I think there is improvement.

Stardust (or Tiddlypom as he is known) is stronger, more determined and less bullied.  He stands his ground and is positively stubborn, which is good. Definitely in his demeanour and attitude are changing.   His spine and hip bones are less prominent under all that wool.

Tiddlypom likes his food.  He will not be deterred and heads for the bowl where he will be hassled least.  He does not like chaff and does like sugar beet with mix and oats, so you know but he finds barley rings difficult to eat as they need to be crunched one by one.  If you have one in your pocket, he would never say no and thinly sliced carrots are an acceptable form of gratitude.

Tiddlypom likes coming up to you for kisses and is very good at leaning into you to be scratched.  His greatest joy is having his bottom scratched and he will practically sit on your knee to have it done.  He makes no fuss about having his rug taken on or off and stands quietly while you fiddle about with straps, etc.

Tiddlypom tolerates the others and will always follow them.  He doesn’t want to be on his own and can be vocal if he can’t see the others.  He thinks headcollars and leadropes are stupid.  He turns into a stubborn little donkey when asked to lead nicely.  If you tap his behind, he bucks about 2″ off the ground, which makes me laugh.  He also bucks if the others chase him so they don’t bother with him much anymore as he is no fun and won’t wind up.  Soon he will give as good as he gets.

There is definitely a glimmer in his eye now.

Best of all he knows he is loved and his confidence is building because of this.

Henceforth, for the moment, Stardust is known as Tiddlypom.  He was going to be Tiddlypush until I looked that up and found out what it meant.  I mean who knew?  You learn something new every day!

The Minions love toys.

I haven’t spent much time with them recently, so they followed me into the indoor school, mostly to keep Haakon and his non-burst abscess company (it has burst now, which is good so daily pouliticing).

After Taktur’s blatant thievery the other night, I have rearranged the shed so he can’t get the hay stack.  I found an old Ikea tunnel that the kids used to play with and I used for practicing BeAnne’s non-existent agility training.

I wondered what the boys would make of it.

Well, of course, they loved it.

Hours of non-stop entertainment to be had.

Probably the best toy ever!

I never stopped laughing all morning while they kicked it around, picked it up, put their heads in it……

Stardust gave them his “you are all completely mad” look and went on eating his hay or coming to me for a hug and a scratch.

Haakon was very sniffy and not in the best of moods anyway.  He is not a huge Minion fan and finds them small and annoying.

So, when he thought no one was watching, he went to investigate the tunnel himself to see what all the fuss was about.

I know he would never admit it, as he is the distinguished head of the herd but secretly he thought it was rather fun.

(but that is a secret and absolutely no one must ever know!)

Yesterday evening, Bjørn came over to train Taktur, my Icelandic stallion and Kappi, his Icelandic gelding.

While he was opening the school, turning on the lights, finding Taktur in the pitch dark, I thought I would take some more hay over to the Minions’ shed for some night-time snacking.

I could have sworn I shut the gate properly but apparently not and while the others tucked into their hay, Silver planned and made his escape.

He refused to be caught, and attracted by the lights in the school, ran in there.

I didn’t care.  I encourage the Minions to not rely on each other all the time and Silver has a good friendship with Kappi.  I assumed they would stand together and eat hay, while Taktur was being trained.

How wrong I was.  Silver was intrigued by Taktur being ridden round the school and decided to catch up and investigate further.  He refused to be caught by me and I did apologise for the little irritation who I thought would only get in the way.

To be fair Bjørn thought it was funny and Taktur didn’t mind one bit.  Notice how Silver tries to keep step.  Although he can’t tölt, Silver matched Taktur as much as he could.

Silver loved it.  He got a bit tired at the end but could see him shining with happiness at doing something fun.  While Kappi had his training, Silver and Taktur sweetly shared a haynet together.

Haakon is brewing an abscess in his left front hoof and we are playing the usual waiting game.  The hoof testers and poking about abit have come up with nothing.  My money is on the coronet band (the top where the fur joins).  With daily Danilon and inspections, nothing has appeared so far.  He is living on an unmuddy surface while he is hopping lame.  The first night Haakon was with Iacs in the indoor school.  The next night Haakon was in with Taktur, who loves a shed and happily stands in any he can find.  I trusted them and they behaved impeccably, even down to pooing in three neat little piles.

Last night, having thought I had it sussed, Taktur and Haakon happily went into the indoor school.  They had hay nets and buckets of water.

Just before bed, I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t checked them, so I put a survival suit over my pyjamas and went to look.  Taktur had been helping himself to my winter hay.  As the haynets were empty, I could see why he had done it and gave them the bale anyway.

This morning, however, when I went to let them out, there was hay everywhere.  Taktur, bored of the guilt-free hay, had decided to raid the rest of the pile and managed to pile two more bales on top of himself.

So I recovered as much precious hay as I could from the floor and put it into haynets for later.  I moved all the carts around so that there is now a huge barrier between Taktur and the haystack.

I expected more and I know it wasn’t Haakon because he is not that kind of chap.  Now Iacs, on the other hand……

He may be perfection, but Taktur’s halo has slipped.

So how is Wu, I hear you ask? (thank you for your concern, and all your get-well messages;  they are hugely appreciated).

Wu refuses to come out from under the bed.  All conversations take place with me lying on the floor trying to coax him out with food, love and companionship.

I did manage briefly with some chopped wafer thin ham and took this photo of the injury.  Nasty.

Poor boy. No wonder he isn’t talking to anyone.

I thought BeAnne was being supportive only to find she had snaffled Wu’s special tempting food.  She managed a cursory get-well-soon glance at her friend.

Outside is harsh.  I mucked out and fed everyone.

The upside, though, is that I discovered it is a good idea to stable a has-been stallion and a stallion together as they will poo in the same place!  I only had three lovely neat piles to clear up as opposed to the thousand dotted everywhere when it was two geldings together.

The Minions are all sharing nicely in their little shed.  I am pleased about that and would be very cross if someone was having to live outside due to any dog-in-manger behaviour.  But no, everyone has access to hay and no one is hassling.

There was a brief weather window and I shot outside with Loki and BeAnne for their long walk.

(someone needs to shiver or run off some of the cat’s dinner)

After that, Jack went out for his short potter before it got dark again.

He’s still got it and he’s still with us.  Weather does not put our little Jack off.

(I lie – it does, sometimes)