My Modeling Career

Because I'm such a handsome fella, somedays Brita just like to spiffy me up and take pictures. She said of all the hundreds of beautiful pictures there isn't one fancy "conformation" shot, and we really should get one of those. Okay, I'm good at standing around looking pretty. How's this?

Oh... I shouldn't look directly at the camera. It shortens my neck? And it wasn't quite the right angle. Well, git in the right spot!

Huh? Whadya say? There's a fly on my nose?

So we tried again. And again. I got bored.... This is taking for-eh-VUH!



Ah, that's a nice pose. Perfect.

Now stand like a "real" Saddlebred.

What do you mean? Like this?

Get over my front end? Do you know what she's talking about?

Me either. Wake me up when it's over.


Whoops, I think you dropped something. You shouldn't go waving towels around like that. It's distracting.

Wait, do you have SNACKS?

You do! Let me have one!
Gimmee Gimmee Gimmee

This is the sort of pose I'm good at.

The End.

Thirst Quenchers

There are few things more refreshing, after a ride on a hot day, than a little porch time and some iced tea. What are your favorite drinks?

The Prince and the Potato

It has been so awful hot and sticky around here lately. Even though it’s only in the mid-eighties, I am usually damp and miserable by early afternoon when Brita takes her lunch break and comes for a ride. We go riding anyway, because a casual stroll around the hay fields is the only way to catch a breeze, and we can enjoy the good parts of summer like the shade of the apple orchard and the monarch butterflies on the milkweed instead of just sweltering in the barn and being grumpy about it.

But when we get back to the barn I’m terribly itchy and there seems to be no remedy for it. Even a cool bath and a fan and a nice scratchy towel won’t make me happy. So instead of spending an hour primping and fussing Brita just turned me loose and let me deal with it my way. Fragrant liniments and fancy combs have their place, but sometimes it better to just stretch out and scratch. I headed straight for the potato patch.

I’ll bet you didn’t realize I was a gardener. While we were waiting for the new grass to grow in my little pasture, we planted some potatoes. Now that they’re pulled up the spot makes a great wallow hole. I don’t just grow vegetables, I also have a pretty Morning Glory on the gate post.

I rolled on both sides in the potato patch. It felt so good. It took care of all the drips on my belly, and the water creeping down my legs. I didn’t even get too dirty.

But I made an awful face when I was about to get up.

Brita came to investigate and see what the problem was, and she found this big rock.

It was a 10 pounder requiring two hands to pick up. Owie. But that’s not all. Besides the rock, there was a stray potato!

Have you ever had a potato in your bed? It’s worse than having a pea under your mattress. It gives a whole new twist to the age old problem of lumpy, smashed potatoes.

But I sure do like my little pasture

Strange Sights

Have you ever seen an object looming on the horizon and you just had no idea what the heck it was?

And the closer you get to it, the scarier and more confusing it looks? Well, horses have a lot of those moments. This thing looked, for all the world, like an alien ready to swallow me. Mom says it was a country sky scraper.

It makes much more sense from this angle, but this angle frightened me most. All that thing needed to do was make a noise, and I would have beat feet for home! It was all very tense. How on earth can your humans act calm and unconcerned in the face of a weird occurrence like this? They acted as if nothing was wrong, and actually scolded me for puffing up and threatening to run. And Brita grabbed my neck and yelled "BOO!" which wasn't funny at all.

These photos were obviously not taken on my first encounter with this creature. I think all you would have seen were photos of the sky, and the ground and my mane. And they would have all been blurry. After I got used to it being there, Brita went back to the barn for her phone. She hadn't planned on doing any photo journalism today, but this was too important a News item to overlook. This creature, whatever it is, and it's companions, have laid waste to one of our fields. They've tracked it up horrible, and stolen all the oats. We went through the field, and I looked for evidence despite the obvious risk of encountering bobby traps.

After all this excitement, we headed into the cow pasture and onto the wooded trails. And, we revisited the Grand Canyon, and it's much much larger tributaries. Luckily Mom and Uncle Dad went with us on foot to show me the way. I'm very concerned about quick sand, and if I see Mom walk across a suspect area, I know it's safe. I don't encounter any quick sand or canyons or fallen trees in my little pasture, so all this stuff is very strange to me.

We found a couple of these wild rivers with slippery rocks and actual WATER in them. I was very brave. Moments after this picture, I figured out a solution to the slippery rocks. I jumped from this very spot, landing well above the rocks and on the other bank. Mom said it was a perfect and impressive leap. Brita called me William the Conqueror and said I was bravest I've ever been. So, that was our day. See what can happen when you leave your camera at home and think you'll just take a nice little stroll on a quiet summer morning? Stuff happens!