L.E. and Miss Pearl

Yesterday, when I pulled into the driveway, I saw L.E. and Pearl out riding in the backyard and it took my breath away, it was so beautiful. She had just passed by the no-watermelon arch as I pulled in, and they were perfectly framed.

Instead of continuing on to my parking space, I threw my car in park, jumped out, and got all bossy, telling her to do it again! I was hoping I'd be able to take a couple of pictures. I am by no means a photographer, but I needed to take these pictures.

Almost...almost...

... got it ...

... just to be safe, I took another one.

L.E.'s safe space is across the street in the arena; riding outside of the arena causes her some anxiety, so she's been working hard on getting comfortable riding in the backyard. Riding at home isn't new to her, we've done it together for a few years, but it's not comfortable for her. It's funny, because anywhere outside of the arena is where Skeeter and I feel best, and we feel confined within the fence of the arena. L.E. and I are opposite in that way, but because we're opposite, I know what a big deal it is for her to ride solo in the yard.

Eventually, we'll be riding the farm roads. L.E. might never want to ride the mountain trails with us, but it'll be fun to hack out on the farm roads.

And, just because I love the pictures, here are a couple more.

I cropped it a bit closer, to remove the buildings and focus on L.E.

Then L.E. cropped it even more,
and the finished product is incredible.

I'm Not Sure I Deserve Skeeter

It's been two weeks since I've had a chance to climb back up on Skeeter. (As I typed that, it sounded like I was going to confession - ha!)

Maybe I needed the almost two years without riding to appreciate what a gem of a mare I have. I mean, she's still pushy on the ground, and opinionated, but she really is a special horse and I'm glad she chose me all those years ago.

She eagerly met me at the gate when I called her, and remembered her manners as we were leaving the pen. Last time, she got in big trouble for trying to push past me instead of waiting until she was asked to follow. We did have a bit of a discussion about approaching the hitch rail. She prefers to be tied to Pearl's hitch rail, because then she cleans up everything Pearl has dropped out of her bowl. When we walk by Pearl's rail and head to our own, she gets sad and stubborn. It didn't take too much to remind her that she needed to walk up nicely to her own hitch rail, but it's definitely something we'll have to work through.

She stood like a rock star while getting groomed and saddled. Which, she should, being an old broke horse, but we're out of practice.

She still doesn't like the mounting block, and prefers me to mount from the ground, but until she loses some weight and I gain some flexibility, that's not going to happen. I'm super thankful for all of my Estes training, though, since Skeets likes to walk off as I mount from the block. She doesn't when I mount from the ground. Do I know that I should dismount and keep at it until she stands still? Yes. Am I willing to invest the time in that right now? No. That's something that we'll work on when it's just the two of us, not when L.E. and Pearl are waiting on us. Yes, I know that makes me a "bad" owner/rider, but frankly, at this point, I'm picking my battles.

We only rode for about 15 minutes around the backyard, working on serpentines, figure eights around a tree and the mounting block, a few laps each direction. When she wanted to pick up a trot, I let her and kept her going a few more steps when she wanted to come back down to a walk. My body is remembering what it's like to be astride and I was much more relaxed this time. Still had to remind myself to breathe while posting, but that'll come back as well.

L.E. and Pearl

It's not a ride if I don't get a picture of her derp ears.

Our backyard has changed a lot in the past couple of years,
the horses don't seem to mind the changes.

The pallets that make up the walls of the greenhouse used
to be our bridge obstacles for the horses.

The ride was short and sweet, and I asked Skeeter to drop me off at the mounting block. I don't recall the last time I dismounted onto the mounting block, actually, I'm not sure I ever have. After a moment of confusion she stepped right up and allowed me to dismount without moving a muscle. It felt very weird (for both of us, I'm sure).

After our ride, I wanted to take her through the archway in front of the greenhouse. It's something I want to work on, because I want to take our Christmas pictures there and it didn't go so well last year. I had laid cardboard down to kill the weeds, and none of the horses liked walking on the slippery cardboard. This summer, I was able to get the flagstone put down and some creeping thyme planted, so it's more like real ground instead of cardboard ground.

L.E. was kind enough to take pictures for us, and I'm so thrilled with how well Skeets did walking through the arch.

You can see how thrilled she is. Willing,
but unimpressed.

Even less impressed with forced cuddles ...

"Ugh, Mom! A kiss?!"

"Are we done yet?"

Funny how she never balks when we're done riding, and we're headed back to her hitch rail to get undressed after a ride, isn't it?

Someone looks pretty proud
of herself, doesn't she?

"Don't forget my 'good girl' treat, Mom."

She's so out of shape that even the short time we rode, she lathered up between her legs and couldn't wait to throw herself on the ground for a good roll. We'll keep with the short rides for a bit, and gradually increase our time as her fitness improves. Now that we're both middle aged, it takes longer than it did when we were young 'uns.

I Finally Rode My Horse!

The last documentation I have of riding Skeeter was from November 13, 2023 at my neighbor's arena. I rode with the Bionic Cowgirl and L.E. I always take pictures of our rides for documentation, even though the pictures are basically always the same, and kind of boring. However, I'm glad I'm in the habit of it, so I could look back to see how long it's been since I rode.

671 DAYS!

That's almost two years. Holy cow, I feel bad about it. But you know what? I have the most amazing, pain in the ass mare you'll ever meet. I pulled her from the pen, did about five minutes worth of ground work (no longing - I don't believe in it for "getting the wiggles out") with her, to make sure she was paying attention to me, then saddled her up.

The saddle used to fit. It used to fit quite nicely. Almost two years ago. Now that she's been sitting and is chonky, her clothes don't fit at all. 

She is a big girl right now.

Unlike human clothes, though, just letting out the cinches a few notches, and loosening the breast collar, made her saddle wearable. Does it fit well enough for a two hour ride on the mountain? No. Does it fit well enough to piddle around the yard and the farm roads to get exercise to start getting the weight off? Yes. She stood like the well-broke horse she is while I adjusted everything. 

We did just a few more minutes of ground work while we waited on L.E. and Pearl to get home from their lesson. While we were waiting, I thought I'd get her bitted up. Y'all. The girl's face got fat! I had to let out the bridle by a hole on each side. I probably should have loosened her chin strap as well, but she did okay with it, and I'll double check it again next time we ride.

As usual, she gave me some attitude about wanting to use the mounting block. She much prefers me to mount from the ground. However, with her increased girth, the stirrups are about an inch too high for me to reach from the ground, not that they were ever easy for me to reach to begin with. After a few refusals at the mounting block, we got our poop in a group and I climbed on my horse for the first time in forever.

Obligatory between the ears pic.

L.E. was kind enough to take pictures of us.

Ignore the brimless helmet - my hell hat brim
came off and I haven't replaced it.

We rode for only about 10 - 15 minutes, but it was enough to get started. Enough to remind both myself and Skeeter that we can do this. It's hard for me to look back and see all of our great rides on the mountain, and then realize we're back here, not quite to square one, but close.

The plan is to ride at least once a week, now that gardening season is wrapping up. While I don't mind her going into winter a bit on the heavy side, this is extreme, and we've got to get some weight down before bad things start to happen.

Oh, Miss Pearl

Bill always said that horses are born looking for ways to kill themselves. Our horses are pretty good at not killing themselves, and rarely put themselves in situations where they might die. Notice, I said "pretty good", not great, not excellent, just pretty good.

Every once in a while one of them has to remind us that they are still horses, and are still looking for ways to kill themselves.

This time, it was Miss Pearl's turn. Jay and I had gotten home from a quick long-weekend trip, and were being lazy. I was lounging in bed, doom scrolling on my phone, when a text came through: "Pearl is stuck, can you come help me?"

I immediately jumped out of bed and into my jammies to go help L.E. with whatever Pearl had gotten herself into. For some reason, my brain told me that she'd gotten her grazing muzzle stuck on the hay net. I don't know why that image popped into my mind, but that's what I was prepared for.

What I was not prepared for was to walk out of the house to see her standing like a Breyer horse statue - head not stuck by the grazing muzzle in the hay net - by the feeder with L.E. next to her. It took me a second to realize that it was her hooves that were stuck. Miss Pearl is the only horse in the herd that has shoes. Skeets and Copper are barefoot, and until this spring, so was Pearl, but she had some lameness issues and L.E. had fronts put on.

Not one, but both, shoes tightly caught in the net.

The 3 Mustangeers had absolutely destroyed their last hay net, and with all of them getting chonky, we'd *just* replaced the old net with a new, larger, extreme slow feed net. Larger was nice, because it fit so much easier over the round bale, with a little room to grow. One of the reasons they were able to destroy the old net was because when we put it over a round bale, it was basically a stuffed sausage, bursting at the seams. The new, larger net was so nice - no fighting to get it to fit over the bale - but it also meant that there was some excess net that the horses could pull out of the feeder as the hay got low.

I know the risks of shoes and hay nets, but I just never gave a second thought to Pearl having been shod all spring and summer, plus a bit of excess net might lead to the situation we now faced.

Initially, I thought we'd be able to just cut a few strands of the net, to free her up enough to lift a hoof and untangle the rest. Let me tell you, when Pearl does something, she does it well. There was no room to cut just a few strands.

L.E. and I took turns cutting and cutting and cutting our brand new (one month old) hay net to pieces to free Pearl. 

I have never been more thankful for Pearl's training. Jessica, Pearl's Mustang Makeover trainer, hobble trains her horses and that hobble training saved us from a disaster. Pearl got stuck, and then stood patiently while we cut her free. She never panicked. Occasionally, she'd try to lift a hoof and back up a step, but never did anything more. Copper was completely oblivious to the goings-on and continued to eat, leaning into, and shifting the feeder, which was less than helpful. Even then, Pearl was a rock star.

When we got her free, she didn't bolt, she walked off calmly with L.E., showing off her fancy accoutrement on her shoes.

The highest of fashion for horse shoes.

Doesn't she look bothered?

Serendipitously, the farrier was already scheduled to come out for Pearl. L.E. and the farrier had discussed whether or not to continue with shoes, since her lameness has resolved. Pearl and the net made L.E.'s decision for her. When the farrier arrived, L.E. looked at him and said, "get those mothereffers off of her!" He took one look at Pearl's feet, laughed, and said, "hay net".

I was able to temporarily sew the massive holes we'd cut into the net together using baling twine. (What in the world would a horse girl do without baling twine?). I've ordered another extreme slow feed net from HayChix, and Pearl is now barefoot. I think we're safe for a bit.

Riding in Costa Rica (6/5/23)

On my last post, I didn't mention that these rides are past rides, and I'm just now getting back into blogging/getting caught up. I haven't been riding my own horse recently, so I might as well re-live and share these.

In June of 2023, my sister, her boyfriend, my cousins, Jay and I went to Costa Rica for our "birthiversary" trip. Nebalee, her boyfriend, and Jay all have birthdays within just a few weeks of each other, and our anniversary falls in that same timeframe, so we started taking "birthiversary" (birthday + anniversary) trips in 2022. Our first was Key West (2022), then Costa Rica (2023), Cancun (2024), and Marco Island (2025). Of those birthiversary trips, I've only exercised my "I get to ride" rule once, and what a ride it was!

The trail ride in Costa Rica is my all-time favorite ride. And after nine seasons as a wrangler, I've been on a lot of rides, so that's saying something. I had a vague idea of wanting to ride on the beach, but hadn't done any research into where to ride, so it was serendipitous that our AirBnB happened to be right across the street from the entrance to The Monkey Farm. All along the drive up to our AirBnB, I'd been seeing hand-painted signs for horseback rides, when I saw the sign for the Monkey Farm directly across the street from our driveway, I decided that's where we had to go. We couldn't see what the farm looked like, and we knew nothing about it, but, by God, we were going to ride there!

I promptly made online reservations for the next day, and at our appointed time, Jay and I walked across the street and down a long driveway to the farm. This is a riding blog, so I won't go into the amazingness that is The Monkey Farm, but I do encourage everyone to follow the link and check it out. They're doing some really good things for their community.

We got a little orientation to the farm, and I fell in love before we ever stepped up on the horses. Their equine program is was inspired by the film, "The Mustang", which I've never seen, but know the gist. Our horses came from a similar prisoner program in Canon City, CO. Take a look at the tack - all of their horses are ridden in halters and lead ropes - not a bit to be found.

Yep, wranglers worldwide are the same :)

We opted for the beach ride, about an hour and forty minutes through the jungle and down to the beach. The wranglers have to earn their way up the ladder to taking rides out, and one of the things they have to do is learn to speak English, as well as take classes to become a licensed trail guide (more on that later).

Headed out from the farm.

We stopped at a bluff overlooking the water.

Riding down from the bluff, headed into the jungle.

We had hoped to see/hear some howler monkeys while in the jungle, but just as we entered, the skies opened up and we got caught in a deluge! It was the most amazing thing ever. I've ridden in my fair share of rain and in Colorado, it sucks. 

A lot. 

Colorado rain is cold, and feels like needles hitting your skin. It's a freaking miserable experience that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Getting caught in the rain in Costa Rica? It was like a warm shower. The water just poured down onto us. We were dry one minute, absolutely soaked through the next.

Jay wiping the rain from his face as it started.

And now, completely soaked. The wrangler had
to dismount to unlock the gate crossing the trail.

I was grinning and laughing like a fool the whole time!

We didn't see or hear any howler monkeys, but the trip through the forest was unforgettable. We laughed like kids stomping in rain puddles the whole way. 

If you look closely in the first clip, you'll see the rain falling as we cross a little clearing. Believe it or not, the rain had lightened up by that point.

The experience of experience of riding from the jungle onto the beach? Freaking amazing! It was like the jungle just opened up and spit us onto this cute little beach. We'd visited the beach before - it's the local beach for the area - but riding it was totally different.

I tried getting some video of my little paint mare walking through the surf, but you can see that it wasn't her favorite thing to do. That should have been a clue.

We rode down to the end of the beach and turned back. I was still having the best time ever. My mare was super light. A little nervous, but still really light and responsive. I was messing around with my phone, trying to take more pictures of Jay riding on the beach, and wasn't really paying attention to my riding. Remember me mentioning that the guides in Italy kept yelling at me (us, the other riders, too) to put my phone away? I should have brought that rule along with me to Costa Rica.

Headed back to the trees.

See those worried ears? I should have paid
attention. That was clue #2.

I felt her get a little jiggy, and dropped my phone (it was in a waterproof pouch on a lanyard) back down to my chest to reach for the rein with my other hand to settle her, but I was too late. She caught sight of a cluster of flat rocks that the surf exposed and up she went. I can sit a rear, and have done it plenty of times. The rear and spin? Yeah, I'm no good at sitting that. I was suspended in the air like Wile E. Coyote for half a second while she spun right out from under me, then I met the beach.

Other than just a couple of scrapes and being mad at myself for not paying better attention to a horse that clearly wasn't in the mood for rain and the beach, I was fine. The wranglers were amazing! One caught my mare, who only retreated up the beach away from the water, and the other checked me over. 

They were so upset that I'd come off, but not at me. I'd been told, when I first started taking out rides, that most of the time, if a rider comes off, it's the wrangler's fault for not seeing the problem develop and fixing it. I get the feeling these guys got the same lesson. I assured them it was completely my fault for not paying attention to my mare and that I was fine. They gave me a really good once over, checking for injuries and concussion, before deciding I was fit enough to get back on a horse. Their licensure obviously covered basic first aid, in addition to all of the other stuff they had to learn. They wanted me to switch with them, and ride one of their horses, but I insisted on getting back on the mare. She was calm enough, and allowed me to mount without a problem. 

As we headed back to the trail, there was a small stream that was running fast from the rain, and she started to get nervous. While I was confident I could work her over the stream without any big issues (or coming off again), the wranglers were still pretty upset about me coming off, and asked me to switch horses again. I relented and switched with them. 

You can learn a lot about a person's horsemanship by watching them when things don't go according to plan. Let me tell you, these guys were amazing with her. When she was caught after I came off, instead of being angry and correcting her, he soothed her and made sure she wasn't injured. When I switched horses at the stream, the lead wrangler worked her calmly until she was willing to cross. Never once did he lose his temper or get impatient with her. It only took her a couple of false starts to cross and we were on our way.

Despite my fall, and maybe because of it, this is still my all-time favorite ride. 

Still all smiles, but with a great story to go home with!

I never ride in shorts, but since that's all we had with us, that's what we rode in. Jeans might have saved the back of my knee from the tiny little scratches it got, but riding in wet jeans is a whole level of hell I don't like to visit.

I knew this was going to develop like a polaroid, so I took
daily pictures.

Baby little scrapes from the saddle. I promptly forgot about them.

Because our experience at The Monkey Farm was so amazing, and I fell in love with their mission, I made the everyone go back for a farm tour at the end of the week. It gave me a chance to check in with the wranglers, and assure them I was still fine, as well as getting to see the rest of the farm's operation.

It was good to get to laugh with them again.

Riding in Italy (9/24/22)

Jay and I love to travel. A desire to travel was one of the things that we bonded over when we first met. We'd always planned on traveling internationally, but just couldn't swing it until a few years ago. We have a couple of rules when planning a trip: 

1) We can only go to places that one or the other of us hasn't been. For example, we've both been to Rome, so that's off the table. He'd been to Fussen, Germany, but I hadn't, so we could go there.

2) I get to plan a horseback riding trip.

Now, whether or not I choose to plan a ride, is up to me, but if I want to ride, we have to go. We went to Cancun last year, and I didn't have any desire to ride there, so he was off the hook for that trip.

When we started planning our trip to Germany/Italy, I started looking into rides we could do in Tuscany, and Trip Advisor helped me find a horseback riding and wine tasting tour. It was an amazing day. 

Tenuta Torciano

The ride was not through the winery that hosted the wine tasting, but through a livery about 15 minutes away. We met at the winery, where we picked up the shuttle to the livery for our ride. I'm rather terrified of Italian drivers, after a scary experience I had in Rome on my first trip to Italy. This shuttle ride further solidified that I don't like riding in vehicles driven by Italian drivers. It wasn't quite as terrifying as in Rome, but that's because the traffic wasn't as bad as in the city. It was still plenty scary.

This particular stable was primarily a lesson stable that also lead trail rides. The horses were skinny by American standards, but still very healthy. I don't know that fly spray is as prevalent there as it is here, so there was a lot of stomping, and I learned the word for fly, "mosca". Yay for learning Italian words "in the wild".

I'm not very often on the side of "guest" with trail rides, so it made me smile to see the wranglers getting everyone ready for their ride. It appears that the process is the same no matter where in the world you are. Tighten the cinch, mount up the rider, check the stirrups, brief steering directions, and you're off!

Jay getting mounted up.

They paired Jay and I with essentially the same horses we have at home. For Jay, a hungry sorrel gelding, and for me, a cranky dark bay mare.

Other than being perpetually hungry and stomping at mosche (flies), Jay's horse was perfect for him. My mare was cranky and didn't tolerate horses invading her space, she kicked at a couple of horses who got too close and gave a baby rear over something that now escapes my memory.

The ride took us through open fields, beautiful trees, and alongside grape vines. I have very few pictures, and Jay took none, because I kept getting yelled at for having my phone out. They were serious about paying attention to the ride and not my phone, so the few pictures I have are ninja pics. Typically, I'm a strict rule follower, but I needed some pictures for our photo album (which we still haven't completed).

There was one spot along the trail that the wranglers stopped and took pictures of everyone in our group, which was nice. I tried to line up my mare next to Jay's horse for a nice picture, but remember the whole "cranky and doesn't like other horses" thing? This is the best photo we managed.

No way, no how was she going to line up nicely.

I thought Skeets was put together kind of funny, but this mare, well, she'll never win any conformation awards.

The ride was just right, at about an hour, then we held on for dear life in the shuttle back to the winery for our wine tasting.

If you are ever in Tuscany, and have the means, I highly recommend taking a tour like this one. Yes, it was a typical nose-to-tail trail ride, but I'm fine with those types of rides on horses I know nothing about, and it was the perfect way to spend the day seeing the area around the winery.

The Aliens Came

The other night, just as I was dropping off to sleep, I thought I heard hooves on gravel. That couldn't be right. It was the middle of the night, and I hadn't heard anyone at the horse's gate. Surely, I was imagining it, right?

But years of sleeping with one ear cocked to the window, just in case the livery horses got out, told me I wasn't imagining it. There were some definite hoof scurrying sounds on the gravel farm road right outside my bedroom window.

Well, crap.

Up and into my jammies and muck boots I went, grabbing my glasses and a flashlight on the way out, just like I'd done countless times in the past. I saw L.E. come out of her house just as I started sweeping the yard with the flashlight, but not expecting to see our kids. Yes, I'd heard hooves on the gravel, but no sound had come from our pen to indicate it might be the Wild Ones. The last "horse break out" had been a few years ago, and those weren't our horses that broke out. 

L.E. said that she'd heard shoes on the asphalt and wondered who was riding in the dark, before it dawned on her it could be our horses. The horses must have remembered they're not allowed to cross the street without a human and come back into our yard.

As I swept the yard, I saw Skeeter and Pearl racing around, running and bucking. No Copper. I swept my flashlight to the pen, and there he was, the good boy, just standing inside the fence watching the show. I noted that the gate was closed and the fence looked good from where I was standing. I had no idea how the girls got out, but that was a problem for later. We had to get them caught.

I grabbed Skeeter's halter from the hook, and L.E. grabbed Pearl's. They had calmed down when they saw us, and found a tasty bit of hip-high weeds to munch on. I'm so thankful that all of our horses are "flashlight broke", which is something we intentionally worked on. They know that humans with flashlights or headlamps usually have food/treats and they don't freak out about the weird lights and shadows that come with flashlights. Since they weren't worried about the flashlights, and they'd found some tasty treats, catching them was a breeze. Pearl, with her grazing muzzle, was a little harder to halter, but L.E. got her caught. 

We took them into the pen and started looking at the fence. It all looked good as we methodically ran our gaze around the perimeter. And then we got to the truck gate and the last two panels. The gate was closed, but the panels were ... missing.

There are usually panels here.

One panel was folded back against the gate, and another was laying on the ground inside the pen. It made no sense. 

If I hadn't known better, I would have sworn someone drove
through our fence. 

Well, crap. Closing a gate was what we'd anticipated, having to rebuild the fence in the middle of the night was not. We couldn't turn the mares loose while we tried to fix this, so we decided to move the horses to Estes' pen. The problem with that is that it's wildly overgrown. Pearl had her grazing muzzle on, but Skeets doesn't have one, and with her cresty neck, I wanted her in that pen for the shortest amount of time possible. I did not want to risk founder. Which meant, L.E. and I would have to fix the fence in the dark so that we could move the horses back from Estes' pen.

We threw Copper's halter on him, and moved the horses. They were so happy to be moved - they'd been put on a strict diet, and getting to go to the other pen where the weeds were thigh-high was a treat. When we got back to their pen to check out the damage, we found that the panel closest to their shed had been ripped clean off and was the one laying on the ground.

The other panel had been torn away from its "holey tape" as well, and the only reason it was still standing was because of the baling twine I'd put on it forever ago.

The mystery was, and still is, how on earth did this happen silently? Neither L.E. nor I heard a sound. There should have been some thrashing or crashing, or something, but other than hearing the mares' hooves on the gravel, I heard nothing. We looked at the ground for any hint of struggle and couldn't find anything other than the usual hoofprints-around-the-watering-post prints.

L.E. and I worked to put the panels back in their position, or as close to it as we could. We decided that if baling twine had saved one of the panels from coming down, that it would be good enough to hold them together until Jay and I could sink a post to attach the panels to. I had just used some holey tape to attach some repurposed garden gates to the greenhouse, so I knew exactly where it was.

I grabbed the tape, then went into the shop to get the screws and drill to attach the panel to the shed. It was just another moment in life that I was so thankful for Bill's help around the property. A few years ago, he and Mom had come down for a work weekend and he wired the shop. It was a treat to be able to just turn on the overhead light, and pull the rechargeable drill battery off the wall.

It ain't pretty, but it'll do.

I expected that L.E. and I would be working into the wee hours trying to fix the pen well enough to hold the horses for the night. I was pleasantly surprised that it only took us about an hour from the jail break until they were back in their own pen.

Jay works second shift, and pulled into the driveway just as we were haltering the horses to move back into their own pen. Talk about timing on his part! Show up just in time to walk his horse back.

L.E. and I had mulled over how this could have possibly happened. It was a foregone conclusion that Skeeter was at fault. She's the queen of horse yoga, and often sticks her face under the fence to get at the green stuff. She also has a bad habit of pawing at the fence. We weren't sure what she had done, or how she'd done it so silently, but we knew in our gut that she was the culprit.

Except ... she had no marks on her. None at all. I checked her legs, her face, and her neck. Granted, it was at night, so I was checking by feel, but there was nothing to indicate that she was the one at fault. But, who else could it have been?

Aliens.

It had to be. There was no other explanation.

.

.

.

The next morning, Jay and I went to the hardware store to pick up a 4x4 so we could sink a post to attach the panels to. Those two panels were the only two that didn't have a post, because we were afraid to dig near the hydrant when we put all of the other posts up. Now that we've had the automatic waterer installed, I knew that where we needed to put the post wouldn't be near the water line, and it would be safe to dig.

I went into the shop to get the auger to dig the hole, and Jay said, "it was Copper." Huh? "It was Copper." I was still not following him. It was Copper what? "Look at this," he said pointing to Copper's head.

Yep. It was Copper. He had the missing hair on one side of his head and green grass stains on the other to prove he was the culprit.

Jerk. And to think I'd been praising
him for being such a good boy while
the girls were running wild.

Jay thinks he tried horse yoga and failed. That he got his head stuck and when he backed out, the panels followed him, scaring him enough that he didn't want to go near them to leave the pen. The mystery of who tore down the panels has been solved, but I still have no idea how he did it so silently.