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05/21/2002: "Indy, Indy, Indy…"
Where to begin? I had a lot to write after yesterday, but I was too tired last evening to start. Just as well - now I can add this morning’s adventures of Indy The Court Jester.
Right now, we have some little kittens by my All Time Favorite Barn Kitty, Socks. She is a wonderful mother, and we want the kittens. There are four of them, and they are just getting to the age where they are all over the place, chasing each other - and anything else that moves… or doesn’t move, as the case may be :o)
The way our barn is set up, the kittens can easily get into the area where the horses are. Not a good thing for babies that don’t have enough sense to get out of the way! We’ve been through this before, and, even though our horses have always been aware of the cats and seem to go to great effort to avoid squashing them, it does require SOME awareness on the part of the cats too.
So, when there are kittens this age, we have to put up some sort of barrier to keep them out of the horse area. A couple of years ago we tried putting a solid board up to divide the areas. Unfortunately, that prevented US from having a reasonably convenient way of getting in there ourselves. Back to the drawing board.
The kittens were really racing around yesterday morning, so after we finished morning chores, Mike stacked up shavings bales - the ones in plastic - to block the kittens out. I had a slightly funny feeling about leaving these bales within reach of You-Know-Who, but he seemed to be ignoring them, so I figured he had gotten bored with them. WRONG.
When I went out to give the guys their lunch, there was Mr. Indy, standing is the midst of a whole bale of shavings that he’d taken it upon himself to open and spread around. Hey, if he felt he needed more shavings in his stall, all he had to do was ask! Maybe he was trying to save me the effort - RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT. The bag was still in the middle area, totally demolished, and Mr. Indy was standing in the middle of the whole thing, looking as innocent as an angel.
I raked the shavings into his stall, and moved the rest out of range. Indy felt he should help me with this as well. He pulled a chunk out of the corner of one, and put his FOOT on another. For a minute, I thought he was planning to climb up on it. Better view or something.
When I went back out in the afternoon, all the bags were as I had left them - out of his reach. I guess I didn’t ruin his whole day though, because he was romping around being his usual Goofball self. I went down to the end of the paddock to just check around, and the next thing I knew, he was flying down the hill. He came to a sliding stop right at my feet - and instantly started grazing. When I wandered back up to the front, he did the same thing. He gets a lot of exercise that way :o)
This morning, Mike was giving Ami her ration of the hay we bought last year that has the alfalfa in it. Neither of them get a lot of this stuff- especially Ami, aka Ms Tub ‘O Lard. Indy is ALWAYS on hand for any foodstuffs, and Mike lets him have a bite of Ami’s hay, even though his own hay feeder is FULL. Well, I guess Mike didn’t have a good hold on the flake - and this is VERY tightly baled stuff - because Indy pulled the whole thing out of his hands and proceeded to strew it all over the place before settling down to eat what was left. Later, he managed to stick his lips under Ami’s stall gate and steal some more even as she was eating it. Well, I TOLD her what would happen if she pulled it all down from the feeder and pushed it close to the gate. Nobody listens to me…
Dang, it’s hard to clean stalls when you’re weak from laughing.
