THAT Day.

Smegma. Ugh. Even the word makes me want to un-swallow.

Yes, today was THAT day. Finally. After 6 months of procrastination and convenient excuses I cleaned poor Junior's sheath. Neither he nor I were pleased about it, but we were both relieved to have it over with.

I couldn't figure out how to cross tie him AND give him hay to eat, so I just used one of the crossties and tied the hay bag to the wall. He still wasn't relaxed but he was distracted. He wouldn't even consider dropping so I had to go digging. I swear I need to get some of those elbow-length vet gloves. I pulled out a big bean right when I started which caused me to gag and throw the bean into the driveway, gag some more, and then go ask Gunner's Mom to get my brain off of that image for a moment. I wasn't able to find one last time, but considering the size it was probably there then, too. Poor pony. I'm sure THAT did not feel good in there.

The chain is there for size reference. The only other thing I had on me was my Bert's Bees and no way was I going to put those two things close together. He actually stopped eating when I got it out and just stood there as if thinking "Oh. That actually feels ... better." I peeled some other big waxy chunks off and had to do a second round of the Excalibur. He still lifted his leg every once and a while, but he actually settled into the process enough for me to remove a LOT of icky stuff. There was a few minutes that he even stopped eating and just stood quietly. I actually feel like I was quite thorough with the job, or at least a whole lot more thorough than I was a year ago. He did lose his patience with the process after a while, kicked the ground hard once, and kept trying to leave once he realized he wasn't cross-tied. So as soon as I felt like it was rinsed well enough I took him out to eat some nice grass and then put him back out with Max and Cinnabar.

I know horses don't hold grudges, but I can still see it in his face....

I cleaned up our mess big mess. Junior is the messiest hay eater you've ever seen, I swear. Plus during his yanking of the hay bag he pulled the board out of it's holders which knocked the rack off the wall so I had to put all of that back together.

I returned the hay bag to the BO's trailer (Thank You :D ) and found this little guy climbing up the side. I haven't seen a Walking Stick in ages. He was so cute. As soon as I came near he moved his front feet up past his face so he could look even more stick-like. Bravo.