Daily routine and horse photography

Mag makes me laugh.

These are the rules, twice a day at feeding time I say "Allright" and get a lunge whip and hold it up and Mag and Bellis move out of the barn/paddock area. Then I go into the shed and get the buckets and place one in the stall for Bellis, and one by the water trough for Mag. Then I walk back into the shed, getting out of the area, and whistle to them and say "Bellis komm, Mag komm."

It works perfectly - no dirty looks, no gestures, they both walk peacefully to their places and I put up a line between them (else Bellis will get most of the food).

I started doing this when they started giving each other dirty looks at feed time, and I don't want to see those looks, especially not in the vicinity of my person.

This morning there was poop everywhere and no animals so I took the chance to hurry and clean up before they arrived. In the middle of my task, Mag arrived, alone.

He saw what I was doing and knew it was breakfast time, so he made the decision to stay away, in the waiting zone, without my asking. I thought it was clever, perhaps he knew it would speed up breakfast, or perhaps he thought I would have asked anyway. Not sure, but whatever his reasons, I took it as a sign of him trying to do the right thing, and I praised him.

Then Bellis came back from pasture and what do you think she did?

Did she join him in the waiting area politely?

No, she squeezed past him rudely and came right up to me.

"Bellis, you didn't do anything wrong, so I'm not annoyed at you, but you certainly didn't try to do the right thing either. Now go away so I can finish." (And Mag was looking at the clock, "The donkey just added 15 seconds to our wait!" *lol*)

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Enjoy some Wojtek photos  --- for some reason his grey horse photos are always my favorites.


I call this one, "Loose horse in California." I like the sunlight outline on his face. Real or photoshop!?



I love that fake background. This one I call "Speedy G."

Mag keeps track of where Bellis is constantly, of course. He also keeps track of where I am. But yesterday I was in the furthest reaches of the pasture cleaning poop and Bellis was at the barn. Mag placed himself in the midpoint of the both of us and stood with the silliest look on his face, as if concentrating.

Usually it's more like this, I walk through the path to the pasture but stop to clean poop on the path, which is not wide, so Mag is not allowed to pass me there. He carefully stays behind me and sometimes it takes a while, from nights when they poop 10 times there, ugh. As soon as we come out to the upper grazing strip, he can do whatever he wants, but he often stays right behind me, and I think sometimes he thinks he's not allowed to pass me out there, so I move to the edge and say, "Go ahead, do what you want."

Sometimes he takes me up on it, often not.

Then I go to the lower strip and it's really cute when he lets me get away, and then comes cantering up to me, stopping when he reaches me cheerfully, as if saying, "You almost got away, but here I am!" And sometimes this happens repeatedly, he'll get distracted by grass or the donkey, and then look around for me, and come trotting over, "I found you again!" He's not the kind of horse that follows me around everywhere like a dog, but I appreciate this happy rejoinining he does with me. Sometimes I hold up a tool to say, "Careful of my space" and inevitably he'll say, "Toy!" and take it in his mouth.

I'm becoming so fond of him my enjoyment of him is beginning to be tarnished by worry about losing him. He's the most steal-able horse in town, I think. Good thing he's filthy most of the time.

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This photo frustrates me because it's too dark to appreciate this horse's conformation. But that the hay is the brightest part of the photo is wonderful.


 
"Loose horse in Central Washington"

Wojtek is Polish and often photographs horses at the farm where Mag was born. A photo of his popped up on facebook today of a Monogramm son who had died, a relative of Mag, and got me looking for more. I love how natural his photos are, the staging he does is mostly backgrounds, and for me this type of staging does not interfere with the "naturalness" of the photos. You all know how much I hate over-staging and barefoot ladies in bras pressed up against horses. 

I understand the desire to get dressed up and have a special photo with your special horse. I have one of me and Baasha, but it was candid - taken without my knowledge - just a close up of our faces as I fed him a carrot. I know nothing about photography, but I know what I like.
 


In case you just found my blog today, here is my horse Mag, eating walnut leaves last October in the front yard. Time to start putting sunscreen on that awful pink nose. My photographer friend has given me so many awesome photos of my animals (even the donkey and cat) but we have very different tastes in horse photography and I wonder if I just spent too much time reading Arabian Horse World magazine, and she didn't!! Anyway, I'm grateful to have her and love this natural, not staged photo.