Rolly Balls! Rolly Balls!

Filling the rolly balls.

I'm sorry I didn't do my weekly "activities" update this week.  The fact is, I scratched my cornea on a knapweed stem that was sticking out of a bale of hay and it hurt like crazy, so I couldn't focus on too much eye work.

Luckily, as much as they hurt when injured, eyes are quick healers and mine's feeling better already.

DeCato at work on the red ball.

This week, I'll be doing a major update of the Big Calendar, as many clubs and organizations are starting to release their 2014 schedules.  Yay!  So stay tuned.

Just for fun, here are some shots of my horses avidly working their favorite toy: The Nose-it ball  I have shut my mares in the barn more this winter than usual, due to the frigid temperatures and high winds.   That gave me cause to remember the Nose-it balls I had tucked away.  We call them "the rolly balls."

Even though it has been several years since I used them, as soon as the horses heard the hay cubes hitting the inside of the rolly balls, I had their full attention.

Success! Starlight munches a cube.

They were practically stomping their feet and chanting, "Rolly balls! Rolly balls!"

I dropped them in the run-in, and they went to work, nudging the balls until a cube fell out, munching, then rolling again.  One of the fun aspects of this is that Hudson can't physically finish hers first, then go steal the others,' because it's just luck and persistence that gets the cubes to drop out, and no horse is faster at it than the others.

Everybody loves the rolly balls!

Luck and persistence dictates Hudson's eating speed.