Gift Horse? Nope, Horse Gift.

With our furnace on the fritz (so glad we paid all that money for an ultra high efficient one) and the repair part somewhere on a plane overhead, I was too cold yesterday to find the motivation to leave the house. Granted, the house itself was freezing.

Instead I thought it was the PERFECT time to start working on those stall plaques I had promised a bunch of girls at the barn. Since the last time I was out I got yet another request, I knew if I had any hope of getting them completed by Christmas, I'd best get on it.

I spent an hour messing around with fonts and layout on my computer before I finally opted to start with "Royal Blue" of W's. I wanted to give it to her as a thank-you for the last month of awesome horse care.

There is little doubt in my mind that Mr. MoonSox is living the good life right now. Probably the best he ever has, and it shows. When I pop in at night, he's hanging his head over the stall door, happily munching on a mouthful of sweet smelling hay, watching the world go by. It's amusing. Most of the other horses eat their hay where it lies, stop, look out their door, and then return to eating.

Not Moon'er. He's like a kid at the movies; his hay is his popcorn, the movie is the horses in the barn around him. He's warm and cozy, deeply bedded in straw in a 12x12 box stall, his own little water bucket, a couple of carrots stuffed in his jolly ball, and friend in the stall beside him. He's fit, healthy, shining, solid hoofed and just happy. He gets more riding time then ever before, he gets loved up every morning by W's dad who thinks he's the best horse in the barn and I don't skimp on the grooming sessions neither.

He's happy. And it makes me happy.

So I started wood burning. I pretended that the smoke was from a fire and actually warming up the house. Thankfully, the heat from the wood-burning tool DID keep my hands warm, which was a nice improvement.

By 10 pm it was complete and ready for a coat of lacquer. Standing back, I think it looked pretty good. Tonight I'm gonna add a ribbon to hang it from and sneak it into the barn to put up before W shows up for our lesson. I hope she likes it too. It's the least I can do for all the riches that have been given to Moon'er.