I know why the caged horse sings

Because I called him a dumbass.

I'll explain later.

But long time no write.  I've been on a cruise to the Cayman Islands, Mexico, Belize, and Honduras after a last-minute road race to Florida in time to beat the massive snow storm, then I came home and was all tired while dealing with my caged bird... er... horse.

Highlights of cruise - watching Cuba go by on the way to the Caymans and seeing Mayan Ruins in Mexico and Belize.

As soon as we got back to a good ol' US's cell signals I fired up the cell phone and checked to see that everyone was still alive and kicking.  I learned that the house/horse sitter (since the barn owners were on the cruise too) was much inconvenienced by Peanut's newfound talent of taking down fences.  After one of the heavy snow storms, none of the vehicles could cut it so she had to drag each bale by hand up the super-long driveway.  It took an extra two hours for breakfast... and in that time Peanut let himself and others out of the field.

The fences are not nailed, the boards slide in.  Peanut has learned to slide out the top one and then kick through the rest to get out.  They were pulling rails off of the ring in order to keep repairing the fence, and eventually gave up and stuck all of the horses from Peanut's field into the big gelding field which has a wire.

Before the relocation was made, Peanut took down the fence several times.  Neighbors had found them, and at one time the sitter had to go down the road to round the horses back up.

Peanut, however, did not last long in the wired field.  Because of the ulcers that he was causing the sitter he was stalled until the owner got home (they stayed in FL until yesterday).  After overreacting due to my deep hatred of stalls, I calmed down and visited the damn boy for the first time since before the cruise.

When I got there on Tuesday I could see a big yellow face looking at me from beyond the bars in the depths of the barn (which really isn't deep).  I called out "you dumbass!" and he nickered and started to get excited.  That was my caged horse singing.  Two mares have been in too, so at least he wasn't alone.

He was put in the foaling stall on Sunday night, which is quite large, and was let out for several hours a day when the sitter was doing chores.  He was filthy from rolling in there but otherwise seemed in very good spirits.  I went in, hung out, and called him a dumbass a few more times.  The sitter arrived and we discussed things, and she said how she had been spoiling him with food (carrots, feed) and he seemed to take the stall well.

I saw him again on Thursday, when someone at work dropped me off at the barn (there's a six-foot pile of snow behind my Beetle at the moment), and she got to meet the grungy boy who smelled like a hamster cage.  I then took Peanut for as much of a walk as I could around the place, and he went back into his cage.

Yesterday, he was let out into the big, wired field.  According to Joan, he's been behaving.  Thank goodness, I was afraid that this could be permanent and we'd have to find a new barn with nailed rails.  :(  It just better last.  I hope the wires are doing their job.

I didn't see him today, but plan to tomorrow.  With all the snow there really isn't much to do at all because you can really only go where it's plowed unless you want to be knee-deep.  Plus, I don't want to interrupt his new freedom and the test with him and the fence.  Sigh.