Blow the Wind Southerly

It's been rainy and really REALLY windy here today, all the local horses are sulking on the leeward sides of their field hedges.

All except Hoss.  He's hard, he is. He's got a waterproof mac on and doesn't care about the weather. Midwinter, freezing cold, wind coming in strongly from the south west and you'll find him in the middle of his pasture, ridiculously hairy tail to the storm, head down, munching.  Trouble is there's not much goodness in the grass.

I can tell he needs A Little Something Else to go down that long gullet from the presentation of his dumps - don't ask, just take my word for it, he needs more Bulk.  The high octane haylage he's getting must be fed sparingly because he's lost a shoe. He can't be ridden again until MrFarrierMan (dear Ben) comes over next week and  If I gave Hoss any more of this honey-smelling forage called haylage while he's getting no work, he'd be high as a kite somewhere over Dunkery Beacon and I'd never get him down.

Someone gave us a bale of hay to pad out the rations.  I added a thick wadge to his handfuls of haylage and fed it to him over by the hedge so it couldn't blow out of the field while he was trying to eat it.  He snatched a mouthful and the South-Westerly snatched it back and decorated the hedge with it. Somewhat surprised but not deterred, Hoss took another mouthful and the South-Westerly promptly repeated its game.  By the time I realised what was going on, the whole hedgeline was garlanded with stray hay. The haylage smugly stuck to the ground and obediently went into Hoss's voluminous gob to be chewed and swallowed.

I trooped off into the town to the appropriate Shop, which provided me with a neat little red net on a long string.

This evening I crammed said little net full of the recalcitrant hay and some well-behaved haylage and tied it Very Firmly to a gatepost.  Hoss looked at me.  I looked at him.
  'Haynet,' I told him. 'You eat your dinner from this in future.'
  'But I'm a Welsh Cob. That thing's for sissies. I'm hard, I am.'
  'I don't wish to hear about that, thank you. Pick from this or starve.'

Well it was dark and the other horses couldn't see, so his self-image remained intact as Hoss manouevred his enormous teeth onto the edge of the net and tugged at the wisps of forage sticking through the holes.

He clearly wasn't going to starve, but the South-Westerly was furious.