Starry: Mr. Bug Crazy

 Starry: Mr. Bug Crazy

Starry, Kevin's horse, is a great horse.  Kevin is a very lucky person.  Starry is friendly and genuinely loves being around people.  If you are skilled enough to ride a terribly uncomfortable trot, he is a great horse to ride, who listens most of the time.  Very few things scare him.  So many times, things spook our horses and Starry never flinches.  He doesn't like when wild turkeys fan out their feathers, though.  

And he doesn't like bugs.

In the bug-free weather, he is happy to just mosey on down the trail.  He has a fast trot and a lovely canter, but he will walk like his feet are encased in cement.  We call him Starry Molasses.

And then the bugs show up.  He transforms into a crazy horse.  He wants to trot all the time.  When we are just walking, he will prance and dance and then trot off without permission.  There is lots of belly kicking and tail swishing, too.  Even when he isn't doing any antics, he walks fast; very, very fast.

Cole normally is a fast walker, and we always have to stop and wait for Starry and Dante to catch up.  (That just about never happens with Bella.)  When Starry is in Bug Mode, we keep having to trot and catch up with him.

Kevin coats him with bug spray, and he puts a mask on Starry's face, but it really doesn't seem to help at all.  We actually feel sorry for him--but I must admit--I like his fast walk.  The last thing I want to do when bugs are swarming us is to stand and wait for him to catch up.

We had some dry weather this summer, and that decreased the bug population to a tolerable level.  Starry still walked fast, but he wasn't frantic.  Then we had a bunch of rain in September; followed by very warm weather, and there was a bug explosion.  They were worse than they had been all year.  Poor Starry.

There are points of the trail that Kevin stops Starry and gives him a treat--just because he is a good boy.  Well, Starry was so plagued by mosquitoes, he wasn't even stopping at his treat places.  He would just prance right through.

A few days ago, Kevin and I went out for a ride.  It was still warm and buggy, so we loaded up on the bug spray.  I knew there was some rain out there, but I thought we might be able to get in an hour ride.  

We just got down the hill, and we thought we heard thunder--or was it an airplane?  Sometimes, it is so hard to tell.  We continued on.

Once we crossed the river, it started to drizzle lightly.  We just trotted on.  It was so hot that if felt good, and there wasn't any more thunder.

About 10 minutes down the trail, the rain got harder, so we decided to turn around.  At least Starry would walk fast, so it wouldn't be that bad.

I forgot that mosquitoes don't fly when it rains.  Starry suddenly transformed into Starry Molasses.  We were both laughing at how slow he was walking.  We did do some trotting, but we soon realized that when we wanted to walk, Cole had to go in the lead and Starry would trot to catch up with us.

When we got to the spots where Kevin gives him treats, Starry stopped and wouldn't go until he got a treat.  It was so funny.  He didn't care if it was raining.  He was in no hurry, and he wanted his carrots.

Fortunately, it was a warm day and the rain never got that hard until after we got back to the barn.  At least Starry got a break from the bugs--and Cole got a bath.