There is a new load of hay due in any day now, so I cleared the hay room 
yesterday. Today the rumbling tide rounded the corner into the aisle and 
there was the usual drag race to the hay room for a frolic. There followed a 
moment of stunned silence as the kittens took in the scene; no hay, no 
wheelbarrows, nothing but a clean swept floor.
    Human beings, especially children, might burst into tears at the loss of 
a play room. However, it took the crew about six seconds to figure out that 
now instead of a play room, they had a play ARENA! There was room to 
accelerate to deadly speed, room to race, room for the Big Pounce and no 
place for the victims to hide. They went ape. Mom retreated after half a 
minute to catch her breath, it was just too crazy in there. On the way out 
she demonstrated the tricky Counter Pounce Pounce, in which one meets a head 
on pounce with a bigger pounce. She went right over Lynn's head and Lynn hit 
the dirt in a dramatic baseball slide, with nothing to show for it but two 
pawfuls of air. Ya don't mess with the Master. She sauntered away in first 
class, casual cat style.
     These days I'm getting a queue when I go into the tack room. Everbody is 
lining up for their morning rubby dub. Sometimes I have to handle two cats 
with each hand. Does it get any better than this?
 
      On the horse front, little has changed. Bailey likes her new stall, 
which is bigger than the old one, and because of her exceptionally tidy 
habits more shavings go in each day than come out. She is rapidly 
accumulating the thick, soft bed she loves so much. Joey, being a stall 
walker, messes up everything you throw into his stall and it all has to come 
out every day. Pen is somewhere in the middle, so I am trying to be really 
careful with his stall so he too can have a nice thick soft bed. I must be 
succeeding because the last two days he has been covered in shavings from 
nose to tail, from rolling in the night.
     Did you ever hug a horse? Try it sometime. Horse give BIG hugs, there 
isn't must else like it. Specially in winter when they are as fuzzy as 
stuffed toys.
--- Maximus 3.01
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