Winter Weight

I think my new phrase when I'm starving will be "I'm so hungry I could eat like a horse"! I thought DaVinci could eat a bowl of dog food in record time, but I have never seen such eager and single-minded purpose as I did feeding Flame this morning.

Granted, with the onset of winter, there is no grazing available and the horses wait with baited breath every morning for hay. But since I needed to ride before the equine breakfast could be served to the herd, I gave Flame a few scoops of grain while I groomed and tacked him in the stall.

I'm not sure whether to equate him to an industrial vacuum or a whirlwind tornado. It was one of the messiest, most inefficient techniques I have witnessed, as he dove headfirst into the feed bucket, scattering oats and pellets pell-mell and dropping feed from his open, chewing mouth. After he inhaled the contents of the bucket, he proceeded to try to recover every escaped piece with grasping, mobile horse lips that roamed over the feed ledge, window sill, ground, me, and anything else he could reach like a metal detector gone berserk. In another instance of God's creation pointing us to the Bible, it made me think of John 6:12 (in a humorous way)!

...Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.