Duke is a hoot!

While Buddy and Lisa were here today, they fixed that muddy mess that was outside all the stall doors - smoothed out the dirt, spread gravel over the top and then put down a half dozen or so of those horrendously heavy mats around the barn so that when it storms, all that water that runs off the roof of the barn won't make QUITE as much of a mess on the ground around the barn, and the horses will be able to walk rather than swim into their stalls!  I'll tell you what - they did an AMAZING job of it.  The barn looks tidier than our house does at this point!

The space under this gate between Duke's and Lizzie's stalls was always an absolute muddy mess every time it rained.    This is going to be soooo much better!

Here's Lisa looking completely pristine after having worked like crazy all day long. How the heck does she DO that???

Anyway, once Duke realized that the gate was open from the pasture into the paddocks he came RUNNING up and I'll tell you, it looked for the world like he was doing a barn inspection!!

Here comes Duke from the back pasture into the paddock.

Once he came into the paddock, he very carefully checked out every bit of the place:

Here he comes, checking out the ground on his way up to the barn.

He's obviously as impressed by the mat arrangement as I was!

Look at that.  He's checking every inch of the place!

He even headed in to see what Ladybug's stall looks like inside now!  (Nice, huh Duke?)

"Hmmm.  Long as I'm here I might as well have a drink."

Okay, the stall meets his approval.  Back outside to finish his inspection.

Good grief -- he even pushed at the gate with his nose to make sure it would move!  Wow!  I'm impressed!

And once he finished with the mats, he strolled out into Bug's paddock and started checking out the whole thing!  

He looked a BIT concerned that there were a few stall shavings on the ground out there . . .

but he moved past those shavings and apparently found the grass to be completely acceptable . . .

He even found some hay on the ground in there.

Yum - GOOD hay.

Looks like he's considering appropriating her paddock, doesn't it?  (It might be a BIT larger than his - but not much.)

When I walked out toward him, though, he looked at me like he just KNEW he was going to be asked to vacate Bug's place and he was NOT happy.

But come dinner time, he had apparently decided that his stall is just as cool as Bugs is.  I walked out to see where everyone was, and the moment he saw me, he came racing straight back to HIS stall for dinner.  (Looking at that picture, it looks like I need to worry less about WHERE he eats than how MUCH he eats, doesn't it!  Chubby boy.)

  Look at him in the picture below!!  Talk about "chubby" !!!

And his butt's extra padded, as well!  And look at the ridge down the center of his back in this picture, too.  Oh, my.

But I bought one of those hanging scales that will weigh up to about 80 or 90 lbs.   The tray part where you set the stuff you're weighing hasn't arrived yet, though, for some reason.  But when it does, I'm going to use that scale to figure out EXACTLY how much each of them is eating.   And then ol' Duke is going to be in a WORLD of trouble.  Diet time for him!   (Shhh.  Let's not let him know about that just yet.  Let him enjoy himself for another few days anyway.)