Blankets off!

First photo op at the new barn. The lovely brown of fields in late winter in VT! Dude felt he needed to have a closer look at what I was doing.

Today was absolutely gorgeous ... sunny and in the high 40s, maybe even the low 50s. In any case, it was warm enough that when I got to the barn, I decided to take off Dude and Bestie's blankets before turnout. After I let them loose, they rolled and rolled, which of course later meant I needed to brush and brush. And brush some more! They were both pretty dirty.

It was an uneventful day until I had to bring them in. I asked for some help just because it is hard to negotiate the gates with two horses in hand. There is a gate for each horse's paddock, and one at the end of the aisle in front of the paddocks. Not sure what happened, but as we got closer to the barn Dude suddenly took off trotting, paying absolutely no attention to my attempts to get him to stop. I finally had to drop the leadline because he ran me a little too close to a tree.

Luckily he paused to survey the front yard—planning his next move, I guess—and I quickly snagged him again. Poor Cory was trying to hold on to Bestie, who apparently got worried when Dude took off and was twirling like a kite on the end of her lead. In a split second we went from a quiet mosey into the barn to me falling into the mud and everyone running out of the barn to help with Bestie. Crazy. I should know by now never to take a quiet mosey for granted.