Spring is in the air!

Horses: Yesterday we arrived at the barn about noon with big plans to spend as time as we could grooming Stanley - he's been shedding like crazy and we were bound and determined to help it along best we could.

After messing around riding for a while we set him up in the grooming stall in front of a sunny window and went to work. I went all over him with the rubber curry. Equestrian Girl went all over him with the shedding blade. I then went over again with the rubber curry concentrating extra on his legs and getting off every speck of mud while Equestrian Girl put some oil on his tail and rubbed it in good. Just as I was about to attack with the shedding blade again, one of the BO's hands me her "Fuzz Buster" and tells me to give it a try. I think it's more meant for dogs but it works great and I was still pulling out pink fuzz! Next Equestrian Girl braided and wrapped Stanley's tail while I cleaned his feet and added hoof grease. Our boy was sparkling!

It was back to the barn today - another sunny 48 degree! The mud in the driveways is getting ridiculous. All that snow we got here at the end of February is melting but has nowhere to go since the ground is still quite frozen. It's creating about 4 inches of sloppy. The barn owners have been bringing over truck loads of wood chips to dump in the worst areas and it's helping but they just can't get it over fast enough without a dump truck.

We didn't get to the barn until about 3 today so Stanley was dozing in the sun near his favorite tree. The other horses were all chasing the new pony in their pasture - poor boy! First time I saw him I thought he was a yearling. From what we were told he's a rescue pony - about 3 years old - and was grossly under fed which apparently stunted his growth. He's not your typical fat pony at all.

After a short work out with our boy in the arena, it was back to the grooming area for more currying, shedding blade, currying, and brushing. I should probably have taken a picture of the pile of that pink fuzz when we were all done. We could have easily covered a small dog with a full coat!

You can see the mud on his back feet in this pic - and some had dried and fallen off before we took this!

When we were bringing Stanley into the barn from his pastures, several of the stalled horses had their windows open and had their heads out sniffing the breezes. I had wanted to get a picture but by the time we got him in and I got my camera out, they had all been tossed a flake of hay so no more window peepers!

All in all another great horsey day!