You have to give Presto credit, he is not boring, or shy, or subtle. His antics are never-ending, and rarely a day goes by when he hasn’t managed to entertain me in some way. Lately he’s been in especially rare form… I don’t know if he’s just a little mentally bored, or the nice weather and green grass has brought out even more mischievousness than usual, but boy he is very PRESTO these days.

On Sunday I was driving the manure spreader back up to the barn when, as I drove past their pasture, I noticed Presto straight up wallowing in the pond. I don’t mean just rolling, I mean eyeballs-deep like a hippopotamus, and more than once his entire body disappeared under the surface. Despite being turned out in that pasture since November, this is the first time I’ve caught him actually IN the pond. I’ve seen him stand halfway in, and roll on the muddy edges, but I’ve never caught him in all the way in it before. He would wallow around, get up, move a couple feet, lay down, wallow around, get up, move a couple more feet, lay down, etc etc. Naturally my phone was dead so I went inside, plugged it in for a few minutes, and continued to watch the wildlife expo that he was performing in the pond.

To give you an idea of how long it went on, I was able to park the spreader, walk into the house, plug my phone in, let it get to 10%, walk back out to the pasture, and he was still rolling. By that point he had moved from the pond to the little side puddles around it, pawing and rolling in all of those too. I legit lost count of how many times he rolled. He was like a horse possessed. And by the time he was done, he was straight up COATED in slimy pond water and mud. From the tip of his ears to the tip of his tail, like nothing I have ever seen.

The worst part though? The smell. Omg, he smelled like a walking sewer. I’m not particularly sensitive to foul odors but I was borderline gagging. He touched me with his nose and I fled (that shirt had to immediately go into the washer when I went back in the house). Even the other horses thought he stunk.

Luckily it was a balmy 75 degrees that afternoon, so I immediately just took Presto straight to the wash rack. There was no way I was grooming that off, and if I left him like that the whole barn would probably reek forever. He was super pissed that I bathed him, but he left me no other choice. And even a bath didn’t quite remove all the stench, I’m still catching whiffs of it.

Despite his horrid swamp donkey behavior, on Monday a present came for him in the mail. I noticed last week that Big Dee’s had a deal where if you bought one of the giant play balls, you got the cover half price. I’ve been eyeballing some new toys for him anyway, so I grabbed a 30″ ball and the beach ball cover. Once it came I was excited to get it inflated and toss it out for them. After one false start where I failed to read the instructions and inflated the ball before putting the cover on (don’t be me, it sucks to spend 10 minutes foot-pumping a ball and then have to smoosh all the air out, roll it up and shove it into a cover, and then inflate it again), it was ready to go, and it was glorious.

The horses immediately came running up to see what it was about. There was a little snorting (mostly from the baby dressage horse) but for the most part they were just curious. Presto being Presto, he delivered a “worth every bit of the price of the ball” moment within the first two minutes, when he kicked it right at Quinnie’s butt. You could almost hear him laughing as it bounced off.

I also laughed. Poor Quinnie. The shit she has to put up with, raising those two baby idiots.

After they all sniffed it as a group I put a halter on Presto and taught him how to walk and kick it along with him. He caught on quickly, but seemed unimpressed. So then I turned him into a soccer goal.

He’s pretty wild and crazy. I fear for my life.

Mostly Presto seemed interested in rubbing his head on it, or scaring the other horses with it. Henry wouldn’t go NEAR it, and ran for the hills any time it rolled towards his fenceline. They haven’t played with it much more than that first half hour though, not that I’ve seen at least. Maybe on the next really cold morning, that seems to be when they get up to most of their mischief.

To round off his Rampage of Chaos so far this week, yesterday he decided he was the farrier’s assistant. Seriously, the guy was just trying to trim JB and Quinnie’s feet, but is it possible to do anything near Presto without him being involved? No.

First he started by knocking over the hoof stand and pulling tools out of the farrier’s pockets while we tried to shoo him away. We finally reached a compromise when I let him hold Quinnie’s lead rope, which he did… happily standing there, just holding the lead rope, because he’s such a gold-star “helper”.

What kind of shenanigans will Presto get up to today? Stay tuned to find out. I’m sure it’ll be something.