It's a wonder that any work gets done

I have been told that Andalusians are very people oriented but I didn't appreciate how much until Steele came home. It's been interesting. When he first came he was curious but a bit reserved. I got the sense of 'and who are you?' Now he's definitely bonded to me and my husband Ed. With me he's quite well behaved. With Ed he's fairly well behaved. To use an analogy, Ed is the substitute teacher.

I am currently on vacation. I love being home. In the mornings I've been coming out to feed and then going back into the house for coffee. I then ride Irish before the heat sets in. After I turn them out and then clean the stalls. Today as I was cleaning Steele came down for a visit. Keep in mind he's leaving the green pasture to hang with me in the dirt paddock and stall. The visit went like this:
Steele: "Hey watcha doing?"
Me "cleaning"
"let me sniff. Oh that's mine but who's is this?" snuffle snuffle
"Hey, can I dump this out to check it over?"
"No!"
"alright alright. You know you really should lighten up a bit."
He then came between me and the manure bucket and just happened to put the itchy part of his head in close proximity. He even closed his eyes in anticipation. What else could I do? I scratched.
'ahhh that feels so good."

I then moved over to the large water trough.
Steele, sniffs and curls his lip "oh that's stale"
I dump it out. He backs up, ears pricked.
I grab the hose and the scrub brush and scrub it out.
"whatcha doing now? can I try? oh that end is prickly. why don't you use it to scratch my neck? Ah much better'
I finish scrubbing the trough and turn on the hose. He stares, mesmerized at the water as it flows out. Every now and then he puts his nose in the stream and then snorts. Normally I leave the hose to fill up while I get other things done. However, as I contemplated this a number of images ran through my head.

The primary one was of Steele picking up the hose and chasing me with it. "Remember yesterday when you hosed me with this? Well how do you like it? Huh?"

So I stayed by the trough. And because my hands were free I scratched him some more with the brush.
:)

I am doomed.