Royal Finds His Courage

Optional musical accompaniment to this post:

So, it's been an interesting few weeks. The Horse Expo came and went, and because of the EHV-1 scare, there weren't very many horse. Only select presenter and rodeo horses were allowed, but the Horse Barn was empty.

Creepy, but on the upside it's been over a month since the last positive case in this area. We seem to be in the clear.

Carriage House is fast approaching, so I've been trying to get Royal and me up to speed. I'm planning on entering us in Intro A & B and the 2'6" jumpers. He's fitting up like crazy and it'll hopefully be a walk in the park. It's been raining on and off, so most of the pasture is flooded and we're having to practice the tests in, say, unusual places. But Intro A & B are pretty simple, so even if I just glance at them before we go in, we should be fine.

The big news is that Royal seems to have found his courage. We've been having some problems with the neighboring cows breaking into our pasture and generally causing havoc. It's seems to be fixed for now, but usually once they figure a trick works, they keep using it. But one made the bad decision to break into the pasture where the horses currently are. And Royal. Charged. Them. Puffed out his chest, arched his neck, and power trotted over to the intruder, scaring them back into their own pasture.

*sniffle* My baby boy, all grown up and scaring cows. I'm so proud.

So last Sunday, I decided to test the waters. We went for a ride and after practicing dressage in a *ahem* undisclosed location, we went up to the Sheep of Death. They were in the front area, so Royal at first went all bug-eyed, but after a few passes, walked past them like they weren't there. And they were looking right at us.

*sniffle* *sniffle*

So proud.

So, yeah, it's a good sign. He's still one of the spookiest horses I've met, but any improvement is welcome.

A Shift

We had another snowstorm on Wednesday and the Twin Cities got anywhere from 3 to 15 inches, depending on where they were. The horses go hit with around 15 inches and it was not fun. The horses had trampled down the snow around the hay bale and a path to the water trough, but not many hoof tracks anywhere else. They were having none of this nonsense.

But the weather was merciful and we've had beautiful weather that has been melting the snow rather quickly, which has made everyone rather happy. The horses have resumed molting and everything's become one big slushy puddle. So Royal and I still sticking to riding on the road.

I don't mind. The road is nice and squishy in parts and the rocks haven't come out too bad in the har spots. The wrinkle is that everything keeps changing and Royal's excellent memory remembers the way things were the last time we walked past, and now they're DIFFERENT, which means HORRIBLE DEATH MONSTERS OF DEATH, obviously. So the challenge has been getting him to walk past the HDMOD sanely, if giving them the hairy eyeball. I'm not trying to get him to bravely march past them like they're not there, but I expect him to at least not lose his brain. So far, it keeps getting better. He still gives pretty much everything the hairy eyeball, but not snorting past it like he's got the worst cold ever. But something else has changed.

Royal seems a lot happier to see me over the past few months. He recognizes my car and sees genuinely happy to approach me. He also doesn't need a lot of direction to align his body and stretches on his own. And yesterday while I was warming him up OnLine, he came over to me and held his head against my torso and stayed there for a couple of minutes. It was nice but odd. And then after I got on and we rode off, but when we got to the big dirt road, he wanted to go right instead of left, so right we went. He marched on proudly, until we got the end of the neighbors property and he turned and saw Them. The cows. In their winter pasture, not where he's used to seeing them, and staring at us. That of course, made his brain leave and we skittered around in view of the cows until he could walk sanely. And he kind of hovered back home, but at least he wasn't bolting.

St Croix Saddlery was having their Easter sale, so I dropped off the green blanket to be washed and fixed. While there, I finally bought a bit I'd been contemplating for months. It's a Myler comfort snaffle similar to the one I already have but with eggbutt cheek piece and a slightly thicker mouthpiece. And, after getting Chipotle, I headed home for a tack cleaning extravaganza. I cleaned and conditioned the stuff I haven't touched in years, and may not use again. But it's nice to have it clean again.

Today it was 70 (70!) degrees, so of course we went for another ride. I put on his new bit, but still left the halter on underneath and attached the reins to that.

At first he was confused.

But then he got distracted.

So we were off, and heading down the road. I asked him to trot to stretch his legs, and trot he did. We flew down the road, but he wasn't scared or tense. Just ticklish in the feet. We went down the little side road and he even broke into a canter. Just seemed happy. All pricked ears and bright eyes.

If everything goes halfway according to plan, Carriage House is going to be a blast.

Indiana Jones, Eat Your Heart Out

Well, I seem to be all over my Mystery Illness of Mystery, and feel much much better, although the rope burns are still healing. Royal seems to be a lot better too. It took a bit of playing with it, but he seems to be over pulling back as a general principle. I practiced with him and a tree in the pasture, and at first he was NOT. HAPPY. Apparently, he can run backward on his hind legs when he wants to. I'll have to keep that in mind. But since all I had was just the 22-foot line wrapped around the tree, he ran out of right-brain panic before he ran out of rope, and I reeled him back in. He looked somewhat confused, but from then on I could whack anything and everything with my stick and string, and he just looked at me. Progress!

The next time, I was able to use my 12-foot line, and have in wrapped around once while I whacked everything in sight, and Royal gave me his should-totally-be-patented look I call "Polite Concern." This is where his expression seems to say something along the lines of "I don't know what you're doing or why you're doing it, but I'll just stand here and stare at you until you stop doing it, and we can return to sanity, please." Ha! Joke's on you Royal! I'll never return to sanity, because I was never there in the first place.

Then came the incident where I almost Royal and myself shot. We were trotting down the road, when a car going the other way stopped and rolled down its window. We stopped and the nice driver told us that there was a trail that went down to the river. Despite the fact that I'm horrible with verbal directions, we wandered off in search of the trail. Well, I was a doofus and we turned too early and wound up wandering past the "NO TRESPASSING" sign right up to someone's house. It didn't look like anyone was home, so I tried to make a quick exit, but then I heard a voice asking "Can I help you?'

I could see where it was coming from, so we turned around and I weakly asked "Um... can we get to the river from here?" "Nope." "Oh. Sorry. Bye." And we walked away. Quickly, but hopefully not quick enough to arouse suspicion. And we went home. I didn't even try looking for the trail again. Maybe later.

Maybe we weren't escaping from booby-trap-boulders, and the guy probably didn't have his gun out (women on horse don't exactly strike terror into the hearts of the citizens of rural Minnesota) but hey. Gotta start somewhere.

We've also been working on standing still for braiding. Royal was gracious enough to let me do this while he (mostly) stood still.

I left the tails long so I could cut them and get his mane a good length, and I'll probably do more braids in the future (I did 12 this time, but will probably do 15+ in the future.) So now his mane his about 5 inches long, and I'll be neatening it up it up over the next few days. It's thick as ever, but a lot more manageable now.

We've also been working with ditches. One of the pastures has a big divot similar to a competition, but Royal never took it seriously, and still jumped the ditch at Steepleview awkwardly enough to mess up one of his hind boots. With Roebke's Run fast approaching, we need to be more comfortable with ditches. So I started thinking, what do the competition ditches have that our ditch doesn't? Then it hit me: rails. Our ditch is, for lack of better descriptor, too natural. So I needed to better imitate a competition ditch, which was easy enough to do with the toys I have.

Before

 

After

The poles really worked. Royal went from "Yeah, yeah, whatever" to "OMG KILLER MONSTER DITCH." The program is simple: when I go get him from the pasture, we'll play for a bit, then I'll ask him to jump the ditch. So far it's working. The first time, it took him a while to jump the ditch in a calm manner. It's quite a bit wider than most ditches at events, so he really has to reach for it. But after the third time, he jumped it calmly after only a couple of sideways star jumps.

3 weeks until Roebke's Run! We're entered in the Beginner Novice Horse division. So excited!

Winterspring

I realize I haven't been blogging much lately, mostly because I've been working evenings and that's when I prefer to blog. I've still had some time to play with Royal, although the weather is going crazier than usual. We had a brief reprieve with above-freezing temperatures... and it snowed yesterday.

Seriously? Will this winter EVER be over? I'm tired of suiting up with long johns, wool socks, and tons of upper layers just to be outside for more than a few minutes. Don't get me wrong, everything's been melting nicely and steadily, but slowly. There's lots of puddles everywhere, but quite a few still have ice at the bottom, so no wading. We did have some puddles in the road that were ice free that were wade-able, until Royal hears a loud noise, forgets he's in a puddle, suddenly remembers that he's wading in a puddle, and freezes until he remembers that his hooves still work underwater.

"Don't really know where to go from here."

Although he still tried to climb through the big snow banks while we still had them.

Mostly we've been hand walking, which ended up being a good idea when the ice started cracking. Royal is big on context. A person moving a barrel or a tarp is no big deal, but if they move by themselves, obviously a big horse-eating monster is the culprit. Obviously. So he proceeds to lose his mind and forget that he and I are on the same planet. The best way to get him back to Earth varies with the situation, but after a couple sessions, the best plan ended up encouraging him to circle at the fastest possible trot on the road away from the ice, and Squeeze Game close to the ice. Circling let him use up his adrenaline, and Squeeze kept him from getting too emotional near the ice..

We did get a ride in, and he powered away from home, until we got to the end of the property line, where he spooked at an empty soda bottle and wanted to go home. I kept his brain occupied with Partial Disengagement and back-ups. I think he's got as much spring fever as I do. And the never-ending winter is definitely not helping, even though he looks all handsome when he's windblown.

Supposedly it's going to warm up after this weekend, and we can hopefully continue our excursions, including going to the park down the road. But first spring needs to get here and stick around until summer arrives.

Tickle In The Feet

"Sometimes, when I have had less exercise than usual, I have felt so full of life and spring that when John has taken me out to exercise I really could not keep quiet; do what I would, it seemed as if I must jump, or dance, or prance, and many a good shake I know I must have given him, especially at the first; but he was always good and patient.
"Steady, steady, my boy," he would say; "wait a bit, and we will have a good swing, and soon get the tickle out of your feet." Then as soon as we were out of the village, he would give me a few miles at a spanking trot, and then bring me back as fresh as before, only clear of the fidgets, as he called them. Spirited horses, when not enough exercised, are often called skittish, when it is only play; and some grooms will punish them, but our John did not; he knew it was only high spirits."
-Black Beauty, Anna Sewell

The Cold Week took its toll on everyone. The horses were cranky and crabby, as was everyone else. I discovered a nifty way to unfreeze the spigot: it took some trial and error, but I balanced it between the spigot and a pipe with the nozzle pointing at the spigot. Left it there for a couple of minutes, and when I came back, no spigot-sicle!

Obviously I didn't do much with Royal. Neither of us a particularly fond of cold, and it can be dangerous to do to much physical activity in freezing cold. It did fluctuate from negatives to single digits to teens. I couldn't feel much of a difference, to be honest. Once it gets past a certain point (mid-teens for me), it's just cold. Maybe I could feel the difference from 0 to -50, but not to the extent I could feel the difference between 0 to 50.

The first day I could do anything with Royal was Saturday, but on Friday he got the "tickle-in-the-feet" syndrome, and could not eat his grain normally. He'd take a bite, then spook at the hay bales, a bird, a horse-eating-invisible-squirrel, anything. Moving him around a bit helped, but not enough. So Saturday, we went out to the front to let him boogie for a bit and burn off some energy.

It helped. We played a bit with the figure-8 and hopping over some trees. He ate his grain like a normal horse and was no longer worried about the horse-eating-invisible-squirrel. He looks fabulous, weight wise. His ribs are still somewhat visible when he does a big theatrical sigh, but otherwise he looks great.

Coco the pony had some trouble, though. The cold was not kind to him, he's starting to have some teeth troubles, and he doesn't like to fight for a spot at the hay bales. There's plenty of space around the hay, but since everyone was so crabby, he just didn't eat enough and dropped quite a bit of weight. So now he has his own little paddock (which I can't upload pictures of, for some reason) with as much hay as he wants and a bit of SeniorGlo every day. He and Royal will visit the Tooth Fairy soon, so hopefully we'll get the tooth situation straightened out. So far, he's been pretty happy. He's been eating his hay well, and knows when it's grain time and practically bounces up and down when he sees it coming. He's on the mend.

It's been fairly warm the past few day. We got some snow on Sunday, which I hoped would provide a nice cushion over the glare ice. Unfortunately, it didn't and the back paddock and big field were as slippery as ever, but the front is still nice. We carved out a little ring close which is mostly ice free. I'm getting a little more particular about posture and not letting him bounce around shaped like a llama. He's getting batter about it, but old habits are hard to break.

Today we went for a walk on the road. As usual, we try to make it to the Sheep of Death farm, and at first it went well. However, as we approached the Sheep of Death, he lost his mind over the nondescript light gray barn and equally nondescript light gray mailbox in front of it. He just completely shut down and refused to move in any way, snorting and blowing at the barn he walked past all summer and fall long without incident. Why? I don't know. Maybe the gray looked weird against the snow. Maybe he saw something in the woods beyond the barn. Maybe Satan and his demons were having a rave in there. Whatever the reason, I ended up having to get off and play with him on the ground, trying to help him rediscover his brain. We eventually got past the Sheep of Death (he was fine with them, by the way), and after I got back on, slowly inched our way back and forth towards the Demonic Barn. There was a lot of circling and pooping and chewing on the bit and frenetic stretching, and I'm sure the sheep and their people thought we were absolutely nuts, but after about a half an hour, I got him to walk semi-calmly past the Demonic Barn, if a little quickly. We made it home without further incident, and I let him mosey around the front ring to clear his mind. There was a lot of sighing and snorting.

I'll try to get us back to the Evil Area soon, but it's going really cold again, with a few days in the single and negative digits again. So, it may be a while. We have to survive the next cold snap and dream of warmer days in the future. Soon, but not soon enough for me.

Reverse Weight Watchers

Royal and I have quite a bit of fun lately, testing both lightness and concentration. I got a Feather Line at the Tour Stop, and it really is quite different that the regular 22-foot line. I don't think Royal actually felt it at first, since he tried to wander off to a particularly appetizing piece of grass and looking very surprised when he hit the end. He stayed very light for the rest of the session, and never tried to test the rope again. I did have to put him on the regular 22-foot line for an adrenaline management session; the basic idea is that if your horse has temporarily lost their brain, you ask the horse to boogie for a lap, then wait for 3 laps to see if they try to come off the adrenaline and connect with you. If they do, you allow it. If not, ask them to go for a lap again and wait. The point is to help them run the adrenaline out instead of nagging at them to stand still, which usually make the situation worse (ask me how I know). It took Royal 3 repetitions the first time, but he quickly got the idea and would try to connect after a quarter of a circle.

We've also been able to do some trail riding, although now we're mostly sticking to the dirt road. I'd like to ride him to the local bark, but they're working on the bridge so we'd only be able to get to the entrance and have to turn around. So, we have to keep going up the road, and Royal wore his trail bridle for the first time in quite a while. I'm not quite sure what he thought of it.

 
 It's interesting going trail riding with him because he has two trail riding modes: either he's really into it and really wants to go exploring, or the conversation between us is more like

Luckily, the first mode is more common.

My main focus with him over the past few weeks has been trying to get him to put on weight. Right now, most of the weight problems with horses seem to be that they're too fat, which can lead to all sorts of metabolic issues and health problems such as founder. Not my horse. Instead of being the type of horse who looks at food and gains weight, he's the kind of horse that hears the wind in the trees and loses 5 pounds. He is the only horse I know that can lose weight on an all-you-can-eat buffet. Of course the extreme heat and the temporary drought (which seems to have ended in our Corner of the Universe. Yay!) didn't help. He still looks healthy (bright eyes, shiny coat, good hooves), but on the thin side. So, I started conservatively, putting him on one scoop of SmartGain 4 a day. That didn't seem to help much, so now he's on ADM's HealthyGlo as well to add lots of fat to his diet. Since he hasn't been on grain for a few months, I'm slowing starting him on it and working our way up to a pound a day. He seems to like it so far, although it's very different than the concentrates I've fed before. As he gets up to the full amount, we'll see if it helps.

"Good Lord How You Frustrate Me Minnesota Weather!" II

After the heat wave weekend, the temperatures dropped and the rain started again. The Standing Water Everywhere came back, although Royal and I still have been able to do some stuff. We've had a couple of Game of Contact sessions, which have been on an upward swing. It's not 100% yet, but he's starting to take the contact with more consistency and intention. Sweet.

We've also be able to get some trail riding in, even with some cantering on a side road. It's nice and soft and not heavily traveled, so we can build up some speed. He's not too crazy about galloping full out yet, so we just did some light cantering, which was relaxed and fluid. And later while walking we came across a little branch which Royal just had to pick up and carry around like a dog with a stick.

A Horse and His Branch

We also went by the Sheep of Death, only this time the sheep ran from us. I suppose they didn't want to take on what they probably see as the Big Non-Wooly Sheep, but maybe this means he won't inch by there, snorting at the Sheep of Death.

The next day we played a bit more with GoC, and he tried to revert back to his old habits of curling behind the bit and slowing way down. It seemed to be more of a mischievous thing rather claustrophobia, so eventually I gave him a little tiny squeeze, to which he responded to by cantering. It was nice, but not what I wanted. After we got settled in the walk, I asked him to trot again. And what do you know, a beautiful forward trot with a quiet mouth. Good boy.

Yesterday it was too hot and humid to ride, so I decided to practice braiding again. I still don't want to use yarn or thread, since Royal tends to fidget and I don't want to use scissors or needles unless I absolutely have to. He may be fidgety now, but if I repeatedly stab or cut him in the neck, he'll be even worse. So I'm sticking to bands for now, but it's not going well. I can do about 4 buttons pretty well, but after that, it all falls apart. Either the section has lots of uneven hairs or is really thick or the bands break or all three. So after seven braids I gave up. I'll figure something out eventually.

For the last two nights we've had very expressive thunderstorms with lots of flashing and crashing followed by very hot and humid days. Oy. I've lived here all my life and I don't think I'll ever get used to the weirdness of the weather. So, Sheldon, if you will:

These Boots Were Made For Walking/Trotting/Cantering/Jumping

And that's just what they'll do.

Royal's soreness on gravel bothered me so much that on Saturday, I headed out to an unfamiliar tack shop to get a pair of Cavallo Simple Boots. I ended up paying much more than if I had ordered them online, but I was just so desperate. The next day I was able to try them on him, and they fit! Royal didn't seem to mind them too much, apart from a few high steps at first. They look a little clunky, but he plowed over the gravel like it was made of grass.

He's still a little tender with his hind feet, but they're too narrow for the Simples, so I ordered a pair of Sports. They should be here soon, but we have still been able to get a few trail rides in. On Monday, we went back to the park. He's still a little unnerved by the odd changes in ground texture and all the cars that fly by us (although most give us a nice wide berth), but is getting better. We made it to the park, but just beyond the trees boarding the grassy area, out of sight, was the Lawnmower of Death. It would get closer, then go away, then closer, then go away, on and on. Royal was not happy about this at all, and it took some figure-8s around the trees with serious bending before he started to stretch and sigh. Good boy, so we continued on our way. My sister told me that the road that runs through the park eventually goes circles back to the highway, and we could just do a single loop instead of doubling back down the highway. Sounds perfect, so onwards we went.

It was very beautiful.

But after going for a while, I started to wonder if we were lost. The road had split three ways: left, straight (dead end), and right. We took the left fork, but I started to wonder if we should have gone right. We kept soldiering on, although I kept wondering where we were going and Royal seemed really happy to be exploring.

Nice cornfield, but where's the highway?

We did eventually meet up with the highway, just on the other side of a river. Which is big, and the bridge has no shoulder, so we were forced to walk in the middle of the lane. Which was scary enough as it is, but Royal was also worried about the sound of the river. So he wanted to walk reeeeeaaaaaally slllllllllooooooowly across the bridge and I wanted to go fast to get to the shoulder on the other side. So we compromised with a regular walk, and Royal was probably wondering what I'd gotten us into, but we made it to the other side safe and sound. Getting back on the gravel road was tough for him and he winced every other step on his hind feet. But he seemed mostly cheerful about the adventure, and once the hind boots get here, we'll go on more.

Today we went back to the field, which has (mostly) dried up. It'll rain over the next couple of days, but with lots of help, I've scouted out the high areas that will probably dry and pack the quickest. One is close to the edge of the ridable field (the other half is owned by someone who is growing corn there. No touchy.) and it's about the size of a small (20 x 40 meters) dressage arena. Right now, I don't have any rails or letters (and those will eventually be in the form of poles and cones), so we made our own arena out of hoof prints.

Pretty sweet, no? Royal was a bit confused at first, but as the "trail" began to appear, he got it. We played with the Game of Contact, which he haven't done in a long time, and he picked it right up. He still has a tendency to slow down and curl up behind the bit when I pick up the reins, but at the end, he was holding the contact steady down the long side with no bounces or bobbles. We also popped over a couple jumps at the far end of the field, which he seemed to enjoy.

We cooled down by going onto a side street. It's very quiet and not very gravely, which both of us appreciated. I even offered him the option of going back early, but he wanted to keep going until we reached the woods at the end.

He seems very happy, and my frustrations about riding places are greatly diminished. With the boots, I don't have to worry about soreness and they even have a mild snowshoe effect in the field, helping him not sink too much. We can work on GoC stuff almost anywhere and I think we'll be fine with a one or two jumping sessions a week. Things are definitely looking good.

Settling In

Royal's been at the new place for a few days now and he's settling in very well. He survived some thunderstorms the first couple days which probably accelerated the acceptance process. It's hard to fight over the pecking order when everyone needs shelter. He's also getting close with Gabby the filly, who looks almost exactly like him. Seriously, it's kinda spooky as we have no reason to believe they're related. But they both are red/copper bays with stripes and two hind socks. We'll just have to call them the twins.

Monday, we started to get acclimated to the place. The bugs were pretty bad, so I put on his fly bonnet and kept the halter and lead rope on. I have to say he looked pretty unique.

Royal's Ridiculous Getup

His butt cut also looked good too. Not good good, but not infected or needing stitches. It'll probably be totally healed up in a month or so.

The main riding area is a former cornfield across the creek, which is plenty big. I got to survey it last week, but I didn't realize how deep it was in some places, especially close to the creek. Royal would sink up to his fetlocks just walking around, and the dirt was just inert. No spring or elasticity. At the old farm, we mostly rode in the arena, which was mostly shallow but fairly springy, or out in one of the pastures. So this is a change for both of us. My jumps had already been put out, and I tried to put them in more shallow places, but Royal was just reluctant. Usually he's pretty eager to jump, especially jumps he knows well, but I think the footing was unsettling to him. He's just not used to it, and being a RBE, any change tends to worry him more than it should. The good news is that it'll pack down fairly easily and hopefully be very riding friendly before long.

Then it was time to explore the road! The property is off a loooooooooooooong dirt road that houses several horse places, so people are used to them going up and down the road. And Royal was happy to go exploring.

We made it about a mile up the road before heading back. I usually hate the term "barn sour" because it's often not true. It usually means a horse who shuffles away from the barn and power walks back. Royal's the opposite: he power walks away from home and moseys back. He really likes to explore and gets less spooky on the journey out. Seriously, we encountered fast cars, ATVs, people loading brightly colored things onto brightly colored vehicles and barking dogs, none of which made him do anything other than blink. The puddles and plastic bag tied to the fence were going to kill him, though. Obviously.

The next day, we tried some jumping. It was suggested to me that I should move the jumps closer to the middle of the field, as it might be shallower there. And it was. I still had to be careful placing them, but Royal wasn't sinking as much. It was a short session, just to remind him of what jumping was in order to prep us for Carriage House. Then we headed out on the road again.

 Gabby says, "Wait, don't leave!"

Bandit and Xena are confused. And Coco doesn't care.

The road is the exact opposite of the field: Very packed, almost as hard as concrete, which is mostly great. One of the ways to strengthen a horse's tendons is Long Slow Distance Conditioning, which basically means walking for a long time on a hard surface. And we have plenty of that. The only problems are the little stones on the road, which would cause Royal to flinch a bit if he stepped on them. I was sort of surprised by this, but then again, the dirt road surrounding the old farm was very soft, to the point of sinking down in some places (which made driving on it really interesting). Again, this is just going to take some getting used to.

We walked down the road for a long time, all the way to the highway. Royal, of course, wanted to keep going, but I was not in the mood for highway riding.

 No, we are not going down the highway. Maybe later.

 As usual, he walked much slower going back home, actually taking in the sights, stopping to graze, look at the pretty tree, and sniffing the flattened/petrified squirrel corpses. Ew.

 There's a sheep farm on the road, which seemed to contain no sheep when we first passed it. When we came back, however, the ewes and their lambs were out and making lots of noise. I don't know if Royal's ever met any sheep before, but he had no idea what to make of these.

We stopped to take in the cuteness of the sheep when two of them left their barn and started running right at us. Royal just about had a heart attack as the Horse-Eating Sheep of Death came at us as fast as their little sheep legs could take them. Luckily the Sheep of Death were contained by a fence, but aren't they cute?

We escaped the Evil Sheepies and made it back safely. I was worried about Royal's hooves considering all the stones he stepped on, so I mixed up a gram of powdered bute with molasses, which ended up being very messy. I'd never mixed bute and molasses when it was 90 degrees and wasn't prepared for how runny the molasses was, and got it all over. On my breeches, the lead rope, the handle of the dressing room door. Blech. Next time, I'll wear gloves. Gabby was happy to have her buddy back and would not stop harassing him as he tried to drink. Ah youth. They'll figure it out in time.

So far, so good. I'm very happy and Royal seems very cheerful. Onwards and upwards.