unclamping her tail, and everybody had stopped eating to watch this performance at this point. I was dying laughing. Finally, Kate gave up on pirouetting herself out of this and gave the biggest, most dramatic buck imaginable. The whip went flying free. This at least provided Kate with her dramatic victory that she required, and content in the knowledge that she had vanquished SOMETHING, even if not her original target, she returned proudly to her hay.
Where is a camera when you need it? :lol::lol: