A Strange Week Indeed

My week began when the Woman rummaged around, found the green cloth bag with my harness in it, opened said bag and pronounced a series of old Anglo Saxon words that made me blanch. It seems that mice had chewed a hole in the bag and made a vast homestead inside, using bits of material and leather to create a multi-family dwelling. The odour was rather overwhelming. She aired out the harness and, in her absent-minded fog, attached me to the cart with it. I felt like a hobo donkey. She said it was perfectly fine, just a bit rough around the edges.

She must have re-thought her rather foolish stance because next day she went off and returned with a quite lovely leather harness, complete with a stylish collar. It belonged to a donkey called Tiddles who regards pulling things with unabashed horror. This horror cause his human to decide that the best policy was to sell it to a donkey who enjoys touring with cart in tow. That donkey is me.

This afternoon they tried the collar on me and Herself opined that it seemed not to fit well. The male human suggested it was upside down. He was quite correct. And he is supposedly the non-equine expert in residence. You see the sort of thing I'm up against. I can only imagine where she will think the mouthpiece goes...

We had a diversion this morning when one of those large land fowls, (brown, small pointy head and rather vacuous look) wandered right up to the gate. I did my best to converse but all I got for my troubles was "guk buk ook". Chester glared at it in a fixed manner, hoping against hope that it would enter, whereupon he could pulverize it. It became distracted by something in the forest and ambled off. Not a very satisfying encounter at all.

Chester is now being ridden in the aisle and run-in, learning to relax and accept the pressures of steering without rushing forward in a panic. He was exemplary and is a tad too smug in my opinion. If he is still relaxed on Sunday he will go out toting saddle and human. Our feet were pedicured this week and Chester's finally look like horse feet and not large, ragged blocks of wood. His thrush is gone and the last of his dry winter coat coming out. Herself performed the bizarre ritual of rifling through his manure and bagging some up - this means the dreaded dewormer is in our future. I will endeavour to channel Jack and seal my lips firmly.