Pestered

You know what it’s like when you’ve got a real bad itch, smack-dab in the middle of your belly, and you can’t scratch it no matter how much you roll in the sand, or how long you try to stand over some brush in the desert and rock back and forth over the brush to try to use them prickly thorns and branches to get at the itch and scratch your belly? And that itch still gets the best of you?

Or, you know how when you’re laid out in the soft, warm sand for a sweet siesta, and suddenly you’re aware there’s a shadow kinda hoverin over your body, vulture-like, and then you realize that vulture-shadow’s attached to a certain white horse called Coors Light, and he’s playin a game of “I’m not touchin you, I’m not touchin you,” all while snakin his neck down at you and wigglin his lips in the air and such, and air-bitin at your hocks and your tail? Do you know what that’s like, to lay still there pretendin to be asleep, and to have to not care? That’s what’s called bein pestered, and it’s a subject with which I have long and personal familiarity.

Now, I ain’t a horse who pesters easy. I know what you’re thinkin: Whiskey’s surely a grumpy old palomino horse, so what’s he talkin about? Truth is, I’m almost entirely only grumpy on my insides, and that’s still hardly never, and, okay, occasionally grumpy in my own thoughts when I set to composin words for people to understand about the happenins of the County Island. On the outside of me, though, there ain’t much that truthfully pesters me. But it’s also truthful that we all got our pet peeves, which are things that pester us, no matter how long our fuses is or how much pesterin it takes to bring us to the brink of leapin to our feet from a nap and lungin after Coors Light. Hypothetically, that is.

But I don’t want to talk about me today. No, really. I want to talk about our bucket gal’s own latest pet peeve, emphasis on pet. I only ever seen one glimpse of it, and that was maybe two bucket times ago, when she carried it out from our hay shed fortress inside a tiny steel contraption, maybe like a tiny mare motel a person can carry, but for tiny critters instead of horses? I know that sounds ridiculous, but I seen it. And I overheard she’s got another one of them pet peeves livin inside the hay shed fortress, and maybe even a whole lot more pet peeves in there than that, and they have been pesterin her somethin fierce, I guess, I think maybe even worse than the original bucket bunny used to pester her and steal all the bucket mixin spoons. Nowadays, we got additional generations upon generations of bucket bunnies littered all over our little ranch here, bunnies that learned from their mommas and their mommas’ mommas’ mommas all about grain and sweet feed than rains down from the sky when a horse dribbles his food at bucket time.

But that’s another story.

I never knew before that a pet peeve was a real critter. Or that they confounded the people so bad. From what I gather, our bucket gal is so danged pestered, she’s declared a war against all the pet peeves ‘cause what they do is wreak terrible havoc inside the hay fortress shed. And I do not cotton to any critter that would wreak havoc with my hay. I think when she gets ‘em penned inside her tiny mare motel for critters, she’s actually sendin ‘em down the road, if you catch my meanin. It’s literally what she said. I heard it said from her to our carrot guy when she had the one pet peeve that I saw in the tiny mare motel that they “should take it as far down the road as possible”! Normally I ain’t a fan of sendin nobody down the road like that, but I reckon a horse-hay havoc-wreakin pet peeve could be an exception.

So I hope she gets ‘em all. I mean, the pet peeve I saw didn’t look particularly pestery, but pestered to the point of perpetual preoccupation our bucket gal is. I swear, though, to all I know as a ranch horse to be true, that pet peeve looked an awful lot like a plain old packrat, to me. But what do I know?

A pet peeve inside a tiny mare motel that a person can carry for critters.

County Island: 2011 in Review — And Thanks, Y’All!

I’ve been told that the WordPress.com stats helper monkeys (and I ain’t got no idea what that means, but it sounds like maybe it’s a helpful thing) prepared a 2011 annual report for my County Island blog, so I figured I’d share it with y’all, and use this opportunity here on Arbitrary Human Made-Up Calendar Day Eve to say thanks for readin my words.

It means a lot to this old ranch horse to not only have a voice here on the County Island, but to maybe entertain all you folks, too. So, enjoy your Arbitrary Human Made-Up Calendar Day Eve. Make all the noise and commotion you need to, I guess, even if it does wake a horse up in the middle of the night for no good reason.

Our bucket gal usually brings us carrots at what’s called the stroke of midnight, so if y’all ain’t ever done that before, I might suggest it as somethin nice you can do for your horses since we’re still awake out here and all.

And when you’re done whoopin and hollerin and carryin on and finally get to your own people-sleepin, please also try to remember to wake up on time in the mornin to feed us.

Thanks kindly.

 

 

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 7,300 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.

 

Click here to start readin the complete report.

 

 

My Bonafide County Island Horse Bomb-Proofin’ Clinic

Well, so I ain’t exactly cleared this with the bucket gal yet, nor with anyone but myself, to tell the truth, so this is likely gonna be more of a “virtual” kinda clinic, or maybe just somethin’ we can all do for fun together. But still. A horse has got to do somethin around here to get fed some more alfalfa!

I wrote about this at my Facebook Ranch, and I figured I ought to share it with y’all here, too. So here goes:

The Asphalt-Eatin' and Likely Horse-Eatin' Diggin' Monster of Doom

Event: Whiskey’s Bonafide and Maybe Only Virtual County Island Horse Bomb-Proofin’ Clinic

Where: The County Island

When: From now til whenever they stop tearin up the roads

Since I know from personal experience – back when I got to go to school with the horse police, which you can read about at my blog under the blog of that same name – how much you human-folk like to make us horses “broke” (like we need fixin’!) to all manner of rumbly contraptions and machines and other human foolishness, I figured I would extend this opportunity to y’all to participate in my very own Horse Bomb-Proofin’ Clinic. I hope to all that a horse hopes to it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, ‘cause I don’t think I want another opportunity like this.Now until at least the end of what’s called December, I’m offerin’ y’all a chance to ride and work yer horses over and around such intrepid obstacles as:   • The Black Bottomless Moat of Doom and the Hollow Horse-Eatin’ Draw Bridge Across It   • The Foul and Odiferous Giant Diggin’ Dragon That Eats Asphalt for Breakfast, and Likely Horses for Lunch and Dinner • The Endessly Beepin’ Backwards-Rollin’ Dump Trucks of Death • The Yellow Caution Tape of Trepidation   • The Stench From the New Sewer Pipes of Perdition   • The Not-to-Be-Trusted 24/7 Deputy Traffic Cop/Security Guard of Gloom   • Tractors, Front-Loaders and Other Giant Rumbly Creatures of Calamity   • Signs That Read “Road Closed,” “Pavement Ends,” “Open Trench,” and That Might as Well Say “Horses: All Hope Ends Here”   • and Many Rattly Chain-Link Fence Panels of Peril.     Clinic Participatin’ Fee: 6 bales of alfalfa   Clinic Audtitin’ Fee: 1 sack of sweet feed   Bring yer own beverages and lawn chairs, and I’d be obliged if you’d bring me a beer, too. Good beer, that is. I’ll supply the aforementioned obstacles, and likely some others, which’ll likely be worse. Heh.   Oh, and also — Don’t tell the bucket gal. She don’t know about any of this. Especially not the alfalfa part. It’s just between us, ya got that?   And don’t worry. Even if nobody shows up for real, I got to make up some good words about all this commotion to tell y’all about what’s goin’ on. It’s a doozy, I tell you what.

 

Pinked

Those of you who visit my Facebook Ranch will recall me askin what seemed like a simple question about some words that didn’t make sense, that I kept hearin our bucket gal say, about “how to spray paint a horse pink.” Well, I knew what sprayin somethin meant. And I knew what paint is and what it’s for. And I thought I knew what color pink was, like maybe a baby calf’s tongue. But the words, all strung together like “spray paint a horse pink,” sounded sillier than a stud colt in springtime.

And then I found out what it meant to get pinked.

It started one peaceful mornin, as it usually does, with me eatin breakfast and the bucket gal fetchin the rollin white horse box and my western saddle. Sounds harmless enough. And then I was bein brushed and havin my hooves picked out, and I thought, well alright, okay, we’re either goin trail ridin or to play “spend the whole damned day movin 10 cows back and forth repeatedly from one end of a little pen and back again for no good reason, always in the same order even if ya start with a different cow each time, which the people can never seem to keep track of, but a horse easily can, so why don’t they just turn a horse loose to move the cows to the other end, in the proper order, quick like a jackrabbit, and then we can all call it a day?” – which I hear is actually called “team pennin.”

And then she was holdin my tail, and she was sprayin some spray, and I reckoned, well, that’s fly spray ‘cause there are still flies about. She seemed to be sprayin it an awful lot, but I figured she was just bein thorough.

Then she set to sprayin my mane, and the spray can hissed an awful lot, and it had a funny smell that didn’t smell like fly spray, so I tired to turn my head to get a look at it. And she gently pushed my head back and told me to wait a minute.

So I turned my head again and I took a step backwards, and then I saw a pink cloud emmanatin from the sprayer! What the…!

So I took another step backwards and tried to turn around so I could get a look at my tail – while the bucket gal was sayin “Ah ah ah!” like the people do when they mean for you to stand still, but I just could not stand still any longer, so I kept backin up – and then the lead rope done snapped and it broke.

And I stood there with my ears sideways with the busted end of the rope hangin off my halter to kinda say, “Well, sorry.”

“Oh, Whiskey!” she proclaimed. “Come on, it’s for a good cause. It won’t hurt you. Just a little more pink.”

But I puffed my nostrils, and she frowned at me, then she patted me, and said, “It’s okay. You’re pink enough now. Good boy.”

I pondered the words “pink enough” while I was ridin in the rollin white horse box on our way to wherever it was we were goin that a horse had to be pink enough. Turns out, we went to a trail ride where near every horse at the whole danged thing had been pinked! My friend Mr. Blondie who met me at the ride with his person was also decked out in pink! And the people was all pinked too! And there were some horses who had been pinked lots worse than me and festooned with all manner of pink baubles and such. Oh, we were a sight, I tell you what! Horses with pink feathers and ribbons in their manes and tails and with pink garlands wrapped around their necks. Horses with pink glittery war paint all over their faces. Horses with bright pink hooves, for cryin out loud!

I could comprehend that we was goin on a group trail ride, which I’ve done more than a time or two, but I spent the mornin listenin to the various conversations around me among the horses and among the people, tryin to cipher what bein pink had to do with anythin.

I don’t think I got all of it, but apparently, if a horse is pink, by the simple act of bein pink, he can help people, specifically women people, who are sick with a malady called “breast cancer,” and help them feel better and sometimes even get better, too. I don’t know whether it works by makin ‘em laugh and smile at us all bein pink, or what, but I guess it’s true. And all us horses got to do to help is get pinked for a little while. In fact, it is an honor for a horse to get pinked, ‘cause it’s only horses who are tough enough to wear pink that get pinked. So I guess I was deemed to be tough enough, which I already know I am, but it’s also nice to be acknowledged thusly.

If I’d known all that ahead of time, I’d of let the bucket gal pink me from head to toe, instead of mostly just my tail.

Well, alright, that’s a lie. I still don’t like the smell of the pink spray. But still.

I been pinked!

And Now, For Somethin’ Entirely Different…

Usually, I like to share my own words with y’all here on my blog ranch page, ever since I learned a horse could use the words he had runnin through his head for so many years to talk to people and horses everywhere.

But today, I thought instead of makin more purty words for y’all and tellin y’all another tale about the County Island, I might demonstrate my more conceptual side by way of a more artistic inclination.

And so I today I created a piece of what’s called performance art for y’all to ponder the deep and hidden meanin of.

I have entitled this piece — Empty.

"Empty -- A Representational Piece of Performance Art, By Whiskey Ranch Horse"

Where There’s Smoke

Fire, fire!

I know I made a blog a long while back about the time of the great water and flood, but have I ever told y’all about the night the County Island caught on fire? Well, not all of it, mind you, but some of it.

Y’know, a ranch colt’s first experience with fire likely comes when the brandin iron meets his butt. And the smell of that smoke never quite leaves a horse’s nostrils. Next time is when he’s fit with his first pair of horse shoes for work, hot from the farrier’s forge. And if you live on the ranch for long enough, eventually some of the ranch will catch on fire and inevitably burn up your favorite grazin area to a crisp, if you’re lucky to have good grazin. Or even further woe be it to the ranch horse whose hay barn burns down, especially if it’s got alfalfa in it, not as much the bermuda, but burnt bermuda would be sorrowful, too.

But in the eventuality of fire, a seasoned horse knows there’s nothin to do but stand around and wait for further instruction. If you got to go, the ranch hands will come get you. And if things get too hot to handle in the meantime, all a horse can do is giddy-up and go on his own, assuming he’s got a place to giddy-up to and ain’t stuck standin in a pen.

That’s a lesson Original Coors likely never learned growin up, to wait and to not worry, never havin experienced a rangeland fire. The County Island caught on fire in the time when it was just me and Coors livin here, before Coors Light showed up. Well, again, maybe not the entire County Island. But still.

It was durin the dead of night when a whiff of smoke first interrupted our equine slumber deep in the soft sand. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter against the irritation and tried to go back to sleep. But Coors jumped to his feet, kickin sand at my belly as he did, I might add by way of complaint, so I cracked one eye at him and pinned my ears, and then he jogged over to the far fence with his neck craned and his ears pricked. “Smoke!” he announced to the darkness. To which I replied sleepily, “Yeah, seems likely.”

Then, CRACK and then BOOM! went the night, and the sound made me jump to my feet, too, while it set Coors off leapin and buckin in circles and snortin. Back behind the fenceline of our ranch-corral, I saw flames shootin tall into the sky from one of the people-barns, which is called houses. “Fire, fire!” neighed Coors. I yawned and blinked my eyes, “Yep.”

On came our own people’s-barn light, and there was the bucket gal and her carrot guy inside their backyard-paddock, lookin at the fire just like us horses.

And I thought, well, I’m up, but I might as well stand and snooze, ‘cause there ain’t nothin a horse can do about a fire. So I set to tryin to sleep in place, but Coors kept snortin and blowin at the flames and the cracklin. And then the shrieky-sirens started comin close, and all the County Island dogs set to howlin and barkin, and then red and blue lights flashed up and down the road, and big, big rumbly trucks with flashin lights roared down to where the County Island burned bright.

Coors set to leapin and buckin around in earnest. Now it truly was damned near impossible for a horse to sleep! “Hey, quit that,” I shouted over all the County Island’s janglin and poppin and shriekin at Coors circlin around me. But he kept makin laps and snortin. So, ya see, I had to give chase, tryin to bite his big red butt, which makes a right easy target most of the time.

And I guess our adrenaline got to runnin, too, and then our runnin and buckin and leapin turned to teasin, ‘cause I started laughin at Coors for being scared of a little old fire like a greanbean colt, and then he was laughin at me buck-fartin like a creaky old-timer, and we was both neighin and bellowin loud as we could, so we could hear our own voices over the din, and then we was both whinnyin just to hear ourselves whinny, and tryin to imitate the sound of the sirens by squealin loud as we could. We was laughin and runnin so hard in the thick and heavy smoke that we set to coughin and wheezin, too, but the runnin was simply too much fun, so we kept goin! This was by far the best fire I’d ever been around!

And then I guess the bucket gal got sick of our shenanigans, so she done brought us our breakfast – in the middle of the night! And she told us to settle down, talkin to us soft and low, like maybe she thought we was scared or somethin? By that time, I was sweatin so hard, even my eyeballs was sweatin. And Coors was puffin so hard he could hardly catch a breath to chuckle. And the bucket gal looked more than a touch concerned, and we didn’t want her worryin. So, we settled into our piles of hay, selfless-like.

When daylight and feedin time finally rolled around, the fire had been quit and the smoke was settled, and I guess all the people was OK, ‘cause I never heard otherwise. And we also got fed breakfast again – that’s double breakfast!

So, I had to revise my opinion of how a horse should behave when the County Island catches fire, thanks to Original Coors’ example. In the eventuality of smellin smoke, a horse should likely make himself as grand a commotion as he can, in order that he may get fed additional hay. Extreme events call for extreme measures. And then if you got to be evacuated, you can go both calmly and with an extra full belly. That’s what I took from it, anyway.

Ready to Endo It All

As y’all may recall, I made a blog recently about our new trail-boss-in-a-pocket that the bucket gal got, a lady called Miss Endomondo that lives inside the bucket gal’s new smart telephone as opposed to her old, dumb telephone which apparently wasn’t the sharpest spine on the saguaro, and my own somewhat lowly opinion of her. Well, I would like to announce how now that she’s been ridin herd on us horses for a spell, I done changed my opinion of Miss Endomondo. For the worse.

She ain’t nothin but trouble for a horse. She don’t merely state the obvious all the time, which is irritatin enough, like tellin a horse how far he’s gone and exactly where he is, when a horse already knew all that. She also likes to rat out a horse, and therein lies the issue I take with her.

Y’all know I ain’t an arena horse, much less a prancified horse, and I’m also an old-enough horse who’s earned my retirement job as a County Island pleasure horse. So when the bucket gal sets to ridin me in the prancin arena on occasion, well, that kinda cardiological workout can make an old ranch horse have to stop and catch his breath sometimes. Or stop and rest his old joints. I ain’t complainin about it, I’m just sayin.

Used to be, before meddlesome Miss Endomondo rode into town, me and the bucket gal would prance around some, makin purty circles and turns this way and that, and I’d stretch my legs and trot right out, then we’d lope a little, and then if my nostrils set to flarin a bit, she’d whoa me, pat me like the good ol’ horse I am, and call it a day. And that was perfect.

But the first time we rode in the arena with Miss Endomondo, after we’d done walked, and trotted, and loped, and turned this way and that, and whoaed, and appeared to be done with all that, instead of reachin down to pet me, the bucket gal reached into her pocket and pulled out her danged telephone and fussed with it. I was wonderin what the matter was, ‘cause we’d been ridin for as long as we usually ever did inside the prancin arena. It was, to my recollection, right about the perfect point for quittin. Then she finally pet me, so I yawned appreciatively and expected her to climb down from the saddle, but what she did, to my bewilderment, was kick me back up to a trot! And we kept trottin! For I didn’t even want to know how long!

But I did know how long – because Miss Endomondo talked out loud and told us. “One kilometer in 14 minutes,” Miss Endomondo proclaimed in that smug voice she’s got. What in blazes is a kilometer, I ask you? It’s got “kill” in it, which can’t be good for a horse, and I likely felt like I could be killed by all that endless trottin at that point. So I stopped dead in my tracks.

The bucket gal laughed and told me, “Whiskey, I haven’t even been riding you for 15 minutes yet! Come on, you can do two kilometers!” And she kicked me back up! Two kills! My mind was boggled.

I wish Miss Endomondo would quit her cowardly ways, and show her face here on the County Island instead of hidin inside a telephone. I wouldn’t bite or kick or stomp her, though I might conjure the image in my mind. I’d be real polite to her and nicker down low, maybe win her over to the horses’ side that way. Maybe I’d suck my belly in to look a might skinny and old, and shift my weight back and forth a bit so she’d call me the poor old palomino and tell the bucket gal how she don’t need to listen to a telephone when she’s got a good horse to listen to, and then we could go back to our old, abbreviated arena ridin. That would work for me.

Or, maybe next time the bucket gal accidentally drops her telephone in the dirt, I could accidentally place one of my heavy hooves squarely on top of it and kill-o-meter it. That would work, too.

Mechanical Bull

As y’all probably know by now, I’m not a horse that likes to make more work for myself. I’ve done more real, hard, honest work in my life than any pleasure horse or prancey horse or “show” horse ever will, which is how I earned myself such a comfortable retirement lifestyle here on the County Island. Well, it’s more of a semi-retirement, although the work I do now could hardly be called work by a more reputable horse.

Used to be, I was up long before sun-up with my nose in the last of my hay pile, tryin to swipe one more bite before my cowboy came and slung a saddle over my back and shoved a steely spade bit in my mouth and set off to work with me for the day. And by day I mean from sun-up to sun-down, not “day” the way a prancey horse means it like, “Oooh, I worked so hard today in my 45-minute prancey lesson.” And my long days were mostly spent workin cattle.

Here on the County Island, the people play stupid cow games with cattle instead of workin ‘em. The most popular game is one I like to call “spend the whole damned day movin 10 cows back and forth repeatedly from one end of a little pen and back again for no good reason, always in the same order even if ya start with a different cow each time, which the people can never seem to keep track of, but a horse easily can, so why don’t they just turn a horse loose to move the cows to the other end, in the proper order, quick like a jackrabbit, and then we can all call it a day?” But I guess most folks call it “team penning.” Sometimes the bucket gal takes me to play “spend the whole damned day,” too. Sometimes it may also be – and you are not to tell a soul I said this, especially not my horse buddies Coors or Coors Light or the bucket gal herself – kinda fun. In a pointless way, that is.

Their second most favorite stupid cow game on the County Island is one I call “rope a cow but don’t actually do somethin useful like brand it or doctor it,” or “roping” in people lingo. I see a whole lot of amateur “rope a cow” in action when I go out amblin around the County Island on my trail rides. Lots of people here keep pet cows (which is always a bad idea, as I expounded upon back in the tale of Moo and the rainy night) and use ‘em to play “rope a cow.”

Even more confoundin than that, when there ain’t no coddled pet cows to be found, or – get this – if they don’t want to get the pet cows too tired out (I know!), they will enlist the aid of a contraption that looks like cow, sorta, but it ain’t a for-real cow, and it’s got wheels like they put the dummy cow on top of ATV wheels (an ATV is what the bucket gal uses to till the dirt in her prancin arena to make it have purty lines in it so I can gallop through ‘em and put my hoof marks everywhere) instead of havin legs, and then they use another ATV to pull around the ATV dummy cow. I’m not bullshittin you! Pardon my french.

I got nothin to say about this that ain't self-explanatory.

And then they expect a horse to take this game seriously and let their rider rope a goddamned ATV dummy cow, over, and over, and over, and over, while a poor horse lopes after it over, and over, and over, and over…

 

For what end?

The County Island people don’t seem to comprehend that no cows means no work. That’s a good thing. Look, I am sure the ATV dummy cow is a fine people-made contraption. I mean to say, the people here who got ‘em seem enamored enough.

But to me, the whole notion’s as half-baked as a hog in a hickory pit. I was originally lookin to make more of a cow comparison for my finale, but sometimes a pig’ll do better.

T.P. or Not T.P.

I got a question I been ponderin for some time now: Why do the County Island people sometimes toss their own stall-beddin up into the trees?

I know – it sounds like nonsense, don’t it? But they do. And they think we got strange stall habits. And then they get mad at us horses for simply buryin our piles deep in the shavins when they keep us in jail-stalls so we’re less likely to step in ‘em, because, frankly, who would want to do that, or get mad at us for doin even more logical things like peein on our own hay to keep other horses from eatin it.

Sometimes I see what looks to be long rolls of white and wavy stuff hangin high up in the palo verdes that grow in front of the people’s ranches, but I ain’t never paid much attention to it other than to turn a wise eyes toward it so as to acknowledge it, like sayin, “Well now, that ain’t right.” I wouldn’t have believed it could ever be people stall-beddin, myself, except the old stallion who lives across the road told me he has seen it happen with his own eyes – seen the younger people tossin their T.P., which is what people use for shavins, up into the trees in the dead of night and gettin all stupid and giggly in the way that young people, and 2-year-old colts and fillies, often do, and chatterin all about “T.P.ing.” And as he is a right reputable old stud, in spite of bein an Ayrab horse, I tend to believe him.

So I can go along with the notion that there’s lawless bands of youngsters roamin the County Island at night tossin T.P. into the trees, along with all the other unmentionable things that sometimes walk the County Island at night. But the why of it still escapes me.

Still, I told the Coors brothers about it, and they think it’s downright hilarious. I should’ve reckoned they would.

But ya know, the more I ponder it, I guess the more I can see the appeal, if not the purpose. Sometimes, it can be downright satisfyin to do somethin a bit ridiculous and undignified, like pretend to spook at somethin you know you danged well ain’t spooked of, just because a horse can. Or hang your own bucket upisde down on the fence post, because you can. Or take the sweaty saddle pad that was dryin in the sun on the fence and dunk it in the water tub, because you can. Or pull Coors Light’s tail, because you can. OK, that last one is usually him doin it to me, but still.

But I guess I never reckoned people had much of a sense of humor before. They seem mostly humorless to me, especially as regards us horses. I’m glad to know they can be funny, too. Now if only they’d lighten up when we try to be funny.

And in the meantime, I asked Coors Light, who does have kind of knack for advanced arithmetic, like all the geometry he knows for prancin in circles, to kind calculate-like what we could possibly put up in some trees, and what we’d need to get it up there. This could likely take us a while, but we’re workin on it.

Hotel County Island

I done made up a song about when I first came to live on the County Island for y’all, incorporatin my new vocabulary word, which I overheard the bucket gal say, called “hotel,” which is another way to say a barn. Usually I guess it’s a fancy barn for people, but all the County Island barns seem right fancy compared to what I had back at the ranch, so, well, with no further ado, here’s my song.

Welcome to the Hotel County Island

Ridin in a rollin horse-box, warm breeze on this nag

Fresh scent of sweet grass hay in a fancy feed bag

Up ahead in the distance, I saw a confoundin sight

It was a strange little ranch that had no cows

But we was stoppin there, alright.

There she stood with my lead rope

And somethin called a “cookie”

And I was thinkin to myself,

This here cowgirl is a real rookie.

Then she clucked and she led me, and she showed me more hay.

There were horses nickerin in the barns,

I thought I heard them neigh

Welcome to the Hotel County Island.

Such a prancey place. (such a prancey place)

Why the long face?

Plenty of stalls at the Hotel County Island.

Any time of year (any time of year)

You can ride us here.

They got carrots and apples, they got cookies and grain,

They got a whole lot of sugary snacks, but I ain’t seen a beer yet.

How they prance in the arena — you call that breakin a sweat?

Some jump sticks called cross-rails, some jump spreads whose name I forget.

So I neighed to my neighbor,

“When do we go work the cattle?”

Coors said, “There haven’t been any bovines here since 1869.”

And still those horses are whinnyin from far away

Wake you up in the middle of a nap

Just to hear them neigh

Welcome to the Hotel County Island.

Such a prancey place. (such a prancey place)

Why the long face?

Plenty of stalls at the Hotel County Island.

Any time of year (any time of year)

You can ride us here.

Mirrors in the arena,

Leg wraps kept on ice,

And Coors said, “We are all just pleasure horses here – try not to get a stable vice.”

And snug in our stall-pens,

We all wait for our feasts,

We strike the walls with our steely hooves

to tell the people we’re all starvin, overworked beasts.

Last thing I remember, I was

Nappin in the sand.

I had the whole rest of the day to nap, like I’d done the day before.

“Relax,” I said to myself, “Self, you ain’t got to work no more.

Life here on the County Island is grand,

and I ain’t never gonna leave!”

Welcome to the Hotel County Island

Such a prancey place. (such a prancey place)

Why the long face?

Plenty of stalls at the Hotel County Island.

Any time of year (any time of year)

You can ride us here.