Remi's Revenge

It is no secret that Remington's main goals in life are to eat, play and cause mischief. He is very happy and content to loll around in the pasture, munch on grass and ah yes, roll around in the dirt and mud. Life is sweet when that's all his agenda has to hold.

However, the month of December has not been all that fun for the big guy. The holiday season is full of extra long hours of work for us humans and a little more work for the horses. And although Remington thinks he's been overworked, he really hasn't, but nonetheless, he has decided he would let us know every day that he is most unhappy with the situation. I mean how dare we upset his full schedule of doing nothing!

Before I continue, let me just say that Remington may have worked a total of 2 whole hours the entire year. This gigantic stomach on stilts needs a little exercise now and then and we take extra precautions to make sure all of our working horses get necessary breaks and work minimal time. So, despite the fact that he has had to work this entire season, it's not killing him, trust me. He's such a big baby! He needs to support his two bales of hay a day habit, now doesn't he?

We had intended on using our new pair for the season, however the month of October was a total washout with 27 days of rain and they were not ready to be on the streets yet. So the task of pulling the vehicles has been left up to Remi, who thinks that we are just horrible creatures for making him work. Whaaa, poor widdle Remipup has to work like a human, how terrible.

Every day when we go to the barn and grab the lead rope, Remi will turn his back to us and pretend that we are not there. "I don't see you and you don't see me" "And I am not going with you today, so there!" Wanna bet ya big doof, we can see you just fine and oh yes mister, you are going and that's all there is to it. So, of course you know, we win, but he gives it his best shot. And, he does it every single day.

Now, here's where the revenge comes in. Yesterday, even though the pasture was still a little muddy, trainer Mom let Princeton, the older horse out so he could stretch. We didn't want to let Remi out because we knew he would roll in the mud and it is just too cold to bathe him, so he stayed in the stall.

Well, he went to bucking and kicking the walls, squealing like a pig and shaking his head back and forth with a great big attitude. I looked at trainer Mom and said, "I'm not going in there to clean his stall when he's acting like that." We both kept telling him to settle down, but he wasn't having any part of that. And, since she had to drive him later on and didn't need all that extra pent up energy, we decided to let him out.

We were smart about it though and put an old blanket on him so if he did roll, he would get mud on the blanket and not on him. Of course, nothing could protect his feathers, so he had huge mud balls sticking to all four legs. Ok, that's easy enough to brush so trainer Mom wasn't too worried. As we loaded him up in the trailer, I kept shaking my head at what a mess his legs were, but little did I know that the worst was yet to come, and boy howdy, did it ever come.

Today, the ground was so much drier so we didn't put the old blanket on him. Big mistake, huge, really big dumb move, because leave it to my boy to find the ONE dang spot where it was still mushy and nasty. Oh, yes, by golly he found it, he rolled completely over in it and then the doofus rolled back over once more. Oh my stars and martians, he is now a gigantic mud ball. And you could almost see the big grin on his face as if to say, "ok, if you're gonna make me work, then you are gonna have to work even more and brush me big time!"

When trainer Mom went to go call him and Princeton in to the stalls, he zoomed to the back pasture to avoid the inevitable. "Hee hee, come and catch me if you can." Oh, yeah, you think that's gonna work? Wrong mister, you only have 2 days left and you are going to go to work, get in your house.

Thank goodness he has a strong bond with Princeton, because once he turned around and saw him going to his stall, he decided to follow and go into his. Whew, that was a close one. I would hate to think we would have to fire up the bobcat and chase him around the back pasture. Head 'em up and move 'em out! Yee Haw :)

So, he got his revenge by golly. Mud from nose to toes and quite proud of himself, I might add. After tomorrow he can settle back in to romping and rambling around in the pasture and enjoying his favorite pastimes of eating and mischief making. He'll probably forget about this month by Tuesday. But, you can bet he'll still pull his I can't see you antics, the next time he sees us coming toward him with a lead rope.

That's my boy, 3000 pounds of "I don't wanna". But you still gotta love him :)

Stay tuned, stay happy and stay with us!