I love horses!

Introducing the great Lilac Domino. She is a treasure (one man's trash is another fool's treasure). She comes in looking like this (actually normally worse if she can) every day. She is supposed to be white, btw. Sorry for the small pic, I couldn't find another one of her, most likely because she always looks like a damn ragamuffin, so who would want to photograph her. :P

Lilac is 27 yrs old, not my horse, but I am paid to care for her, which I do as though she were my own. She is a retired show horse and brood-mare and do to her "been there, done that" status, she is normally allowed to do her own thing and just be a horse. Yep, she's spoiled! So tonight, being as it was 10 degrees (-15 degrees with the windchill), I decided to just let her stroll out of her stall, no halter, and walk around the barnyard while I cleaned. She hates to be tied and hates more to be locked in the front of the barnyard. I have let her wander around before, knowing she would just nose about and then venture to the hay area and we have never had an issue. Lilac is not a dumb horse, but when she wants something...... Tonight, she wanted to eat off the middle bale of hay in a "wall of hay" we had made to block the wind from her and her neighbor's stall. As I shoveled out her pit of a stall and listened to her munch, suddenly she lept backward as 6 bales of hay came crashing down around her. One inevitable hit her in the head, hence her blinking oddly and shaking her head. No sympathy! She pulled and pulled at one bale in order to get to the part she wanted and TIMBER, here they all were. As it was so damn cold, the bales are very heavy and my back was in no mood, I tossed the bales back into the hay bin....unstacked, and finished the stall. The look on Miss Lilac's face was priceless, I had to laugh. She waited for a stern reaction from me. She stood, frozen next to the barn. All she got was a laugh. "Good job old girl, ought to have a nice headache in the morning." What else can I do?

I will just keep telling myself, "I love horses, I love horses, I love horses." :P