Balls, Birds and Bad Ponies

Marvin is pleased to report the snow on his farm is nearly gone, thus revealing his long-lost blue ball. He really wanted me to name this entry Blue Ball Season, but I told him the title hit an odd tone for the blog, so we agreed on the above.

The messy, shitty, smelly starlings are sorting out where they want to put their stupid nests. Their real estate agent was around a couple of months ago checking the barns’ cracks and holes ensuring there were enough available apartments for the expecting bird couples and their extended families. We bought a few plastic owls as deterrents and probably find them more frightening than the birds do.

The messy, shitty, smelly starlings might not have a barn to call home anyway if Rocky and Cricket don’t stop destroying things. The other night, Rocky, who has a penchant for banging his feed bucket against his stall gate, had broken BOTH the bucket’s double-ended clip’s spring-loaded thumb pushy-downy do-hickeys. 

And one morning last week, when I tried sliding Cricket’s stall door to let him out for the day, it stopped opening at about a squidge (official measurement). Me, being me, pushed as hard as I could and the entire assembly came off in my hands. That’s the door, which is homemade and SOLID, attached to a metre or more of metal channel track swinging wildly above me. 

Meanwhile, as I was figuring out how not to die by way of door, Cricket was doing his damndest to bolt his little furry frame through the squidgy-sized gap. “WANT OUTSIDE.” Aptly named, he can flatten himself to fit into the tiniest of crevices, so he managed to ram himself through and scurry out the back door.

At least then I only had to worry about my own demise. 

Except Rocky in the stall next door told me, “WANT OUTSIDE TOO!!

I told him I couldn’t figure out what to do with this unwieldy, heavy – and, to my mind, deadly – thing without it all landing on my head.

Then Bubbles (the third pony – of course) came back in the barn to see what the commotion was about. She heard the panic in my voice, quickly turned on her pretty little pony heels and scooted back from whence she came.

Finally, I was able to prop up everything relatively safely. I let Rocky out. He galloped as fast as he could down the aisle and blasted out to tell the other horses how incompetent I am.

I guess what happened was Cricket, who was bored the day before because it was stormy and I kept them in the barn, pushed on his door hard enough the brackets holding it to the slider track popped off.

Brat.

Anyway, everything’s fixed now. Nobody died or is even concussed. The birds are pooping and Marvin has his blue ball.