Day Nine

It was a beautiful morning this morning, but as I headed over to the horses with Michele, it started to pour with rain. I was feeling really nervous going over to the stables. It was my first visit after my unsuccessful attempt at mounting, and my stomach was like an angry wasp nest. Eithne and Fiona had both had riding lessons in the morning, so Eithne's horse - Harry - was in the yard when we arrived.

Harry says hello to Humphries

I took Humphries in. He was down in the far end of the field on his own, and it was a long walk there and back to get him, but he led very well. He was too wet to groom, so I picked out his hooves and then sat with him in the stable for a while. Harry came over and nibbled him and squealed for a little while. Tom and Gerry, the goats, kept running into the stable to shelter from the rain, and also for some company. They are very curious, friendly animals and I think they are lonely now that the donkeys are out in the field with the horses, rather than in the yard with them. Harvey used to let Tom scratch his horns against his head, which is rather sweet.

Tom decides to eat some plastic

Rags shelters from the rain

After sitting with Humphries for a little while, I started to clean the tack in the stable. I cleaned two leather head collars, two bridles, one pair of half chaps, the saddle and girth and both my boots and Michele's.

Nice shiny clean bridles

While I cleaned the tack, Michele tackled Humphries' tail. It was in a terrible state, really filthy and all chopped up by the people who had hired him last.

Michele washing Humphries' tail

When Michele had finished with his tail (she did a fantastic job, it looks great now) I led Humphries back out to the field and helped Michele bring in Cori and JB. Cori was hesitant to come in at first (all the horses were sheltering from the rain under the trees at the far end of the field) but with Michele's gentle coaxing and me leading JB, we got them both safely into the stables. JB kept on walking after Michele rather than following me. It was very sweet. I'm not surprised that he preferred to follow her, as he knows her a lot better than he does me.

JB potters about the yard

Michele wormed and fed JB and then wormed Cori. Cori put up a big fight about the worming. It was not so much that he objected to the wormer or the easy wormer bit, it was more a matter of principle to him that he couldn't do it easily, so of course it took three times longer than it should have. It was funny, because he would spin away from Michele and then come over to me and lick my hand. Then Michele would come up to him and he would spin away again. We also noticed that he had a swelling between his front legs.

Lumpy Cori

Close up of the swelling

Michele fed Cori and then we led Cori and JB back to the field. Humphries was grazing with the mares and the two boys went racing down to chase him off. Cori stopped before he even reached Humphries, and started grazing, while JB chased Humphries away from Cheyanna and then started to graze. His chasing was half hearted and not at all hostile.

Practising my riding position on a barrel