Snarky Jim?
I wasn’t going to tell a Jim story, but simply must. You see, he did the funniest thing today. As any of you who have been following his story know, he cohabits with a lovely princess of an Arab mare, Aurora. She’s famous for her snarky, mare faces and posturing that means absolutely nothing. She’s all drama with nothing behind it. The feeding routine has always been the same, well for ages now anyway. They share their feed, and until today, extremely well. Aurora would make all kinds of nasty faces at him, do all sorts of snake necks and swish her tail, but all to no avail. As he’s blind, Jim doesn’t have a clue. Unless she stamps her hoof at him, he can’t see the idle threats.
This morning, everything changed. We don’t know why, or what happened to tilt the scale in Jim’s favour, what gave him the upper hoof, so to speak, we’ll never know. What I do know, is when I fed this morning, Jim was in charge. He dared give Aurora a dose of her own medicine … the snarky mare face, and not just once, but several times. For the first time since sharing space with another horse, he let it be known, in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want to share with her. Of course, being an Arab mare and a princess besides, she chose to mostly ignore the threats and they did eat together. Lucky Jim wasn’t impressed, yet finally gave up and ate. Aurora wasn’t leaving all the Senior feed to him, no matter how ugly a face he made, or how flat his ears pinned against his neck. She loves Senior feed just as much as he does.
Well, they settled down, ate their feed … together then moved on to the hay. Sharing hay, doesn’t seem to be a problem, not yet anyway, and peace reigned. Leaving them to it, I continued feeding while the girlchild watered. There was Levis to feed his quota of Senior feed, while his pen mates jealously look on, and gates to get for the girl.
After finishing the feed and enjoying some hay, Aurora went for water, while Jim continued eating. Sometime later, he decided he was ready for a drink. Slowly, carefully casting back and forth to find the water tub, he made his way to the corner of the pen. I suppose, Aurora figured since he was having a drink, she should too, and right when Jim had finally reached the tub. He wasn’t at all keen on that idea, not one, little bit, and he let her know. One nip, a second and third in quick succession, all of which she ignored.
“You tell her,” the girlchild urged him on, “don’t take that from her, Jim. You were there first.”
Just about to move Aurora away, I stopped when she suddenly raised her head and walked away on her own. She’d had what she wanted, a few sips to make her point known then back to the hay she went. It took a few minutes for Jim to find the tub and get his nose into it. Watching him drink for a bit, sweetpea and I shared a grin. It’s quite something, watching him negotiate the world, and he’s getting really good at it. I see a few rude awakenings in Aurora’s future. Jim is getting bossy, snarky mare bossy.
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