Saturday, September 11, 2010

Do you have enough for everybody?

Gem has his dinner stolen by the free range sheep regularly. He often leaves it to investigate what the other horses are having (the same) and returns to find one of the mares eating his too. Sometimes one of the wethers reaches through the fence for a mouthful. He just shakes his head at it, which is horse for "Garrrn, get out if it!" The most angry he'll get is to shake a snaky head at a wayward lamb, ears pinned back as he pretends to snap at them. Then it's back to munching his mixture. Tonight however, even one of the peacocks had a go.

I thought this might be the last straw for Gem, but instead he just looked sideways at me, flicked some of the mix out of his bowl with his muzzle as if searching for tastier bits at the bottom and continued to eat. The peacock gratefully pecked at the flicked bits. I'm sure I heard Gem thinking "Here," flick, flick, "Now leave me alone!"