I can haz hay?????

Jellybean and I had some quality time together tonight.  We had treats and grain and hay! She even let me in her stall while she ate to pet and love on her.  We did have an ear pinning event but, it turns out horses get friendlier if you push them around a bit.  She finally accepted the inevitable and let me pet her. After she ate her grain I went and worked on our poor broken cavaletti.  The wood had split on one leg of each cavaletti so I had to splice the two together.  It worked out very nicely.  All told a good day at the barn.  I threw jellybean her two flakes of nice fresh cut hay and took some pictures.

Jellybean nomming her hay!  Happy pony.

And the new "old" cavaletti

Amanda is away and I get to take care of the Bean tonight

Amanda had to make a trip to Houston today.  This means that I get to have all the fun at the barn by myself.  Feeding, grooming, gossiping, and projecting. There are some cavaletti that need fixing and I am sure there is some sheath cleaning that I will be forced to endure.  Anyway, just thought I'd let y'all know that even when mom is away the fort is solidly held down.

First post as a contributor.

Hello all you horse crazy people out there!  I am Robert and it looks like I have been given permissions to contribute to Dusty Summer's diary.  I promise not to slide too far into the ridiculous... But I am after all a guy posting on a blog about his girlfriend's horse.

Just to ease in to it, here are some candid shots from earlier this week

Even Ginger takes self shots!

It was also bath day,  she dries in zebra patterns

And of course, me and the horse:

thanks for reading and, stay tuned for more wild horse antics.

Blog Changes!

     I have decided to make a few changes to the blog, in order to have more topics to post about and more accurately reflect my obsession with horses. Currently the blog focuses exclusively on Jellybean, but I will be expanding the topics I post about to include training articles I find interesting and also the exploits of Peanut Butter (who will henceforth be referred to as Ginger, since the name changing didn't ever stick). I will also be opening up the authorship, and allowing Robert to write a few entries about his opinions and training exercises. I hope that expanding will provide me more topics to write about and entertain the masses :)

#awkwardselfie

Jellybean as a flirt?!

     Jellybean was being naughty yesterday. First we had a talk after she was making eyes at the other horses across the fence [I'm looking at you Cash!]

photo credit: Jeannette Bayer

     Even after our talk, she would still make eyes through the fence at the other horses... Well yesterday I put all that behind me and decided to let Jellybean explore the cutting pen next to her paddock a little. There is currently a few breezy shrubs growing and a low spot currently filled with water, I thought these might be good opportunities for Jellybean to explore. However, she had other plans! There are several horses stalled along the arena, a yearling palomino that was recently gelded, a one eyed old gelding, and a stallion. Jellybean went strutting past each of the stalls, sniffing at the stallion and even flirting with the palamino! She pawed at the ground and tossed her head, teasing him for being in a stall! I am a tad ashamed that she was flaunting herself! During the entire incident, Peanut Butter was calling for Jellybean, because she was sooo far away... In any case, looks like Jellybean is ready for a more intense version of "the talk"

Paddock keeping

     Today was a work day at the barn (again). The paddock needed to be cleaned out since its the first weekend without rain in awhile. Robert scooped out the poop while the ponies looked on, confused. Jellybean was especially interested in why Robert needed to move her poop... She followed the fork from the initial site to the wheelbarrow, and then to the gate when Robert went to dump. The other cleaning point was the leftovers of the first round bale. The hay was pretty gross, the ponies stomped it into the mud and peed all over it... we tried to move it out, but most of it was already part of the ground... In any case, they get a new round bale this weekend and they can start munching again :)

I'm starting to think we might drown...

     Just another day in the rain. Can you guess which pony stayed in the shelter and which one didn't?

Which one is wetter?

On the right :(

But both wet on this side!