Penthouse Suite

I really don’t know how this will translate to the blog. It is more of a pictorial, and unless you were there, you probably can’t fully appreciate it.

I had a lot of fun in the barn tonight watching herd dynamics and taking pictures. A little background: Although I love all my horses, I’ve put more time and effort into Windy than any of the others. So let’s just say she is special. A bit of a prima donna, I admit, made that way by yours truly.

While she was recovering from an abscess last month, I kept her stalled separately in the barn. After 30 days, she was ready to rejoin the herd. She’d grown quite weary of her stall and run while the others were out to pasture! Well, now the cold weather has moved in and all the horses are brought up to the corral with a round bale. All of a sudden she is thinking her little stall is the place to be. And no way, no how is she going back to the corral with the herd!


Never mind that having her stalled is an inconvenience for me. I’m her slave anyway. So what that it is almost zero with the wind chill and her particular penthouse has no automatic water tank and I have to go out and chop ice from her tank twice daily. I’m out there anyway cleaning her stall. And hand feeding her since she has no round bale in her run. What we do for those we love!


Meanwhile, back in the corral, the herd hears me enter the penthouse suite. Blue sneaks in and peers through the gate separating the “haves” from the “have-nots”. He’s checking to see if she is getting grain. He doesn’t think I can see him!


So I drop some hay down to the bunks on the “have not” side, just so they can get out of the wind for while. There are two bunks on that side of the barn and one in the lean-to. Ginger is not about to share her side of the barn and quickly runs Blue off. (Actually, she is hoping she will get a chance at the penthouse in days to come!)




"Now get out of here and don't come back!" Ginger says to Blue. And Blue has to go and share the bunk with Black and Baby.


Butter usually eats in the lean-to, but knows if she comes begging on the other side of the barn (after everyone else has started eating) that she will get a special treat. Can’t you just hear her saying “pretty please?”


And while everyone else is jockeying for their position, Miss Windy enjoys her formal dining in the penthouse suite (and don't tell the rest of the herd that there is a flake of alfalfa in her trough!). Sometimes life just isn’t fair!