Chaos At The Barn =8-@

Tue May 1, 2007

My (much older) brother was to stop by the barn last night with TWO of his grandchildren to ride the horsie. Not a problem, it's kinda fun, and since the kids will be moving out of state in June (due to Michigan's suck-ass economy, thanks, Gov. Granholm), it'd be a nice break for them instead of worrying about the move.

So I got to the barn early to catch Quzqo (who was about 3/8 of a mile out into the back pasture!!), let him eat some dinner, etc, so he'd be mellow and content and tolerant of kiddies. We-hell, the brother shows up...with FOUR kids! Can't just bring TWO from that family, have to bring 'em ALL (ages 4-9)! All but one had NEVER been to the barn before (mostly due to a feud between their mother and my other niece, which kept them away from Christmas Eves), so they were over-excited or terrified, depending on the kid. They were shocked at the size of the HUGE horse standing in the aisle way (lol, all 14 hands of Himself), at the SMELL, and the birds flying around, how the cat got up on top of the wall, at the strange noises horses make, LOL!

Poor Coos got brushed by the kiddies (I'd already brushed him properly, cuz kids never do it properly y'know), and he was in Full Emperor Kuzco Mode: "NO TOUCHING! NO TOUCH-ING!!!" LOL. He had his head as high as his neck would let it, his eyes were bugging out, and his tail was clamped right between his butt-cheeks, but he didn't kill anyone, so that's good. He also got some carrot chunks for his trouble, fed to him by terrified little children. The one young girl (I think she's 6 or so) didn't even want to come NEAR the beast until Grandpa finally convinced her (plus watching all her siblings having FUN feeding the huge child-eating animal), and she successfully gave the horsie a carrot chunk!

Saddled him up and each kid got to ride. Halfway-through my brother was talking on his cell to my other niece, and next thing I know, she'd dropped off her two oldest kids, so now there were 6 kids climbing the arena rails and running up and down shrieking and hollering (and my brother hollering at them). Poor Bob was finishing up the evening chores and he just left...lol...can't blame him! Probably hoped his barn would still be standing when we were done!

The little girl who was so terrified ended up riding Coos, and once she got on and we took a few steps, she was just BEAMING from ear to ear, and sat that horse like she was born to it! LOL! I couldn't keep her away once she got back on the ground!!

Surviving all that, I harnessed up the poor horse, who was about ready to snap with tension from all the kids and noise and inappropriate behavior (the one 5 yr old liked to stand in front of the horse and wave his arms around...)...never mind *I* was pretty jangled up myself...it's stressful enough harnessing a horse up alone, trying to make sure all the straps are "just so", but worse with kids!!

We got him hooked up to the cart safely, with my eldest nephew (10 yrs old) holding the lead rope for me (Coos is fine being hitched up as long as he has a human to slobber on while it's happening), and I drove him around a bit just to make sure everything was all right. Then we gave cart rides, two-kids at a time. They enjoyed that more than the riding, especially when I got him trotting, LOL! He did EXCELLENT too!

Think we got done around 9:30 p.m., GAAH, poor horse was yawning. The little girl who was terrified earlier got to lead him to his stall (actually he led HER to his stall, lol), quite the change I thought.

I'll make it up to him tonight, poor horse!

LOL, the 5 yr old boy pointed to Quzqo's sheath and said "What's THAT?" I said "That's his pee pee." and the kid jumped back a couple of feet with a loud "EWWWWWW!" Snark! Luckily Coos didn't display his entire pee pee apparatus I guess!

The little beggars saw me getting a peppermint for Coos, so they all wanted peppermints! The horse was astonished that all these monkeys were eating HIS peppermints, HA!

There was THE cutest damned scene and my brother missed getting a picture...one of the kids had some gum, and was distributing it to her siblings, and they were standing right in front of Coos...he had HIS neck arched and head down beautifully, trying his darndest against the cross-ties to get some gum too, ha!