Progress!

Siaga is now standing quite nicely on a loose lead, even with distractions going on. He will only stand for about a minute, still, but that's longer than not at all! I gave him more applesauce from the syringe, was so funny, he was simultaneously trying to pull away and get it in his mouth at the same time!

I also discovered that while I'm sitting on the edge of the back porch letting him graze on the lead some 6 or 7 feet away, I can disengage his hindquarters from there, and that's really neat. We also worked more on disengaging the front end, he's starting to get it.

As far as work, today I fed all the ponies, mucked two stalls and the pony track and pulled up a lot of Datura. For those of you who don't know, Datura is a very poisonous, terrible little weed. It has usually white, yellow, purple, or pink trumpet shaped flowers and the seed heads are little spiny balls. It's a very powerful hallucinogen and if not handled with care, can result in poison-ivy-esque rashes on the skin from bare handed handling. So what does that tell you how bad it would be to EAT? So I'm on a Datura crusade now, going to be trying to get as much of that as possible out of the paddocks.

The curly dock out there I am not too worried about, there is plenty of other forage and the horses and ponies don't seem to have any desire to eat it.

Today I have a double shift, so I have to go back to work at five to bring the horses in and give them their dinner.

I felt so bad for poor Dot today. She's a 1993 horse, so about 18 or so. She was rounded up in 94 as a yearling, and spent a big chunk of her life with Curly. Curly went to a "retirement" home in Virginia, as his owner said, to avoid having to live through another Ohio Winter. But all the other old horses will have to deal with it too, and it's not like there aren't stalls and blankets available. And poor Dot! She was screaming her head off, calling and calling and calling for her buddy, poor old girl.