Y’all, I think I owe Presto a public apology. I’m pretty sure I wrongfully convicted him of a crime he didn’t commit. 

See, a few weeks ago I went out to the front pasture where the babies were turned out on a rainy day, and saw that SOMEONE had pulled down a chunk of ceiling insulation from the roof of the shed. 

I immediately blamed Presto, because let’s be honest it had his signature all over it. He’s mouthy. He gets bored and finds things to play with even when he shouldn’t. He could very easily reach that part of the ceiling in the shed if he wanted to. Plus I found the chunk of missing insulation over near the water trough, and he has a history of putting things in there that don’t belong. All the evidence certainly pointed to Presto. Truthfully I never really even considered another suspect, it seemed so obvious from the start. If this was a true crime podcast, you’d be mumbling something about shoddy detective work right about now. 

About a week later I came out one evening at night check and found a corner of ceiling insulation pulled away in the corner of JB’s stall. Hmmmmmmm… that’s suspicious.

I grabbed the ladder and staple gun and put it back up. Now I was a bit suspicious of who really pulled down the chunk of insulation in the shed, but still not quite ready to let Presto off the hook yet. I mean, JB has tried to copy Presto in the past in some regards, so maybe he saw him do it and wanted to try it out for himself. But JB is also much spookier than Presto, and was definitely a little wary of the flap of insulation he’d pulled down that evening, so after I stapled it back up I really thought that would be the end of it. He’d probably tried it, scared himself, and that was that.

Au contraire.

The next morning I came out to feed and found the whole strip of insulation hanging down. JB was snorting at it like he had no idea how it got there, and now I was certainly less convinced that I’d nabbed the right suspect in the original shed offense. I stapled the insulation back up, made sure there were no little edges sticking out that he could easily grab, and that was the end of it for a while.

Until yesterday.

I went to go feed around 5am, and as soon as I opened the back door, I heard urgent, high-pitched neighing. I got worried, and hustled out to the barn, flipping on the lights. I peeked in Henry’s stall, everything looked fine. I peeked in Quinnie’s stall, everything looked fine. I peeked in JB’s stall and… goddammit, the insulation was down again. Except it had gotten REALLY windy over night, and the long chunk of insulation was wildly flapping in the breeze like a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man.

Clearly JB had not accounted for the wind when he yanked it down, and he was plastered out in the back of his run, desperate for someone to save him. He screamed again when he saw me, like “LADY LADY OMG PLAAYZ HALP ME, DIS SKY DEMON FLAPPING AROUN IN MAH STALL TRYNNA KILL ME AND IMMA DIIIIEEEEEEE”.

I have to be honest, I laughed at his plight. Hard. For longer than was probably appropriate. Then I dumped his feed into his pan, took it out to him in the run, and proceeded to save his life staple the ceiling insulation back up again so he could come back in. I think now, after JB offense number 3, and none from Presto, that I might have had the wrong guy in the original crime. There’s no way anyone but JB could have pulled his stall insulation down, Presto wouldn’t be able to get to the place it was pulled from, with how the stalls are constructed. It’s still possible that Presto did the shed, for sure, but… I’m gonna overturn his conviction based on these further developments. All subsequent evidence certainly points to JB as the real perpetrator.

JB was sentenced to desensitizing lessons with the tarp, since clearly he’s got issues with flapping things. Oh, and I told him that if he pulls the insulation down again, I will staple it directly to his ass. I folded the end up this time so I don’t think he can grab it anymore, but we’ll see.

Sorry Pesto Pasta…