We had our photoshoot for our anual holiday card and, really, all I can say is that I am really disappointed with my photographer/girl this year. The lighting and locations were all wrong, my costuming was terrible, and really my girl is lucky that I didn’t walk out on the whole thing. Nonetheless, Salem and I do want to extend our holiday greetings to you in digital card form:
This is not the image I personally felt should have been used for our card. Clearly this is not a particularly flattering photo of my ample head which, in reality, I highly doubt is as large as Salem’s entire body. Here is the picture that I think we should have used on our holiday card:
My girl said that the focus isn’t right in this photo though. I think that technical photographic quality is, in this instance, outweighed by my gorgeous smile.
Perhaps the most disappointing thing about this photoshoot was the props. Would you believe that this pie isn’t even actually pie!? What kind of sick joke is that? I tried eating it several times, it and continued to fail to become pie.
The good news is that I swear I overheard my girl talking about iPads today on our trail ride! To be honest, I wasn’t completely listening… I had already missed the opportunity to jump the creekbed because I had gotten too distracted with my girl’s conversations, so I really couldn’t afford to risk missing anything else by listening too hard. But I am pretty sure someone said something about iPads and, honestly, I can only really imagine one possible conclusion as to why anyone would ever be talking about an iPad: it must be a present for me!
Since I know that everyone is now rushing to find pleasing presents for me for my First Annual 29th Birthday Party ™, I’ve decided to make everyone’s lives significantly easier by making a registry. I try to be as accommodating as possible — it’s simply my nature.
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It has been so long since my last post… I’m really not even sure how anyone was able to stand it! If there is anyone to blame for this terrible injustice placed upon the world, it is my girl. Because despite my many polite pleas for an Apple iPad, she has yet to bring me one. I think the poor dear keeps misunderstanding me, bringing me plain apples instead. It is truly impossible for a busy horse such as myself to maintain my internet presence without the right tools. I was hoping that my girl would get me an iPad today since it is black friday, but I am pretty sure she just got me new Eskadron standing wraps. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, as I appreciate her awareness of the fact that I demand quality in my wraps; however, both Christmas and my birthday are quickly approaching and it would be in her best interest to get her shopping for me done early so that she does not become overwhelmed!
For my girl’s convenience, I have rendered a perfect family photo album image of what I would look like receiving my iPad on Christmas morning:
This would be an image that my girl could cherish forever, and it would only cost her about $500 (plus monthly fees for my 3G service).
Please let my girl know if you want more posts from me, and how much easier an iPad would make my blogging. It is mostly out of my hooves at this point, but perhaps with a little help from others she will finally understand.
The inconvenience of not having my iPad caused me to not post our Halloween pictures in a timely fashion! Salem and I dressed up and went trick-or-treating, but there were hardly any treats to be had! We will have to go out later next year, but Salem goes to bed early and made it clear that he had to be in his pajamas before sunset.
Salem and I decided to coordinate our costumes this year. His dark color and ample frame lends him to make the perfect bee, and my general winsome disposition makes me the ideal flower.
Salem told me his costuming would take some time, but then he ended up getting dressed almost immediately and leaving me little time to explain to my girl how I wanted my braids. Oh well!
A work of art… With a flower painted on it.
Salem’s quarter horse butt disguised as a bee is so shockingly intimidating (the stinger isn’t pictured here!) that it blurred the photograph!!!
My girl says she has some “exciting plans” for our annual Christmas card, which is always a little bit terrifying. The approaching holidays, including my first anual 29th birthday, will be something to look forward to though I suppose. I have been working on my birthday registry to make it easier for my birthday party guests to pick out their presents. HINT: I’ll probably be needing an iPad case!
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After making several somewhat tasteless hats for myself and others, my girl has finally come up with a design that is well suited to my courtly countenance.
I took this opportunity to remind my girl that I need more rope halter sets with which to coordinate my outfits, but she just reminded me of my nice leather halter. It’s nice and all, but I still need a bigger wardrobe to choose from!
In other, non style-related news, I have been helping my uncle Salem learn Trail Trials obstacles. I’m sure it’s difficult to learn in the shadow of a seasoned pro like myself, but he’s trying his best. In fact, he is pretty good at some of the obstacles, such as the murderous tarp. Personally, no matter how many times I cross a tarp safely, I still find their mere existence to be unsettling. I mean… What use is a tarp anyhow? Roofs should cover things. Or trees. Not evil, flappy, colorful plastic stuff.
I happen to have in my possession photographic evidence of the existence of what us horses call the “Tarp Monster.” Please be advised that the picture you are about to see is extremely disturbing:
Hopefully seeing this doesn’t set Salem back on his progress with the obstacles, but I just wanted to spread awareness of the Tarp Monster as it can be very dangerous (it can stick to your feet AND it can fly at you and onto you. Highly disturbing). It is somewhat elusive and does not always show itself right away. You can never really know when a tarp is an ordinary tarp and when it is, in fact, the dreaded Tarp Monster. Please exercise caution when going near tarps.
This website is foremost for my personal use; however, I still try to provide a public service when possible.
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I imagine that you have been wondering what I have been doing to occupy my time this Summer. Somehow between my cooking, egg raising, stall decorating and making sure my girl stays busy, I have been making time to visit the local park.
Salem and I volunteering our services of grounds maintenance.
For some completely absurd and most likely discriminatory reason, we are not allowed in the playground of this park. Salem and I want to have slide races, but we are going to have to plan to get to the park early next time so that there is no one around to rudely prevent our playground fun.
As you likely surmised from my previous entry, I have also befriended a couple of chickens.
Her foot is blurred in dance.
Freckles, my favorite chicken, does an excellent job in cleaning my stall. She fluffs my bedding for me and helps me organize my hay. Additionally, she is an excellent dancer:
* CHICKEN DANCE. CHICKEN DANCE. WE’RE DOING IT FROM STALL TO STALL *
Incidentally, I have agreed to be her manager in order to raise money to buy myself my own mini pony. So if you would like a dancing chicken for your next party or event, please contact me and we will talk numbers.
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Since it’s summer, I thought that I would share the recipe for my world famous Cold Alfalfa Soup! It is a cool, refreshing snack — perfect for when dry alfalfa is just a bit too heavy.
Cold Alfalfa Soup Recipe
- Plan to prepare your soup in the morning on the day that you wish to serve it for dinner. It must cook for many hours, so you may want to wake up early so that you can start as soon as your alfalfa appears in your feeder.
- You should begin with roughly 15 gallons of water. Personally, I like to start with about 18 gallons, drink 3 and leave the rest for my soup.
- Add about two mouthfuls of alfalfa hay. The stems are fine, but the flowers make for the most flavorful stock.
- Thoroughly mix the alfalfa into the water so that it becomes totally submerged.
- Let your soup sit for several hours in the warm sun. This will allow for the potent alfalfa flavors to permeate the water. Stir periodically.
- As the evening approaches, your soup will begin to cool and it will soon be ready to serve. Taste your soup and check its consistency — the taste should be sweet and herby, and the color should be greenish yellow throughout.
- Humans love this soup too! My girl is always noticeably thrilled when she comes from work to discover that I’ve spent the day making alfalfa soup.
Additionally, I have grown a strong bond with my neighbor chickens. They scratch around my stall and help keep it dry, and they also left me some eggs! I was so excited to discover them!
I want to keep all of the eggs they leave me and raise my own chickens, as I am very unfairly being denied my right to have a pet mini pony. My girl told me that it might not work though.
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My apologies for announcing the winner of the contest a bit late. As you can imagine, my weekends are extremely busy. It is a full-time job making sure that my girl does all of my shopping and cleaning correctly — between that and my spa treatments, my weekends become very hectic.
For some reason, my girl would not let me pick the name of the winner of this contest. She said something about how it’s not good for me to eat little pieces of paper with people’s names written on them. Pure ridiculosity! Instead, she opted to enter the names into a completely unscientific and unproven random word-picker that she found on the internet. I maintain that only a seasoned thoroughbred nose could chose a winner truly deserving of such a quality prize as a shirt featuring my likeness. Nonetheless, the name-picker returned a winner who I approve of and therefore I will allow my girl’s impertinent behavior on this issue slide. THE WINNER IS:
Do not fear if you did not win this round. There will be more contests in the future, and you may purchase a shirt if you’re very interested.
Since we are on the subject of fashion inspired by me, I will share with you a hat that my girl made me for me:
My carrot hat inspires what I can only assume is jealousy in others. Few horses or people can have their interests described so succinctly in the form of a hat.
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REMINDER! To enter for your chance to win an Eagle t-shirt, simply leave a comment on any of my entries. Be sure to use your name and e-mail address in your contact information. The names will be written on pieces of paper, mixed and chosen randomly. The results will be announced JULY 18th.
Happy 4th of July! Did you know that horses built America? Actually, I built America. That is why the national horse is the Eagle. People have gotten confused over the years, and now people think that the national bird is the Eagle. I understand the confusion, so I have been more than polite about the mistake. Still, I think you should know our country’s true history.
In case you’ve yet to notice, it is July and we are now entering the period of year that I refer to as “delightful” and that my girl refers to as “completely excruciating.” It’s summer! It’s hot! As usual, I’m beautiful! This all amounts to it being a great time of year for me. Today I ran my girl up and down my favorite hill repeatedly in the heat of the day, just to show her how much I love summer. For some reason, she did not appreciate my enthusiasm.
My girl got me something called “rice hulls.” I know she does these things because she thinks she is helping me, but sometimes she really is silly. I searched every inch of my stall and found no actual rice, and very little soy sauce. To be completely honest, this is hardly edible. The whole rice search exhausted me so, and I had to lie down. At least these rice hull things are comfortable.
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My apologies for the lapse in updates from me. I realize that the time without fresh pictures of my beauty and reaffirmations of my wit have been difficult; however, I have been busy settling into my new home. I have been on a strict training program with my uncle Salem, who is teaching me the ways of The Quarter™. In return I am teaching him a bit about being Thoroughly Pampered™. I am learning quite a lot from Salem, and I really proved myself to him recently when I stole food right out of the feeder of a mare that was bothering him.
My rugged five o’clock shadow
My girl says that I live in a significantly better zipcode than she does. I agree that it’s a nice area, but I just have one question… If I live in such a nice neighborhood, why can’t we have HBO? I am growing bored of regular cable.
Because I forced you to wait so long to see my gorgeous face again, I am going to give you another opportunity to win something. This time you will be playing for a chance to win the next best thing to me… A t-shirt displaying my likeness!
Of course the winner will have their choice of shirt colors and sizes (including men’s sizes). Unfortunately, horse sizes will not be available (discrimination, I say!).
TO ENTER for your chance to win an Eagle t-shirt, simply leave a comment on any of my entries. Be sure to use your name and e-mail address in your contact information. The names will be written on pieces of paper, mixed and chosen randomly. The results will be announced JULY 18th.
So good luck to all on the contest! In the meantime I will keep you posted on my training program with my Uncle Salem. Slowly but surely his daily feed rations are growing, thanks to my guidance.
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We had a pretty eventful weekend. Between the dentist and moving, I think my girl and I are ready for… Next weekend! One without stress. For now, it’s time for us to rest.
While it is hard to leave all of my friends at my old ranch, I now am closer to my Grandma and my “uncle” Salem – additionally, I’ll be closer to my girl’s work and home, so she’ll be over to fawn over me as much as I expect her to. My new stall is not an in/out one like my old one, but it’s very large and as you can see my girl has me set up with lots of bedding and all of my decorations.
We have lots of nice views here… Of course none of them are as beautiful as THIS view.
So far my uncle Salem is staying out of my hair for the most part. I took him on a power walk yesterday, and today he took me down to the canyon for a ride. It was okay, but the trail he likes really needs some work — there were parts that were not thoroughbred sized.
Salem is actually a good turn-out partner. He didn’t share his sweet feed with me, though!
I’ll leave you, for now, with my beauty pageant smile. This is what expert dental care and magnificent breeding gets you.
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My girl tells me that I need some dental work. How ridiculous! My teeth are gorgeous. Just because I’m missing a couple of them, and I drool a little, she’s making a big deal out of it. She says regardless of how great my teeth actually are, I still need to see the dentist occasionally. I asked her when the last time she saw the dentist was, and she changed the subject! Maybe I’ll ask the vet to take a look at her teeth while he’s here tomorrow.
I did want to share my latest trick…
Standing! That is to say, standing without the aid of ropes. This is a fact that should be well understood about an old race horse, but I really do hate standing still. Personally, I like to be where the action is — that usually requires following the action, rather than waiting around. But I’m trying to humor my girl a little bit, not following her until she asks me to. Once she gets used to me doing this, it will be even funnier when I start following her again! I know she always can use a good laugh.
