Spoiler alert, the third piggie is Henry because omg Becky look at that butt gut.

Really, I swear he doesn’t eat much grain. I wish I could take some of his chunk and put it on Presto, who eats everything I can possibly shove down his gullet yet it just disappears as if he is a black hole stuffed inside a giraffe.

Anyyywaaaayyy, my little Amazon piggies arrived yesterday! I’m really impressed with them considering it was less than $30 for the pair, they’re really sturdy and thicker than I was expecting. I wish the horse ones weren’t $50 (admittedly still a decent deal for a pair but just not as satisfyingly good) or I’d nab those too.

I immediately had to tote them out and put them on a jump.

Which, the cuteness of the piggies mostly just highlighted how sad and underwhelming my jumps are in general (stop laughing at my flowers) and I can’t quite decide if they’re helping or making it worse. Look, they were free 99 and I used discounted Oops paint to paint them last year, so at a point beggars can’t be choosers. I’m delighted to have anything at all. I do need to up my flower and filler game though, I think. Not that Presto has yet to register a difference between a no-frills jump and a nicely filled one. The piggies bring me a lot of joy, at least.

I was doing some pole work with Henry yesterday afternoon after I set the piggies out in the jump field and I glanced over at them and thought… “Ya know what else those could be? Skinnies!”. Henry is the champion of skinnies by now, considering all the single upright barrels and cardboard boxes and mounting blocks and whatever the heck else I’ve asked him to jump over the years. It’s a fun game.

Once I saw them as skinnies I couldn’t unsee it, so we left the ring, walked over to the jump field, and I pulled them out from their oxer and set them in the middle. First I set them side by side, got back on, and cantered over them. Henry gave zero shits. So then I was like ok what if I jump both of them as singles? First I set them as a one stride, but then figured that seemed kind of easy, so I decided on a bending line instead. I eyeballed a distance, set up each pig, got back on, and pointed Henry at them.

Naturally he nailed it on the first shot, and true to form he looked bored AF about the whole thing. Add “jumps piggies in a sidepull” to his resume, please. Mostly I think he’s just learned by now that if he humors me the first time, it’s over sooner. And he was right, he got to be done with that and we went in and I gave him an oatmeal creme pie. His life is simple these days.

I still haven’t been able to find any good and reasonably priced giraffes or unicorns for jump fill, but I haven’t given up trying. Now that I have the piggies I think I kind of need them. I also ordered a pair to send to my trainer for her new facility, because what better barnwarming gift could there possibly be? Piggies for everyone! Except Henry, that particular piggie is just for me.