Exploring the Town

I got up early this morning and buzzed up to the barn. I have a day in Boston planned for tomorrow (and a concert in the evening, which is exciting, because it'll be my first concert of 2013!), so today was going to be a pony day of epic proportions.

Image seems to have bounced back from his weird "my bum, no touchies!" episode from last week no worse for the wear. I'm anxiously awaiting the Lyme multiplex test results before doing anything else. With that in mind, I brought him in the barn and buffed the hell out of him. It is SO MUCH EASIER to groom him now that I've scrubbed the ever lovin' daylights out of him! He napped on the cross ties while I contorted myself in odd positions to get every inch of him. Sometimes I wonder if he really enjoys being groomed, but when I finally get up to his face and start brushing that, and he practically drops his head to the ground so I can reach every inch of it, I'm a little more convinced that he enjoys it ;)

After buffing him so he shined, we set out on a little walk around the neighborhood. Today was one of the first truly warm weekend days of the season, so there were people everywhere...and yard sales everywhere! You ever see a horse walk past while you're at a yard sale? Me neither. So, Image's presence was met with lots of requests to pat him. Little kids and senior citizens alike were all asking me questions and patting him. He stood like a stone and charmed the hell out of everyone when I gave him a cookie and he tilted his head to ask for more. There was one little girl who was totally enthralled -- I told her parents not to blame me when she starts asking for a pony!

We went down another road and headed back towards the barn. I brought him into the baseball field that I used to ride GP in, and let him nibble on some grass in there, before heading back up the road. A police car was idling off to the side -- obviously, he was running radar on passing cars. We came up next to him, and he said hello and commented that it was a lovely day for a walk. I stopped Image to respond...and I kid you not, he stuffed his head right in the officer's open window!!

I about died. Thank God he was good natured about the whole thing, because I was kind of mortified! Image, on the other had, was kind of indignant that the human in the weird smelling, odd shaped box thing had no cookies for him. Bah. Stinker!!

We went home and after another quick (ish...) once over with the brush, I turned him back out with his buddies. I then spent an hour or two cleaning tack, rearranging and cleaning out my grooming box, and scrubbing the dirt off of Image's rope halter. I chilled out with the bunny (yes, you read that right) and he snuggled right up next to my legs and took a nap. I cleaned a couple of paddocks, because I felt like it, and took some pictures of L riding Jasper, an adorable older Morgan with the sweetest face ever.

SERIOUSLY adorable. Holy crap!

Then, I scooted out to a coworker's house nearby, and rode her lovely little Arab gelding, Roo. It was nice to ride -- any ride time is good ride time! -- but I was a little shocked at how sad I was that I wasn't riding my own horse...and by my "own" horse, I'm not even sure if I mean Image, but just a special critter that I truly adore. I've been riding everyone else's horses for my entire riding career of 15 years. I'm so excited for the day, whenever that may be, that I can mosey down the trail on my very own silly little black horse.

Hopefully the Lyme test gives me some answers. Maybe it won't. It'll be back to the drawing board, then. Luckily, I'm working on trying to draw and not getting bent out of shape when I can't do it perfectly! ;)

Proof that I'm not always behind the camera when someone's in the saddle!

Oh, before I finally decide it's bedtime...this is, decidedly, not horse related, but it was so cool that I feel the need to share! I park my car outside, so when I get home, I have to open the garage door to get in. I had just opened it when I heard something rather large making a lot of noise in the woods behind the house. I peeked around the side of the house, gasped, and fought to get my camera out and ready. There were a few deer in our (fully fenced!) back yard that I had spooked. One jumped over the fence before I could get my camera ready, but I just managed to catch the other one!

You can see the fence post in the background. Boiiinnng!

There were a bunch of them in the woods behind the house, all staring at me intently.

I was making high pitched squealy noises to keep their attention. Their WTF faces are so. freaking. cute.

They stood and watched me for quite some time, even though I kept creeping closer. Deer in my neck of the woods is a bit strange. I live right off of a VERY busy state highway, so people are almost always surprised by pictures of deer showing up on my Facebook. I'm just far enough off of the state highway to get these critters roaming around the property. I've seen a fox in the front yard, and we have an owl that hangs out somewhere in the woods behind the property sometimes. It makes me laugh that even though I lived in the boonies as a kid, I'd never heard an owl until living practically in the city!

I don't know much about deer, but I'm assuming the little one is a youngin'. 

Okay, bedtime...tomorrow will be a day of non-horse related fun. It's like I'm actually doing normal, 22 year old girl things! What a strange phenomenon... ;D