And now it's summer...

The heat has arrived.  Yaaaay.  I ended up at the barn on Memorial Day itself, because Saturday was 96 degrees and like 90% humidity (yeah, NO) and Sunday morning it rained like crazy.  Monday was still hot, but without the humidity, it was actually bearable.

Well, 'bearable' in the sense of, "Oh, look, there's Cessa up by the gate; let's just grab her, because if you think I'm going to take a stroll across 20 acres of mostly-treeless pasture on a hot day to get her fat ass for nothing more than a grooming session, you'd be wrong."

She was impressed.

I had thought ahead and, for giggles, brought the bareback pad my parents bought me for Christmas.  And since she's worn a saddle before (and a surcingle, and a blanket, and...), it was - well, pretty much the non-event I was expecting.  Mostly, I just wanted to see if it fit.

All dressed up and ready for a ride.  Now all we need is saddle training...

While I had her up, I decided to tackle her mane.  Someone likes to stick her head through fences, which leads to sections that are show-appropriate-length and sections that are... well, I could call them fairy-locks, but let's face it - when the knots are as thick as your thumbs, they're dreadlocks.

"Hello, yes? My horse is going for the Bob Marley look and I'm not enthused..."

Maybe emphasis on the dread.

Still, I'm stubborn and patient.  Me and the hairbrush that Cessa's hair is slowly destroying?  We got this.

Magical unicorn look achieved.

(Side note: I kind of love the Tangle Wrangler brush.  Yes, Cessa destroys them because her hair slowly eats bristles, but they do a really nice job of detangling even on her.  Kind of funky to use the first time, though, because the parts of the brush head do spread out - on purpose!)

Of course, once I got all the detangling done and stood there looking at the mess of short hair, kinky hair, and longer/thinner hair, I... kinda went, "Eh, screw it."

Magical unicorn look: revoked

It... it looks so weird on her, and not just because I basically just flipped it over her neck and hacked it off with scissors.  But at least now I know I've got a couple of months before I have to tackle another dreadlock!

Oh, and then I tortured her with the plastic bag the saddle pad came in before I let her go back to the pasture.  Level of caring: almost none.

"This bag is defective. It doesn't have cookies in it."

I took a "omg, it's hot" break in the barn.  About the time I decided to go get Justice, I looked up to find this:

It's the headless horse, man! (I crack myself up sometimes...)

I was going to sneak up on him, but the girls gave me away.  lol

I'm so embarrassing, my horse is in Witness Protection.

So I goofed around with him and the bareback pad and the plastic bag.  Bareback pad?

No problem, Mom!

He was much more concerned about the plastic bag than Cessa, but in the end, not so concerned that I was worried about it.  He wiggled, he squirmed, he walked away - but that was about it.  In the end, the bag and I won; he stood quietly and waited for me to stop losing my mind.  But no pictures of that part - wiggly baby + potentially scary plastic bag + no other humans outside meant I left the phone safely in my pocket.  :)

Farrier day / wet spring

Mom, did you bring the cookies?

Spring is being a pain in the butt.  We're now on weekend three of "Hey, so I see it's Friday - nobody minds if I rain all weekend, right?"

*sigh*

But I did get out on the 12th for farrier day, since we were low on humans to fetch horses that day.  I got out there a little late to see Justice get his feet done, but early enough to catch the tail end of Reign being a shit like her momma.  (I laughed.  And thought, again, that if I ever breed Cessa for a foal for me, I am going to have to find a stallion with excellent conformation, plenty of draft blood, and a sweet, kind personality that stamps the hell out of that personality on all of his foals, because damn, does Cessa implant hers on her foals.)

Also, a tiny victory!  The BOs co-own a young stallion that was purchased out of an... interesting... situation.  He's a bit socially stunted and very shy of people he doesn't know.  He's improved by leaps and bounds since he showed up, but he's still a work in progress.

Please excuse the dramatic stare off into the sunset. That's actually the stare of, 'wtf did this update do to the camera on my phone and why the hell can I not figure out how to reverse the camera now?' with a side helping of, 'I really hope this is in focus and actually has at least 50% of us in it this time...'

So we're all pretty pleased that he let me halter him.  It took a couple of tries; the first few times he trotted off nervously and then circled back to stand where he'd been before.  Then we took selfies to show the BO before he got his pedicure.  :)

Ah, spring...

Look, Ma, no ribs and at least 50% less assembled-by-committee!

When awkward babies start looking less awkward and start reminding you that they still need brain surgery...

And when you take pity on your mare, because the flies were making her miserable...

Fly spray: horrible to put on, but post-horror, we are 90% less fly-covered.

And your BOs do an undercarriage check while you've got her to make sure that she's just fat, not that a certain silver black stud colt got up to more shenanigans than previously thought.

Don't give me that look, mare. If you stop standing at the hay bale all day, I'll stop calling you fat-ass.

At least she's shiny and doesn't jiggle yet...?