The bathing marathon continued the last couple of days (big shocker there). As I was walking back towards the barn after freeing my latest bath victims, er – participants, I heard squawking and flapping that seemed to be coming from right around the barn. I assumed it must be The Don although I wondered why he sounded so loud. I didn’t see The Don as I walked closer, so I went to have a look behind the barn.
As I rounded the corner of the barn I found myself face to face with a wild turkey. I’m not sure which party was more surprised by the other, me or the turkey. We both had a moment of stunned silence as we stared at each other, and then it ran past me and awkwardly flapped its way over the fence and off behind the tree line into the neighboring property. I have seen flocks of wild turkeys from a distance but I’ve never encountered one at the up close and personal distance of one foot away. I’m not sure if I was more surprised by A) how big it was or B) how UGLY it was!! I also have to say that the way it moved was far from graceful! I am confident that I would not want an angry wild turkey coming after me, that thing was big and was so ugly that it appeared ferocious.
Yesterday Cinnamon, Harmony and Cuff Links had baths. Two more grays down and only one (Lightening) left to go at this point. Actually I guess two left to go if I include my horse Sky. Nine of the eleven gray horses on the farm have had a bath and all have been scrubbed white. The white may have been extremely short lived (thanks Ivan!) but it was satisfying to achieve at least for a short while. Cinnamon is a lovely liver chestnut which is a perfect color for hiding dirt but she really didn’t have much dirt hidden on her.
Cuffie was deceptively dirty. I stupidly thought he would be an easy scrub since he didn’t look that dirty and he’s a little medium pony so it isn’t like he has a lot of surface area. WRONG. I always scrub with a curry comb after I soap them up with the sponge and the layers of ground in dirt I removed from that pony were unreal. The more I curried and rinsed with soapy water the more dirt that just kept coming up to the surface. I finally ran out of dirt to scrub and made him wait to go out until he was dry. I must say that he is just blindingly white right now, and he has humored me by only rolling in the grass and not the dirt.
We did get a little bit of rain last night but not nearly as much as I thought we would get. Isn’t it ironic that after a soaking wet winter now that I actually want it to rain it isn’t. Mother Nature is a cruel mistress. On the bright side of the weather the next week will be lovely with our forecast calling for sunshine and highs in the low 70’s. I won’t complain about that. Off to make my farrier list for tomorrow!
Harmony sporting the wind blown look in her mane; the last couple of days have been breezy
Teddy still soaking wet after his bath and giving us his best impersonation of a drowned rat. He was so cooperative when I bathed him I decided not to push my luck and let him go back out while still dripping wet.
Snappy and Clay grazing on a beautiful afternoon
Some of the Big Boys having a lazy day; Homer, Tony, Levendi, Thomas, Apollo and Ivan
O’Reilly doing his best to grind himself into the ground after his bath
Slinky
Faune and B-Rad
MyLight having a scrubbie; she doesn’t look to happy but nonetheless she was a very good girl
Lucky and Clay
Snappy and Lucky
Cuff Links, MyLight, Missy, Harmony, Buffy, Lily
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