She's got much better explanations on her blog, but essentially I wore shitty clothes and slathered his tail in dye, following the box directions.  Luckily picking a low-fly day.


I plan on cutting his mane (GASP), but leaving that little sad forelock.  So it needed to blend and Archie gracefully got a rubber glove duct-taped to his forehead.  Dude's a champ.

Needless to say, that fell out within ten minutes and I sacrificed a hair band to keep it off his skin.


I'd had all the best intentions of lathering his butt in protective oils, but fuck it.  Life is short.


And then we grazed...


For half an hour..


And then we rinsed and I discovered that I jacked up one little spot.  I'm not sure if I applied too much of the "Step 1 Pretreatment" to that area or if I just completely missed it.  Hopefully, it's not too noticeable.


In the right lighting, you can't even tell... tail... haha.

On Monday, the Old Man turned nineteen.  Because no one should ever work on their birthday, I planned a light day with lots of grazing.  And photography, because annual birthday selfies are tradition.

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I pulled him from his pasture, shoved some carrots in his face, and gave him a thorough grooming with our clean, clean brushes.  Then I tossed his new half-pad (his technical birthday gift) on his back, put my helmet on, and mounted.  It helped that Archie was already leaned down with his face in the grass, because my flexibility has diminished as my muscles have grown.  We spent about ten minutes roaming the large pasture, letting him munch wherever and getting scarily close to the hotwire.  I asked for one itty-bitty taboo canter and got about three strides before I asked him stop.

..when the head disappears below you..

After our little meander, I set up the tripod and finished preparing his birthday beer and beet pulp.  Archie normally gets beer in the summer, but I like to give him something special on his birthday.  I went for Angry Orchard this year, thinking that I've never given him a cider before (Hefeweizen and Fosters, as far as I can remember).  Of course, you shouldn't drink alone, so I popped one, too.






Once the beet pulp was finished, I dragged him and the tripod across the street to the access point for our main trail.  It was cleared last year and some of the grass has now grown taller than me.  I always let him pack a snack, but this was going to be a free-for-all.

done.

Remember how Archie had rain rot about a month ago?  Yeah.  This total slacker horse owner has continued to use the same disgusting brushes on his now-non-infected coat.  Because I'm good like that.

This past weekend, I devoted a small part of my super-busy plans to cleaning.  Specially, his brushes and the turtle's tank, but no one wants to hear about how freaking feral Pokey has become.  And big.  And bitey.

So here are some bright photos of my cleaning process and my admittance to having multiple brushes for the same purpose.  Hoarders unite.

Assemble all the dirty things in one spot, with Savannah supervising because you just can't go in the back yard without the girls:

Photobombing Savannah with a close up of my new SMBs, because I can't not:


This is what the box looks like after regular use:  shit crammed into every nook and cranny:

















This post is part of a joined effort to make us a little less dirty, as hosted by Allie at Rocking E Cowgirl.