Scratch It

I’m pretty sure people know the sayin about what you should do if ya got an itch, although truthfully I’ve never seen a person get an itch like a horse does. I reckon that’s a good thing, considerin.

And an itch is a powerful thing. That’s another sayin.

And also, you got to use what ya got. That’s another one. That one might only be mine, though, but I can’t say for sure.

The truth is, a horse has got a lot of parts to himself that he can’t always reach by himself.

Here’s another sayin, and this one certainly is my own: You can’t scratch your own withers.

I realize people ain’t got long and proper necks, but you can’t do it, can you? At least with your withers, most times you can find another horse who’s willin to scratch it for you, ‘cause another horse understands.

That’s what I’m talkin about. There are some parts you can’t ask another horse to scratch. When you’re feelin all sweaty and scratchy, standin out in the sun at the start of the hot time, and there’s bits of winter haircoat still clingin to your horse-hide, most especially on your underside, you got to use what you got to get the job done.

Mostly, here in our own little County Island horse-corral, that means brush. We got a bunch of kinds of brush here, that’s called desert broom, and brittlebush, and also creosote. The best, far as I’m concerned, is the desert broom. Just like when our bucket gal, and your own bucket gal, too, I’d venture, sweeps around with a barn broom, you can use the desert broom to sweep around the bottom side of your sweaty, scratchy belly and really get in all them nooks and crannies. That’s the most I say about it, lest I become indelicate.

So, when I got an itch to scratch, I like to on purpose walk over the big, tall desert brooms, and scratch my belly as I go. If need be, I’ll walk back and forth across the tops of a few of ‘em ‘til the itch settles down. The bucket gal thinks it’s “quirky” of me. I don’t know what that means, but I know I don’t like it. Some horses, such as Original Coors and Coors Light, think it’s funny, but I say don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.

If the desert broom’s big enough, you can even kinda stand over and inside it at the same time. And if ya stand there for a while, it helps keep the flies off your sweaty parts, on account of you’re camouflaged inside the brush. It’s like stealth mode or somethin.

This may or may not pertain to your own sweaty, scratchy situation, if ever you should find yourself in one, but it seems like good advice I should pass along, since I’m the only horse I see who’s got sense enough to be doin it. I try to be a helpful horse here on the County Island, even to those who likely don’t know they need help.

Standin’ in the scratchy sweet spot, inside some desert broom brush.

Short Shanks

Our horseshoein man likes to tell stories, so instead of snoozin while he files down my hooves, I like to listen to him talk, unlike a lot of humans, who truthfully I try not to hear. My favorite is the one about the rainin horse and the tiny telephone. But recently, he told a doozy, and this time I’m sure it’s all made-up.

He and our bucket gal was blabberin with their people-words, and I picked out “donkey” and “cow” and “horse,” so I woke up to try to hear more about the cow part, since I used to work cattle for a livin. They were talkin about “miniature,” which is a fancy way to say “tiny,” critters. We got some tiny horses and tiny donkeys around the County Island, which I ain’t real impressed with. But then they said there was also tiny cows, and the horsehoein man said he’d seen a herd of tiny cows at the far end of the County Island, where there’s a ranch that runs tiny cows, on purpose. And even breeds ‘em. Again, on purpose.

Right there, I knew he was makin things up. What would a person do with a tiny cow? I reckon the people could still eat ‘em — in one tiny bite. I snorted softly through my horse nostrils at that. I thought to myself, I suppose that’d give new meanin to “petit filet.” Yeah, I know my cow cuts — the eatin kind, as well as the workin cuttin kind that ranchers do with cows before they go on to become supper and such.

Petit filets… horse-chuckle, to myself… I reckoned they’d also have some true short ribs on ‘em.

And then, like the bucket gal could read a horse’s mind, I heard her laughin, “That’s awesome! I’ll have the petit filet! [She said it like I hadn’t thought of it first.] Or imagine the short ribs! Gives new meaning to short shank!” She and the horseshoein man thought they was the funniest damned people that ever lived.

But then I set to thinkin on short shanks, as my hooves finished bein done.

A shank, in addition to bein an eatin part of a cow, is also a western bit, as y’all may not know if you’re not experienced in the ways of the ranch horse, which a lot of County Island people are deficient in. A horse starts out with the short shanks when he’s young, and graduates to the long shanks with their greater leverage and what’s called finesse as he gets experienced.

I figured, well then, of course a tiny cow would wear a short shank. Long shanks would trail on the ground on a tiny cow, now, wouldn’t they?

Tiny cows, wearin tiny short shank bits in their tiny cow mouths… With tiny cowboys on ‘em, ridin in tiny saddles… Maybe ropin tiny horses, in what’s called the opposite ranch-land where stuff’s all tiny and back-ass-wards, with cows ropin horses…

And then I thought — that’s got to be the dumbest thought a horse has ever had.

This is what the County Island does to a horse, when ya got too much time on your hooves, and not enough work to do — as I did right then, with a hoof hangin in the air while the horseshoein man held it up and he and the bucket gal paused to laugh.

When I first arrived here, I would’ve ignored such talk about tiny cattle, as a horse should, ‘cause it makes no sense and it don’t pertain to a horse’s own interests. On the ranch, you learn to mind your own business. If it’s somethin you need to know about, you’ll know about it when it’s time to know about it and not a moment before that.

Now, I can see how it happens, with the spooky-looky horses around the County Island, bein raised up as they are with no jobs to do and nothin real to occupy their thoughts all day. It leads to this.

I figured I’d better go find somethin useful to do, right quick. Such as cut Original Coors away from that hay pile over there.

And then, on account of cuttin Original Coors took no time at all, and I still had these idle thoughts, I done composed what’s called poe-tree:

No doubt these are some real petit filets.

I hope a horse don’t ever see,
A cow no taller than my knee,
For if that cow I’m asked to cut,
It’ll be the end of me, I tell you what.

~ a poe-tree, by Whiskey

Gut Feelin’

A couple people-days ago my belly didn’t feel so good. It was durin dinner time, after I’d already licked my bucket clean, and after I’d done finished up my first alfalfa course, but before my grass hay course. I figured I’d lie down for a while beneath the ironwood tree, and kinda take it easy for a spell.

Which I did, from dusk ‘til after dark. And then I thought maybe I’d stretch out on my side for a bit. After I’d been resting comfortably like that for a while, the bucket gal appeared and she brought me some carrots to try, which I ate, but kinda slow on account of my bellyache.

And then I got up, and went to go see about eatin my grass hay. So the bucket gal patted me and left. I don’t know why a person would worry about a horse with a bellyache. But people like to worry about us horses, I reckon.

The grass hay still wasn’t sittin quite right with me, so I went back to lie down in my spot beneath the ironwood tree in the nice, cool dark, when suddenly the barn light got switched on, blindin a horse tryin to have a peaceful rest in the darkness.

The bucket gal appeared again, this time with a whole bunch of cookies. Man, I like cookies. I nickered my thanks, and crunched on all of ‘em with my teeth til they was gone, while I was still lyin down.

Then I closed my eyes and figured I’d shut out the barn light and finish restin my belly.

The bucket gal petted me and talked to me about all manner of things, which was real nice of her. She told me I was a good boy, and such, which I appreciated. But I couldn’t help but ponder how I might appreciate it more if she turned off the light. She told me things that didn’t make sense to a horse, about how she knew some people who’d lost their horses lately, but she didn’t say how they’d got lost, or if they’d been found again. I guess she didn’t want me to get lost, as if I’d ever stray from the County Island.

And then she frowned at her telephone, and she frowned at me. And she frowned at it again. She asked me if I thought maybe I could use a little… some kinda long funny word, sounded like “bana-mean,” if that means anythin? And then I heard the telephone callin’ for the VET LADY! Why in tarnation would she call the vet lady to come see me when I already felt a little bit poorly, but not real poorly, mind ya?! To make me and my belly feel worse?!? Was that the “mean” part of the bana-mean, bein mean to a sick horse and sickin the vet on him?

I had to do somethin’ to stop the vet lady from comin. Drastic times called for drastic measures. So I stood up. And I walked away from the ironwood tree. And I turned back, and I gave the bucket gal a long glance over my shoulder. And then I pooped. And then she stopped the telephone from fetchin the vet lady and any of her bana-meanness.

I went back to eatin’ dinner while the bucket gal brushed me and listened to my belly. Her ear tickles my hide, and it ain’t right, by the way, this listenin to a horse’s belly. She told me how worried she was about how I was before, and worried about how I might be after. People worry too much about before and after. They should just think about what’s now.

She said if I ate and pooped all night, or maybe she didn’t mean ALL night, ‘cause that would be a real, pardon my french, shitload of eatin and poopin, in the mornin she would set to feedin me silly-yum again every day — which County Island people call “psyllium” in their ignorance of just how yummy it is, and how silly and happy it makes a horse’s mouth and his tongue and his belly feel. I love my sugary orangey sweet silly-yum! So her plan sounded alright by me.

What I learned and what I want to tell all the horses on the County Island and everywhere is, if ya want to keep the vet lady far, far away from yourself, and keep your people content, you should keep eatin, drinkin, and poopin. Also, if there’s a time when you don’t normally go lie down, don’t go lie down durin that time for any reason. It seems to set the people off. I got a gut feelin that’s pretty much all a horse ever needs to do to keep his people happy. I can’t promise I’ll get it right all the time, but a horse can try.

“C” Is for Camp

Once upon a quiet County Island day, some men in bright carrot-orange shirts, with lots of noisy people-machinery, climbed into our corral and spent the morning diggin some pits bigger than the biggest pits a horse could ever paw into the ground. Maybe even big enough to hold an entire horse inside the pit, if a horse fell down inside one.

But then they covered up the holes with a whole lot of people-crap, pardon my french, that looked like this.

The people-crap reminded me and my horse buddies Coors and Coors Light of the year our bucket gal festooned the fence with “Christmas decorations,” which is to say, horse toys — lots of long, sparkly silver paper things that we played with, and red ribbons we tore off and ripped into tiny pieces with our teeth, and then stomped into the ground. And pine needles and cones we crunched our teeth on. And bells we shook and stomped until they stopped makin bell sounds and laid flat and still for good. Oh, the fun we had that night!

And Coors also said the big wood things the carrot-orange-shirt men left across the pits must be bridges, and I had to agree, they did look like bridges a horse is meant to walk across, such as those pointless wooden-bridges-on-the-ground the people like us to step upon called “trail obstacles,” like at the police horse school I went to.

And so we figured that night we’d be playin with all the new horse toys that the bucket gal had the orange-shirt men bring for us, and maybe walk back and forth on the bridges over the big pits, for fun, like she always wanted us to do on purpose.

Only, we never got the chance. When she got home from her people-job and saw the pits and the new horse toys, damned if she didn’t yell at the telephone that lives inside her pocket, and I mean YELL. In the kinda voice that means “whoa” as in “right now.” I don’t know why she blamed the telephone for the diggin, but then again, I try my best not to think about what people think.

She was barely done yellin at her phone before us and our buckets got scooped up into the rollin white horse-box and departed for camp, which is where the prancin lady that makes Coors Light prance lives, and where a whole lot of the Coors Brothers’ even more prancey kin folk live, and where we normally go when the bucket gal and the carrot guy have a vacation.

And then, we stayed at camp for a damned long time. And, the bucket gal came TO camp! To ride us, even! It was all entirely wrong to a horse, as far as camp goes. And by the time we got delivered back to our own home-corral, all the new horse toys was disappeared, like they’d never been there in the first place. I never even got the chance to dare Original Coors to climb into one of the pits, then leave him down in there wearin a big yellow caution tape bow on his head. Not that I would’ve.

But I did learn a few things at this strange version of camp, which I wanted to tell about.

First thing, prancey horses live with prancey chickens! If you’re like me and never seen a prancey chicken before, I’ll describe ‘em to ya. They’re exactly like regular chickens, only prancey.

I’ll give ya a for instance. If a regular chicken and a quail and a rainbow, shinin all purty and colorful up in the sky, could make a baby chicken, they’d make a prancey baby chicken. That’s exactly what they look like, to a horse. I doubt that’s how they’re actually made, but they ain’t quite right. And they live in a paddock bedded with straw, next to the prancin arena, instead of in a proper chicken coop, just like how some prancey horses live in fancy, prancey bedded stalls.

A Prancey Chicken

Second thing, I can report that I have now done been rode inside a real bonafide competitive prancin arena! And yeah, it was everythin I thought it’d be. Which is to say, confoundin to the logical mind of a ranch horse, even if I did get a compliment for my trot, which a lady said was “quite fancy” and “ground-covering.” Unlike some lazy Ayrabs I won’t mention.

In a bonafide competitive prancin arena, for those like me who’d never seen one before, they don’t use numbers from zero to nine, which is the proper way to count cattle if you’re playin the stupid cow games of pennin or sortin. Instead, the bonafide competitive prancin arena has got letters on it. Only, they ain’t in order from A to B to C and such. They’re all mixed up, and some are plumb gone, like maybe the cattle that was wearin ‘em done run off? Because surely all those white signs around the arena must be shoulder numbers, or I guess shoulder letters, for cattle to wear? And also, they keep the letters stuck into buckets — which could be used to feed horses. So I was very confused as to why there would be signs that look like cattle shoulder numbers except with letters out of order, with no cows at all on the property to wear the letters, and buckets filled with sand and arena letters instead of horse feed.

“P” is for prance.

Coors Light says nobody at all know what the most-used prancin letters mean or why the people stick ‘em where they do. So I came up with my own meanin. I think they mean:

All
Kinda
Every
Horse on the
County Island
Makes
Buck
Farts

Because, well, we can and we do. And then Original Coors said it has to do with “All King Edward’s Horses,” but that’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. We don’t know anybody named Edward, but we do know horses who buck-fart.

Third and last thing, even if a stick-jump has got a flower box inside of it, don’t stop and eat the flowers. That’s rude manners, and also they taste terrible because they’re made from “silk” and not actually from flowers. No, I didn’t try to graze on ‘em. I’m passin along what some other horses told me.

Spring Bun

The damndest thing’s happened here on the County Island. Spring’s sprung, too, but that ain’t what I’m talkin about.

Me, Coors, and Coors Light all got taken to camp, in the rollin white-horse box. Camp’s where we go sometimes when the bucket gal and the carrot guy do a people activity called a vacation, whatever that is. But this is the weirdest damn camp ever, so far.

I’ll tell y’all about it when I get back. If I get back. That’s how damn strange it is!

In the meantime, here’s a couple stories I already told before, about camp, in case ya missed ‘em and are curious about horse camp.

You can read ‘em here: http://countyisland.wordpress.com/2010/08/15/bad-hawks/

And here: http://countyisland.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/keep-away/

And also, since the people seem to like lookin at such things, this here’s a baby County Island spring bunny. Y’all can look at it and ooh and aah over it ’til I get back. If I get back! Well, I hope I get back, and soon!

A County Island Baby Bun

Grave Digger

So. I told everybody about the “vampires” and “vampire hunters.” And yeah, I’m usin my ironical punctuation like I learned to talk with. If you know me at all by now, you know I couldn’t possibly make this stuff up, the stuff that happens around the County Island, and you know I’m an honest, steady-eddy, got my hooves planted square on the ground kinda horse.

So. Last night, in the wash where I often get rode, I was bein rode home at dusk past the spot where the County Island young’uns done buried a dead coyote, which I also told about here in another story.

And I was already feelin kinda spooked, not outwardly ‘cause, as an honest, steady-eddy, got my hooves planted square on the ground ranch horse, most things resemblin a spook never make it past that tiny tingle of a thought a horse gets in his mind about it. But dark was comin on, and me, Coors, and Coors Light had conversed so much about the possibility – unlikely possibility – of vampires, that I couldn’t help but ponder ‘em.

If people spend so much time thinkin and talkin about such things … could they really be real? Why would a person spend so much time thinkin about a thing that wasn’t real? A horse’d never do that. We got enough things that are real to ponder, for instance, why is my bucket still empty, and at what time will it get filled again?

Still and all, there I was, bein rode by our bucket gal, past the grave site of the dead coyote at dusk, tryin to keep my eyes and my horse thoughts pointed straight forwards towards home and my supper, when the bucket gal made me stop.

“Huh!” she said, and pointed me toward the grave of the dead coyote, which now looked like this:

That right there? That’s a paw. A paw of a dead coyote. Stickin up out of the earth of a partly open dead coyote grave. Stickin up like maybe it was fixin to pull itself up and out of the grave, and rise again.

And so, I got to ask a question. The bucket gal proclaimed it to be “awesome.” When I got home and told Coors and Coors Light, they proclaimed it to be “the undead.” I myself ventured that maybe some other scavenger-like animal had been diggin it up and only got a paw out before it lit off, possibly scared off by people and horses, maybe even by me and my bucket gal.

And so, that leaves me to ask: Is it an awesome thing? Is it an undead thing? Is it just a plain old dead coyote paw like I think it is? Or is it somethin else?

Whatever it is, I reckon it is what it is, no matter what a horse, or a person, thinks it is.

The Revamp

They’ve been bangin, and crashin, and hammerin, and shatterin shattery-soundin things, and carryin things from the inside to the outside, with great big ol’ piles of rubble, for weeks upon weeks now, the people that bought the empty people-barn on our little part of the County Island, which us horses can see from our own corral. They do all their work at night.

They show up right about darkfall, and they work until long after our bucket gal comes outside to do what she calls our “bedcheck” before she herself turns in. They work, and they carry, and they bang, and they crash, saw and hammer, and drill, and make all manner of other people-noises that can keep a horse alert. I don’t know how much stuff can come out of a people-barn in all, but so far, it’s been at least a manure dump truck-size full, I reckon. We’ve been watchin and listenin to the proceedins with some interest, me, Coors, and Coors Light. Mostly ‘cause there ain’t much else to do when the racket’s keepin you up.

“I wonder how come they only come out to work at night?” wondered Coors Light aloud to us, one night, in the dead of darkness, with only the light from the nearby people-barn castin a pale kinda glow over us.

“Maybe they’ve vampires, like Fright Night,” said Coors, and then his brother Coors Light’s Ayrab horse eyes got very big.

“I think it’s ‘cause they go to their people-jobs durin the day like all the other County Island people do,” I said. “So night’s the only time they got to do their bangin and carryin on.”

“Or it’s like Fright Night,” said Coors Light.

“Or, they’re takin all the old people-barn fixtures and beddin out, and puttin in all their own new people-barn fixtures and beddin,” I said. “It’s called ‘re-modelin.’” I was sure my knowledge of people-barns would impress ‘em, and shut ‘em up. I didn’t want to find myself suckered into askin ‘em what a fright night was. There are some trails a horse should never go down.

“It’s exactly like Fright Night,” nodded Coors. “They’re totally digging out their underground dungeon lair for their vampire victims. And we’re the only ones who know what’s really going on. They could be after our bucket gal next!”

“Just like Fright Night!” agreed Coors Light.

“And then who would feed us?” Coors sounded shrill.

And before I could stop myself, I asked, “Do I even want to know what the hell you two are talkin about?”

“Don’t you listen when the bucket gal talks to her friends when you’re out riding?” asked Coors Light. “Don’t you ever wonder why so many people think us Arabians spook at stuff for no reason? It’s because we listen. And we know too much, especially about stuff they call ‘science fiction’ or ‘fantasy’ books, and movies, and TV. Which are all real, with mostly bad things that happen to people. And I mean bad things! Omigod, I can’t imagine what they could do to a horse!”

“Well, I generally try not to listen to people-chatter at all, if I can help it,” I admitted. But if it might affect a horse…

“Well, she talks about vampires a lot, and so do her friends. So do most of the younger girls at the prancing barn! Girls and women really like vampires, but I can’t figure out why, and that is totally spooky,” snorted Coors Light.

“Also zombies,” Original Coors added. “There are lots of zombies. They’ll eat your brain.” I was pretty sure they’d already eaten his brain, by then.

“Werewolves, too!” said Coors Light, noddin his head up and down, his eyes dartin back and forth in the darkness.

I didn’t like the sound of wolves much. Coyotes are bothersome pests, but a wolf ain’t a thing a horse wants to tangle with.

“So what are vampires and zombies and such?” There. I went and done it. I asked. Headin down that treacherous trail…

And Coors and Coors Light told me, and then some. They gave me the lowdown on all the lore — which is a fancy way to say bullshit, I think. Finally, they both ran out of breath and I got my turn to talk.

“Well then they can’t be no Fright Night vampires,” I said with great authority, “‘cause I’ve seen ‘em in the sunlight! Last week when y’all was busy takin naps, they drove up in the midday and walked all around outdoors from the house, in the sun.” I stomped my hoof for emphasis.

Coors Light pricked his ears. “Did they sparkle?”

“Like Edward!” exclaimed Coors.

“Hell no!” I pinned my ears. “They did not sparkle like Edward!”

Coors and Coors Light exchanged a look. “They’re hunters, then,” Original Coors nodded.

“Like Blade,” agreed Coors Light.

“But they ain’t got blades! Nor guns!” I sputtered. “They don’t even wear camo! They are not hunters! They are plain old County Island people re-modelin their people-barn after their people-work days!”

Ain’t nothin’ much sadder to look upon among us horses than sad Ayrab horses with big, brown, sad Ayrab horse eyes. I was lookin at two of ‘em now. Aw, hell.

“Must be hunters,” I grumbled. No, I ain’t gone soft. I was tired, is all.

Satisfied by that, the Coors brothers went back to finishin the last bits of our suppertime hay.

So, there ya have it. Now we got “vampire hunters” here on the County Island. Yeah…

One-Second Cow Clinic

It occurred to me kinda recently that maybe not everybody was raised as a ranch horse, like I was, or if you’re a person, maybe you’ve never done an honest day’s work with a horse, so I thought I’d take a second here to teach everybody how to properly work cattle.

Since as the cowboys say, a picture’s worth a thousand people-words, I also reckoned a picture would be best, for your people-learnin purposes.

And since unlike when people play their pointless stupid cow games, such as team pennin and team sortin, when a horse does real cow work, he can’t choose his weather and cancel workin if he don’t like the weather, I reckoned I’d demonstrate how to work in the rain and wet.

Furthermore, since every horse knows the horse does all the work, I figured I’d skip havin the bucket gal ride me. All she does is get in my way, anyway.

And also, since there’s no cattle here in my little County Island horse-corral, I reckoned I’d use Coors Light for my cow.

So, then, here’s my Whiskey’s One-Second Cow Clinic on the subject of how to properly turn back a cow. Even a prancey cow. Look and learn.

Whiskey’s Cow Horse Tip #1: If ya ain’t got a cow, use what ya got.

The Bare Facts

Sometimes an undeniable urge will come upon a horse, and no matter where he is or what he’s otherwise doin, he’s got to satisfy it even if it means momentarily disobeyin his cowboy – or, in my case now, bucket gal – to get ’er done.

For example, if your nose itches, you got to scratch it. And I mean now. If you got to stop and pee, you got to stop and pee. Even if you got to stop more than once, then start again, then walk around a bit, then try again, in order to find the perfect peein spot. If you got to drop and roll… well, you should try hard not to do it when you’re bein rode, because that’s rude horse manners (unless you’re Coors Light, as I told about in this here tale). But if the urge comes upon you to roll, such as directly after you’ve been showered or bathed by your person, or if there’s mud and your urge tells you to lay down in it, or whatever else the horse urge may be, to the urge a horse must yield.

I would never have imagined a person could have urges. I do my best not to think about people as much as I can, especially County Island people and their ridiculous ways which run contrary to most everything I know from the ranch.

But today, right about when I’d started to believe nothin interestin was ever gonna happen around the County Island again, it’s been so bored and same-like here lately, it happened. I saw a person get an urge. Here’s what happened.

While I was bein brushed, a people-car done pulled up across the road from our little horse-corral, where people-cars sometimes do, for whatever reasons that don’t matter to a horse. And a man got out, which also don’t matter to a horse. And the man walked around the car, and opened the back of it, which I guess to describe it to you would be like openin the saddle pack bags of the car, if it had ‘em. And though the sun was in my eyes, I squinted to see him, mostly because the bucket gal was squintin to see him, as if seein him mattered, ‘cause maybe he was lingerin more than most people do that stop there.

And then, standin there along the side of the road, next to his people-car, out in the open under the big bright sun, the man done pulled his pants down, quick, with the same kind of urgentness a horse gets when it strikes.

Don’t worry. What comes next ain’t as bad as whatever you’re thinkin, or I wouldn’t be tellin it. But I’ll bet you and me were thinkin the same thing.

The bucket gal retrieved her telephone that lives in her pocket, which also takes pictures like what I show y’all sometimes of my own, and it’s called a eye-phone I reckon because it see things with some kinda telephone eye and then that’s how people see a picture of a thing the eye-phone saw. And that’s all any horse knows about that. Anyhow. Her eye-phone looked at the man and took a bunch of pictures of him, “just in case,” she said to me. She also muttered that if you’re gonna stand out in front of our corral and pull your pants down, you’re gonna get photographed. So, there’s a word to the wise, right there.

Mercifully, the man had on tiny short pants under his long pants. And then he got another pair of longer short pants out from his people-car, and he pulled them up over his tiny short pants.

And then, he walked back over to the front of his people-car, and he got in it, and he drove away. But not in the direction he was originally headin. He done turned around and went the other way, away from us, and far out of sight. I was glad about that, and so was the bucket gal. I myself had half a fearful thought that maybe he was about to go barenekkid joggin. You did, too, didn’t ya?

But does a horse even want to know what that was all about? Likely not, I say. And now I am done thinkin about it. I’d advise you to be, too.

For Art’s Sake

Mostly, I like to express myself usin my words, well, also my ears, and my eyes, and my nose, and my tail, and my hooves, too, oh, and also my voice through my nickers, neighs, squeals and such, and tellin y’all stories about what my life’s like on the County Island. But occasionally, like the people like to say, a picture’s worth a thousand — which I gather means a lot, like a whole herd of ‘em, if there was such a thing — words.

Sometimes I like to create what’s called “performance art,” mostly usin my own bucket as the art. For instance, I already once showed everybody this here artwork: http://countyisland.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/and-now-for-somethin-entirely-different/

And so recently I made another art, which I would like to reveal to everybody today, in the picture down below that I made to show you. This one I call “Barely Hangin’ in There Until Bucket Time.” Or maybe I should call it, more simple-like, “Out of Reach.” Or “Bucket Out of Reach.” Do I really need to say bucket when the art’s clearly got a bucket in it? Or maybe “Things a Horse Can Do With His Bucket When He’s Hungry and Bored.”

So, as you can tell, this here art has got a lot of names. The people call that an “interpretation” of art. And they say everyone can interpret it different. For instance, our bucket gal might likely call this one, “WTH (which means “what the hell”), Whiskey?” Or another person might see the old splatters of bran and grain down there on the black tar-pit mat, and call it somethin like “A Interpretation of Bran.” Or “Stop Wastin All the Bran by Mashin It Into the Rubber Mat.” Maybe that one’s just somethin I heard our bucket gal say more than once.

All the rabbits that’s related generationally to our old bucket bunny, who I made a story about once, would zero in on mashed-up bran on the mats, and not even count the bucket in their art interpretion, and call this piece “Bunny Food That Falls From the Heavens,” on account of I tend to dribble my bran a lot.

Anyhow. Here, forthwith, is my latest art, for y’all to maybe reflect upon and interpret with your own people-senses.

Art, by Whiskey