Tragic theft at my house

Sometime early this afternoon, my horse's brain was stolen. My husband thinks it was aliens, but I suspect government scientists. :(

This morning one of the moving companies came by to estimate the house. After he left, I had two hours to kill before the next person came, so I caught my very mannerly mare, tied her up with a hay bag, and groomed her for over an hour. I went at her with the trusty Slick 'n Easy, which always sounds like a club song to me, but anyway, I got all the loose hair off, eventually. Here's some purty conformation shots. Dixie was perfectly behaved - she wiggled at the beginning and I whopped her on the shoulder and after that she just sighed deeply and let me go over her about ten times.

I jacked with the levels on this one because I was shooting into the sun, but I'm looking at the horse more than the prettiness of the picture.




I checked her feet - the fronts are totally clear of thrush, but now there's a bit in the back feet, so I treated them. I trimmed a bit off one of her heels, but there wasn't much to do. Dixie was an angel for the hoof work.

Then I turned her loose in the back yard to feast on the lush spring grass.


If you click to embiggen you will, in fact, see green stuff on the ground.


Dixie wandered around and looked at things. After she ate all the grass, I fed her some carrots, then I let her loose beside the barn. Eventually, the second moving company rep showed up and I put her back in her paddock.

THAT'S THE LAST TIME I SAW HER BRAIN.

The moving lady did her thing, I ate some lunch, and I went out to catch my horse again for a ride. She was all snorty and fidgety but I paid her no nevermind and mounted up to do the double hill ride. We headed out.



Dixie spooked at the dogs she's seen on every ride we've ever done. She looked real hard at a car at a cross street. She tried to bolt sideways at a canter at a crossroads in the trail. We popped over a tiny hill and she slammed on the brakes to stare in utter horror at a mylar balloon caught in a sagebrush by the trail. She couldn't walk past it on the trail and had to sidepass 10' off into the thornbushes to get by it. Then a plastic bag in a bush, then another plastic bag, then the mini horses, then the dogs ARRRRRGH. Eventually we started up the hill proper and she didn't get better but I did make her work too hard to fret over malignant bushes.

We went down the back of the hill and out into the valley, a bit further than we usually go, but I wanted to go out for an hour. The return trip was slightly better - she was rateable - but the damn mylar balloons tried to kill her again. When we got home I tied her up by the fence where she eats dinner, every single night since we moved here, and went in the house to get a drink of water. When I came back out she was standing at the end of her lead as far as she could get from her bucket.

I walked out. Dixie rolled her eyes at me and snorted. I looked at what she was looking at. I'd left her beet pulp bucket, the very same white bucket that always has food in it, the one she's always trying to get her nose in to see what good stuff is in there, yes, that bucket was laying on the ground under the feed bucket on the fence. I resisted the urge to hit my head on the fence and instead moved the deadly white bucket in the barn. She still stood at the end of her lead and snorted. I had to scoop out a bit of her delicious ration balancer beet pulp mush and hand-feed it to her to prove that there wasn't a demon hiding in her feed bucket.

Horses! :flings hands in the air: So did aliens steal her brain? Has she been taking lessons from Bill and Juanita's mustangs? Is this my punishment for not riding for a whole week?