After my fall I just wanted to do my barn work but when Claudia arrived I wanted to take her up on her offer to let Mag run around loose with her WB Argo. She never noticed that I was down and when I told her I fell off, she never asked, "How/why." Just saying, that's something nice people do. They ask how.

I let it go, I've disconnected with her as far as communication goes. But she wanted to have our horses free lunge together. And I thought this would be a good day. But first we let them roll and play together a while.

He did not bite, nor nibble, he CHEWED on Argo great lengths of time, it was so cute. Argo stood like a statue, occasionally squealing. I said, "Argo, go on and chew on him too!" but Argo just stood there semi-enjoying it. I think eventually Mag reached his actual hip bone. No worries, they were both having fun.

Then for the first time I free lunged Mag with another horse. It was pretty fun, but we kept it low key of course. Argo has the need, like Baasha, to always be first, but Mag was ok with that, but Mag was spending a great deal more energy than Argo as we trotted them around. Cuz Argo kept a steady beat and Mag went fast slow fast slow, sniff this, catch up, repeatedly. He had frozen condensation on his ear tips.

Almost every single time Mag circled us, he would turn in on his circle to trot directly at Claudia. His expression was, "Hi there, who are you, why are you holding a whip there and doing things to us, when we haven't been introduced?"

Over and over he turned in toward her, and never once toward me, standing 5 meters away. He's used to me in the middle, not her. She was like "What does he want?" I have no idea, really, but audiences fascinate him, as well as, apparently, new people free lunging him.

Then Mag decided to see if he could race past Argo, at great cost cuz Mag is much lazier than Argo. But Argo tipped his ears back and blocked him, and for once Mag reacted, turning and kicking out with one hind leg and striking Argo with a hoof in Argo's chest. OMG I'm so sorry, I said, but she said, "He's barefoot, no worries. And (the mare I call Dowager Countess)  does much worse to him!"

Mag rolled another 5 times and Argo let him chew on him a bit more before Claudia had to go. I took Mag back to the open grooming area and left him loose with 5 gallons of beet pulp.

Willy came and said, "Where were you!"

I said, "I cannot turn my neck left nor right. I cannot sleep, because I think I broke my neck, but I think I'm OK."

Willy said, "I made a fire under Mag's water." He had built a fire under Mag's water bathtub. Alrighty!

Go for it! FIRE! Mag tipped his face away from the trough tonight before drinking, but I had already heated 8 liters of boiling water and dumped them into his frost-free bucket. He'll have water tonight.

Tomorrow a saddle-fit student is coming to earn her practice by trying to judge our saddles on our horses. With an experienced saddler from Way Out West. I signed up immediately and am really excited about it. Since my body hurts so badly I think I can manage this.

But tomorow is J's bday and I should try to stop thinking about horses for one moment of my life.

So far so good, I baked chocolate chip cookies for him, his favorite, with the Nestle chips sent by mail from my mother in America.

He'll bring them to his school tomorrow for his school-teacher colleagues. I hope they appreciate them. (In Germany it's the birthday kid's job to bring the cake/cookies.)

Anyone want to do a gift exchange from Germany to America, we'd sure love more chocolate chips, etc!