odds and ends

Everybody around here is very much ready for spring.  Last year at this time I was gardening, as you can see HERE.  Before our winter storm this month, before the garden had even been plowed, I tilled a space at one end, enough for a couple of rows, and planted the usual early stuff which, of course, has done nothing because it's been frozen under snowdrifts.  (Wow, what a long sentence!)  

Our third resident horse has arrived.  Her name is Zoey.  She belongs to Adam's girlfriend.

Zoey

  She reminds me of the filly, Libby, that I enjoyed so much when I had her.  That's her with me, below, back around the time I sold her.  The man who bought her was going to let me know how she turned out, but you know how that goes.  

Anyhow, Zoey has exactly the same temperament as Libby had.  If you walk in the pasture, she approaches you.  No crowding or anything, just looking for some love and petting.

The day Adam brought Zoey over, we shut the gate to the large lot so she wouldn't go running out to pasture chasing cows and breaking electric fences, because that's what new horses do.  Besides, a snow-storm was coming.  Now that most of the snow is gone I decided to try letting them out.  I opened the gate, but Tude and Sassy (who have lived here for years and know the place well) acted like they were scared to go out.  Tude, in fact, circled around Zoey every time she headed to the gate and wouldn't let her go out.  The three of them finally went outside the lot a little way but were snorting and acting crazy, and soon came running back.  I shut the gate.  Let the silly things stay in the lot, if that's how they are going to be!  We're supposed to have a couple of warmer days soon.  Maybe then they will settle down and go graze.  

As you can imagine with all the snow melting, it's muddy.  When we go for our daily walk, Iris runs into the woods and we don't usually see her until sometime after we're back at the house.  The last three days, she has come back with her whole underside muddy.  I make her go stand in my bathtub and hose her off with the shower head.  Now she knows what I mean when I say "Go to the tub" and runs ahead of me and jumps in, waiting for me to get the mud off her.