Nice days

Suddenly it's nice outside every day. The nights are nice too. It's very cool and comfortable and we have a bright moon shining on us. Tonight the lady with dark hair came, and I knew that was bad news. She put a funny-looking halter on Sailor's head and brought her out of the barn. She took her down to the front paddock where I couldn't see her and I didn't like that. So I yelled a few times, but Sailor didn't come back for a while. When I saw her a little while later, she was sweaty, so she must have worked. At least it wasn't me!

Fresh paddock!

Nice surprise this morning - Linda opened the gate to the front paddock and let us go down the hill. I went first, of course, and found a paddock filled with loads of fresh, green grass. Yippee! We ran around a bit, and then settled in for some serious grazing. And it was a cool day so the bugs didn't bother us. A perfect day.

More rain

Once again, we're getting rained on. I'm up to my fetlocks in mud, my sheet is soaked, and my forelock is dripping on my face. I'm getting too old for this!

Foiled!

Just when I think I have the humans properly trained in the way I like to do things, they do something right out of left field. Last night when it was time to go in the barn, I did my usual routine: first I blocked Sailor from going in the gate, then I moved just a bit so she could sneek by me. Linda and the man called her to encourage her, and then she gets brave and scoots past me. Of course I let her do this, because if I was serious about stopping her I'd kick her to kingdom come. Anyway, they bring Sailor in the barn (she's such a goody-two-shoes), and then they come back out to call me. So I come into the small paddock behind the barn, but of course, I'm not going to let them off that easy. When the man comes over with my halter, I turn away and face away from the door. He gets all huffy and goes in the barn. Then Linda goes in too, and the door closes! Holy crap! I can hear the man out front getting water, so I run around to the front of the barn to see what's going on. He ignores me. I can't find Linda. So I run back to the back door. It's still closed. I know my night time hay is waiting for me inside, so this is starting to get upsetting. I bang against the back gate, calling the people. Could they really leave me out here in the cold, with no hay? Finally, the door opens again, and I put my head over the gate so the man can put the halter on. I really hate it when the humans get the better of me like this, but I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. My hay tasted really good, so it was worth the humiliation. But I won't give up! Boss mares have got keep things under control, so I'll try again tonight.

Hating the in-between season

I hear Linda say it's supposed to be spring, so how come I'm still wearing a coat? The sun is out, but it's cold like winter, and the grass is still brown and dead. Makes for yucky eating. This is getting old. Maybe someday soon we can go to our paddock by the road for something different to look at. I'm really tired of this same old place everyday.

A visit from Larry

Well, after not seeing my Linda for several days, she finally came out to see us. And what happens? I see the ominous truck and trailer that belongs to the Larry human. Larry comes every so often, and I have to go out in the aisle and stand on three legs while he holds up one and pulls the shoe off. Then he uses some clipping thing and cuts part of my hoof off, and then he starts filing it. After all that fuss, he puts the same shoe back on! What is that all about? He does it for all four feet, and it takes forever. But he is one of the nicest people who have ever worked on my feet, so I stand as best I can for him. Sometimes it's hard, especially when he's working on my front feet, because my right hind leg tends to hurt in the hock from the pressure. But he always gives me a break if I start contorting it all weird.

I like watching Sailor get her feet done, because she gets all dopey looking, like she's trying to go to her "safe" place. It ain't that bad, honey!

Fame at last

Linda took this picture of Sailor and me yesterday while we were trying to figure out where the grass went. She apparently thought it was very funny, because she sent it to a TV station and they put it on the evening news. I'm not sure what TV is or news is, but apparently I am now very famous. But we all knew that all along, didn't we?

I guess I shouldn't have complained about the wet weather, because now it is so cold I really need my warm coat. And I still can't find the grass under all the cold white stuff.

Very wet day

Yuck. It has been raining most of the day, and I am tired of being wet. At least Linda fed us dinner in the run-in shed. Maybe she'll take this wet blanket off and put on a dry one. I'm really looking forward to lying down in some nice dry shavings.

You know what I figured out? The humans have the barn bugged. I wondered why every night they plug this little white box into the wall. Turns out they listen to us and can hear everything we do at night. That's a little too "big brother" for my taste! I don't know what is interesting about hearing me snore, or Sailor chewing on the wall. Maybe they want to hear if Sailor is kicking her stall door down. She's done that a few times, the idiot. The first time she did it, the man human found her in the aisle in the morning, standing in the middle of the 8 bales of hay she tore apart. It looked like a bomb went off. So when the barn door opened, she ran over and stood next to me, trying to pretend some other horse must have made the mess. I said, nice try Sailor. Humans are smarter than that. So now I bet they don't take any chances of Miss gonzo trying that trick again.

This morning the male human was very annoying. All I wanted to do was wait for my morning grain in peace. He wanted to clean my stall, and kept insisting I move out of position. It's very important to be in the correct position when the grain arrives. So I refused to move. He yelled and pushed, so I stood on the fork he was trying to clean the stall with. That made him really mad, and he yelled louder, but then Linda came out with the grain so I got off and got ready to eat. People can be so rude!

How I Got My Name

I've had people comment that I think I'm "all that," but once they hear about how I got my name, they realize that I truly have a great Quarter Horse pedigree. My real name, Triple Noble Chick, is after my great-grandsire, Triple Chick, who was a very important sire in Quarter Horsedom. His sire was Three Bars, and anybody who knows anything about Quarter Horses knows that that is a big deal. His mom (dam) was Chicado V, who was an important mare. My sire's name was Chick Watcher (which is a pretty cool name). He was a racing Quarter Horse, and was awarded a Register of Merit in 1978 by the AQHA. He had 3 wins in a 17-race career, and sired 27 foals, including me and a full sister named Noble Spring Chick. Chick Watcher's great-grandsire was Go Man Go, who I think was a pretty good racehorse.

My mother's name was Quesera, and her sire's name was Noble Request, which explains the other part of my name. Both Chick Watcher and Quesera lived on the M&M Ranch in Montana where I was born in 1980. I was Quesera's first baby. My grand-sire Noble Request was also a racer, who won the Indiana Derby in 1971. With all the racing genes in my family tree, I think they were hoping I was going to be a fast horse. Actually, in my younger days, I was pretty fast. Even in my late teens I could catch Leora (a big off-the-track TB) when she had a head start.

Back to my family tree, my mom's side has some interesting names. Her grand-sire was Tonto Bars Gill (who was sired by Three Bars, too). Joe Reed II was a great-grandsire of hers, as was Question Mark. So for all those who think I act like I'm queen of the world, I can back it up. I'm not just some old mare - I am Quarter Horse royalty.

Spying over the fence

Maybe a little game of peek-a-boo would be amusing. Nah- I'm just spying on my human Linda, who is not carrying hay, so it looks like I'm not going to get lucky.

Bored in the snow

Here it is 2 in the afternoon, my lunch hay is finished and there's nothing to do.

More of my life

To continue my life story, before Linda appeared on the scene, I lived with a man named Jack in the southern Adirondack mountains for 10 years. There were no other horses there, so the only person I could boss was Jack. He was very nice and let me call most of the shots. We used to ride up in the woods when he was younger, but then he got older and was sick. He couldn't ride me, so mostly he would come out to the paddock and feed me treats. After a while it was too hard for him to keep up with my many needs, so he invited Linda over to meet me. This is when I was 18 years old. I was underwhelmed and turned my back to her just to let her know that she was nobody to me.

Darned if she didn't come over anyway (how rude) and put my halter on and walk me around like she was in charge or something. On the second visit, she put a saddle on me and rode (or tried to). I made it clear that I wasn't interested by refusing to move even one step. She became very annoying, banging me with her legs and heels, so I gave her what she wanted. I ran like a maniac around my little arena, threw my head back and conked her one, then headed straight for a tree that Jack never removed. This should have discouraged her, but no, she persisted until I finally decided just to walk for her and get it over with. I looked at Jack, and he was smiling, the traitor!

A few days after that, a trailer arrived. Me, trying to be cooperative, hopped on, thinking I was going for a little ride and then back to Jack's. I ended up at this big barn with lots of other horses that I didn't know. Linda was waiting for me, and took me to a stall in the big barn. I called and called for Jack, but he didn't come. Now I was getting upset, because this was all wrong. I wanted my own little barn with Jack and his treats. My stomach got very upset and lots of manure went all over the place. It was not a good night, even though a girl did bring me some grain and hay. And Linda seemed to think this was all wonderful. I really hated her at this moment. But after I spent a few weeks there, it wasn't so bad. I made a couple new friends, a mare named Leora that we would go riding with (with her human, Cheryl), and an Arabian mare named Beau, who became my paddock buddy. Linda and I had lots of adventures riding in the mountains and the woods here, and Cheryl helped her be a better horseperson than she was. More about this place later.

The white stuff stopped

Today is looking like a better day than yesterday. There was that cold white stuff falling from the sky all day long. Even with my coat, I was soaked on my head and neck, and even had icicles hanging off my neck and mane when Linda brought me in the barn last night. At least she took off the drenched blanket and put a nice dry one on me. My stall was nice and clean with lots of fluffy shavings, and there was a pile of the good hay waiting for me, along with an apple in my grain bucket. Heaven!

Finally- my own forum!

After all these years, I've finally got a chance to speak to all the humans of the world. This is my first time using a computer, and I had some trouble figuring this blog thing out, so there is no profile. To introduce myself, I've been on this planet for almost 29 years, so there's not too much I haven't seen or done. I've learned that most humans are beneath me, even though they continually try to tell me they are in charge. The human who has been taking care of me since 1998, who is called Linda, has learned most of what she knows about horses from me. She was such an idiot and such a sap in the beginning that I had little tolerance or use for her. It's hard to take orders from someone who is clueless, if you know what I mean.

So I put up with her, but didn't respect her a heck of lot until I went to live in a big barn with a woman named Ann who had lots of other horses there. She taught Linda how to work with me properly, and I was willing to listen. Ann was one of those rare humans who I totally respect, because it was so obvious she was in charge. I never gave her any crap. She even taught me a few new things. Then she would teach Linda, who always screwed it up at first. But eventually, Linda and I learned how to work as a team. It got to the point where we each seemed to know what the other one was thinking, or going to do, so that made it much more relaxing.

Unfortunately for both of us, my arthritis has gotten worse with my advancing years, so we don't go out on all-afternoon rides anymore. But when we go exploring in my new home here (where Linda lives with me for the first time) I enjoy taking in the sights and checking out the other horses that live in the neighborhood. We could do this more often if Sailor (the other mare that lives here) wasn't such a freak and didn't go into a total panic when I go for a walk. Sailor is another story. They call her an Appaloosa, which I guess means funny-looking, because that's what she looks like to me. We all can't be gorgeous redheads, I suppose. She's young and strong, and could take me if she wasn't such a scaredy-cat. I mean, she's afraid of her own shadow. I do like the fact that she recognizes that I am the absolute boss of this place, but she's like the annoying kid sister that clings to you and never gives you a minute by yourself. But she's my only roommate, so I put up with her, even when she does bone-head things like jump the fence to go I don't-know-where. I can go on and on about her, but that's for another day.