Catlow photo series and Cody's many colors

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon wandering around the horse pasture and taking pictures of the new leaves and blossoms. The horses have a very diverse pasture and many trees they eat, while others they don't touch. They denuded the little pines, but didn't touch the apples or cherries. I took a lot of pictures, but there's too many to post here...it takes too long to upload them. Instead, I wanted to just show a series of pictures that I took of Catlow yesterday.

After my tour of the pasture, I sat down in the shade to watch the horses graze. Catlow sees me and wonders what I'm doing.

She approaches to get a better look.

But she stops to sniff a pile of poo, pretending that she's really not that interested...I think this might be a submissive horse thing - she's checking out what I'm gonna do with her that close. Will I chase her away? I think she's almost asking permission to come closer. I've seen horses do this when they are trying to quietly ease in a eat hay with a more dominant horse.

Then she finally looks directly at me. If I had stretched my hand out, she would have come forward and touched it to see if I had a treat, but since I didn't move, she only came this close, then turned away.

Isn't she a sweety though? I love her, even though she is such a challenge and can sure make me feel stupid.

And I also need to show my horse of many colors...the dark sooty buckskin, Cody. She's listed as bay on her papers, but she was such a strange color (and her mama is palomino), that I wondered if she had the cream gene. I had her tested through Animals Genetics in FL, and indeed, Cody IS a sooty buckskin. When she was 3, I sent her to a trainer and when she came back, she had shed out and faded to a very deep golden color...I think she sweated more than usual while she was with him! Every year since then, though, she's been pretty dark (see the photo in the side bar). I think that she might actually shed out a tad lighter than normal this year. Check out the photo below. You can see her light colored summer hair coming in where she's shed out already in her flanks and underbelly. Compared to her faded, dull, but still darker winter hair over her back. She might be lighter in her flanks and sides this year, but her neck and chest will stay a very dark brown.

Today I went out to check on them. It rained and thunderstormed on and off most of the day. This is Cody's wet look. She's only wet on the top, so her flanks and underbelly are dry...but check out those dapples! Those are coming in with her summer coat.