Bubba and the Chocolate Farm 1- Carriage Horse to Show Horse Read online

  Bubba and the

  Chocolate Farm

  Book One: Carriage Horse to Show Horse

  By Connie Raun Foss

  Art by Brittany Sharp

  Bubba and the Chocolate Farm

  Book One: Carriage Horse to Show Horse

  Copyright © 2015 Connie Raun Foss

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by an means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  For assistance:

  Book design and formatting: Foghara Advertising, www.foghara.com, [email protected]

  Cover art and illustrations by Brittany Sharp

  Connie Raun Foss

  Foss Books | Connie’s Kids’ Books Prescott,Arizona

  www.ConniesKidsBooks.com

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to the Connolly Family for their valuable opinions and editing expertise.

  Chapter 1

  Off to a Shaky Start

  “I’m so sorry, Meg! I didn’t realize how big this foal is…just too big for his mother.”

  Doc put away his instruments and stood up, brushing the sawdust off his khaki pants.“Rose was a great mare, and she’s given you some really nice babies. Having twins this time, with the colt so big… well, it was just too much for her. But we’ve got to get these foals warm and dry. How about running to the house and getting Bill to help move these two brown beauties to a clean stall?”

  That’s how my life and my sister’s life began. Yeah. What a bummer.We’re supposed to have a mother’s tongue to clean us up. Oh, well. Meg and Bill give us rubdowns with rough Turkish towels, while Doc goes out to his truck to get some milk replacer. Meg warms it, pours some in two nursing bottles, and soon we are toasty warm on the inside and the outside. Good stuff.

  With the work done, Bill and Meg sit with us in the clean stall and Meg says,“We’ve been picking names for months, but seeing these two beautiful foals…well, in that list of names, I don’t think there’s even

  just blows my mind.”

  Always the calm thinker, Bill suggests, “Didn’t we think Jewel

  “That’s perfect… especially since she has that jewel of a star in the middle of her forehead,” agrees Meg,“but what in the world can we name this giant?”

  Meg and Bill are still wet and dirty, though Sis and I are clean. Must be a little dirt doesn’t bother them. Meg sure is small, but she looks strong. Bill does too, plus he’s tall and broad-shouldered. I think I landed in a nice family.

  “For now, Bubba sounds good to me,” suggests Bill.

  big guy.Try again!”

  Meg sounds like a good egg. I like her perky voice. It makes me want to get up, but, gosh, I seem so clumsy. Gotta do it. Uh. Standing up is hard. There, I’m pretty well balanced…aw…aw…oomph…until my sister knocks me down.

  “Hey, gal! There’s plenty of room for both of us, so let’s not knock each other around, okay? By the way, call me Bubba.You’re Jewel, right?”

  Jewel is having trouble standing, too, but she’s getting there.“My, but this is a lot of work. I had no idea how hard it would be to get four legs to work together.Yes, Bubba, I guess my name is Jewel. I like Julie better, but…whatever.”

  Chapter 2

  We Meet Tom

  soon learn to suck our milk from a bucket, and there’s always alfalfa hay to munch.To be honest I like the hay even better than the milk. It’s green and crunchy and cleans out my mouth after the slick sweetness of the milk.

  Julie and I live in a comfy stall with steel bars on the top half of each wooden wall. It opens out onto a small paddock. We can prance and bounce around in or out, spending our days sleeping and playing. But the fun really starts when Meg opens the paddock gate into the pasture.Then we have that whole big rolling pasture to play in.

  As spring turns into summer, the grass is growing by leaps and bounds, and so are we. It’s great sport to buck and rear, twist and turn, or play tag as we race around the pasture.When I’m racing off to the far fence, I know I’m a pretty spiffy guy.Yep. My legs are long, and I can lift them so high even Julie stops to watch.

  “Wow, Bubba! You really can strut. How do you bend your knees like that? I can’t get mine to do that.”

  Though at night we’re kept in the stall, we’re never bored. We have some good friends who live in the barn too.Tom is one of them. He’s one tough dude, who tells some hair-raising stories about how he got each of his scars.

  One night, when we were still pretty young, we asked Tom to tell us a story. He came over, hopped up on the feed bunk, gave himself a few grooming licks with his raspy tongue, and began.

  “Guys, I gotta tell ya’, life can be rough, even for a tough ole cat like me! But nobody, and I mean nobody is gonna git the best a ole Tom. ‘Spect you’d like to hear why I got jes one eye? Well, I lost the other eye badger and lived to tell about it…’cep ole Tom! You see, badgers like to dig tunnels down in the ground. In fact, they make regular cities down there, going here and there.Ya almost need a map to get around it’s so big.Ya know, if there is anythin’ on a horse farm that is trouble, it’s holes in the ground. Well, there were this here badger startin’ ta dig in our pasture. I knowed Meg would jes tear her hair out if she saw him doin’ that.”

  Tom stopped for a minute to give a white front paw a good lick with his pink tongue. He had just eaten a lovely bite of juicy rat and was enjoying the last of the taste. I was impatient, though, and gave him a friendly nudge with my nose to get him back on track.

  “Yeah, yeah. Jes wait a minute. I gotta keep meself clean, ya know. Okay, back to me story. Ole Badger likes to carry on at night, when most folks is sleepin’. ‘Cep me. That’s when I need to be awake and watchin,’ so no fool bothers the farm. Ya see, I’m pretty much the guard...the watchdog, so to speak.

  “Well, that there night I was out prowlin’ aroun’, walkin’ the beat, when I seed this black ‘n white striped face by the pasture fence. I knowd right away what it were, so I crept up quiet as can be ‘cause them varmits can hear a blade a grass bend.When I got close I says to ole Badger, ‘What in the heck do ‘ya think yur doin’?’ Ya know what? That old varmit just raised right up and stuck his claw in me eye.Well, that settled it! No way, no how was that dude gonna stay on my farm. I yowled bloody murder at him, grabbed his face with me claws, and tore around like a mad coyote.That was all I done. Huh! That tough ole hombre weren’t so tough after all. He took off like the devil’s after him, and we ain’t seed hide ner hair of that critter since.”

  Proud of himself and with a grin on his black face, Tom said goodnight and continued on his rounds.

  Chapter Three

  Is There a Problem?

  One bright sunny morning, as Meg got me ready to work, she said,“Okay, Bubba. All play and no work makes John a dull boy.”

  I didn’t know about John, but I’m always up and ready to do whatever comes along. My favorite thing to do, though, happens out in the pasture in one special corner. In that corner lies an old dead oak tree. Once when we were playing tag, Julie was it.As I was dodging and running, there lay that tree…right in my path.Yikes! Without thinking, I picked up my knees, pushed off with my hind legs, and soared over that log. Golly gee, was that ever fun! That’s now my favorite thing to do. I think Meg likes to see me jump, for I see her smile when she watches me. She probably wishes she could do it, and I bet she could if she tried.

&n
bsp; Meg is pretty much the horse person on our farm.Though Bill’s often outdoors working around the stable, it’s Meg who feeds us and works with us every day.When Bill comes home from work at the plant, he pitches in and builds fences, cleans stalls, and stuff.

  There’s something sad going on, though, that I don’t understand.

  works. I feel guilty, but I can’t see what I’ve done to make her cry. Seeing her tears, Bill will come and put his arms around her, sharing whatever it is. He’ll say something like, “We’ll be okay, the market’s coming back. Just hang in there, Sweetie.”

  As the days pass, I notice some things…things like some of the empty stalls have names on them.The name on one stall is Cometwo,

  One night I ask Tom about those names. He’s lived on the farm a lot longer than we have. If anyone knows what all of this means, he does. “You two youngsters ain’t got no idea what use ta go on here.This was the cat’s meow when it came to show farms. All the important dudes came here to buy the best Arabians in these parts.We had hosses in all the paddocks n’ stalls, some show stock and some babies. Bill and Meg hired lots a help, and Bill didn’t have to go work at the plant. He had more’n enough work to do here, taking care of this joint and all the hoss business.”

  “Where are all of the horses now? We’re the only two here,” I wondered.

  “’Ya got me, but it was somethin’ like nobody wanted hosses no more. People stopped comin’, the hosses left, and Bill started work at the plant.Your mom was the only hoss left on the whole place. Until you two came along, this here farm was deadsville.”

  When I’ve nothing else to do, I wonder what it was like then. When Meg is getting something out of the tack room while I’m waiting to continue our fun, I’ve seen lots of blue ribbons on the tack room wall and shiny trophies on shelves. Does living on a show farm mean that someday I’ll get to go to shows, to bring home trophies and ribbons? Gosh, in order to do that, I’m going to have to learn a lot of stuff. I mean a lot! I guess that’s why schooling’s already begun. In fact it began when Julie and I were just a few days old.

  We were still chomping hay one morning when Meg came to

  she brushes us and combs our manes and tails.Who wouldn’t like that?

  scratch. (If I were a dog, I’d wag my tail when she does that. I’ve tried to wag my tail, but when I turn to look at my tail, it’s not wagging.) That morning when she was in the stall with us, she came up to me with a bunch of straps in her hand. I gave them a good sniff. Smelled okay, kind of horsey, so I went back to eating.As Meg rubbed me, she was rubbing me with those straps.They felt even better than her hand. Great idea!

  “Bubba, these straps are a halter. Soon you’ll think nothing of wearing it. It’s just a way to help us work together. With a lead rope fastened to it, it’ll be easy for you to know what I want you to do.We’ll be a team.”

  Now that I’m used to it, I don’t mind having Meg put a halter on me. In fact, any time she brings my halter and rope I know fun is about to happen!

  Yesterday when she and I came back to the stable from our walk, she put me in a different stall.“What’s going on?” I whinny, stamping my front foot. I continue fussing, pawing the ground as she latches the stall door.

  Then she turns to me and in a very gentle voice explains,“You’re getting so much bigger than Julie, big boy, that you need more food.The easy way to give you more food and to not let Julie get fat is to separate the two of you.”

  Well, sure, if it means more food, I’m all for it.

  One evening she’s cleaning tack while Bill’s cleaning stalls. She hollers at him, “Bill, I’m afraid we have a problem. Would you please come look at Bubba? “

  “Just a minute. I’m almost done with Julie’s stall. Soon as I get the sawdust spread, I’ll take a look.”

  As Bill and Meg lean on my stall door and look at me, she asks, “What horse does Bubba remind you of?”

  color of that Clydesdale stud next door. Those four white stockings and the white blaze on his face look like his, too. Oh, my gosh! Do you suppose Bubba was a catch-breeding? What if he came over the fence

  Meg has been noticing the same similarities. “Well, mares can ovulate several eggs at the same time, so it’s possible the twins could have different fathers. Bubba was so much bigger than Julie when they were born, and everyday he seems to sprout up more than Julie.What’ll we do?”

  I really don’t understand what all of this means, but they soon button up the stable for the night and go to the house.As I wait to fall asleep, I remember several things I’ve heard from time to time.They all have to do with my being so big.Was there something wrong with me? Heck no. I’m a pretty neat guy, aren’t I?

  Chapter 4

  A Stall on Wheels

  Summer goes by quickly, and Julie and I are learning lots of things. In fact, we’re doing so well that Bill and Meg have entered us in the purebred weanling classes at the local Arabian Fall Horse Show. I

  One of the things we’ve been practicing is how to get in and out

  us, talking to us in a calm voice, it isn’t long before we think of the trailer as just another stall.

  “Bill, the show’s ten days away, and we still haven’t let the foals get used to being pulled in the trailer.Would you have time to help me Saturday?”

  “No problem,” Bill replies.“I need to check the tires and the oil in the truck anyway, so I’ll hook on the trailer, too.”

  It’s a sunny Saturday, and Bill is out bright and early inspecting

  he backs the trailer into the stable. That’s where we do our trailer practice.

  then she comes for me. Julie whinnies to hurry up, and shortly I’m snapped into the trailer stall next to hers. As Meg closes the rear doors, we’re busy eating the hay that’s in the feed bunk in front of us.

  “I wish we had a bigger trailer, Bill, so I could ride with the foals. They’re going to be frantic when we start moving. I’m afraid one of them is going to get hurt!”

  “I know. It’s scary, but our other horses got used to it. We’ve never had a trailer injury, you know. If you’re too worried, we could give them tranquilizers, but neither of them is hyper. Relax, kiddo, maybe you’re the one who needs the tranquilizer,” and Bill reaches over to squeeze Meg’s hand, as she sits next to him in the truck cab.“Here we go.”

  bouncing around! Weird! I guess I can still eat my alfalfa, but I wonder

  something’s moving. Talk about scary stuff! The stable is leaving, and, tough as I like to think I am, I’m a little antsy.Yeah, I am!

  “Bubba, what’s happening? Are we okay?” asks Julie in a quivering nicker.

  “I don’t know! The trailer’s never bounced around before. And the stable and the trees are moving!”

  Oh, well. No way am I going to cave in to a little bouncing around. My insides are doing enough of that, but a little more hay might be just the ticket.

  About as quickly as we started moving, we stop, and there’s Meg opening the little front door to say hi.“We just drove to the head of the drive, guys. Now we’ll go out on the road a little ways to the pasture

  “What do you think, Julie, kind of fun?” I ask.“At least we aren’t bored.”

  When Meg comes to us again, she opens the back of the trailer

  out into our pasture.

  How in the world did that happen? Where’s the stable? How did our pasture get here? But this feels good…stretching and moving around. Soon, we forget what just happened, and we’re off, racing to the far fence.

  In the days after that, new experiences come bing, bing, bing. We

  just right and not moving for a few minutes. Meg says when we go to the show we’ll have to do that, so the judge can see how wonderful we are. She seems to think this show stuff is a big deal, but I haven’t a clue.

  Chapter 5

  Our First Show

  One beautiful autumn morning, Bill and Meg go in the house and come out to the stable a second time.We’ve already had breakfast an
d been groomed, but this time when they come out, instead of old jeans, T-shirts, and grubby boots, they’re really dressed up. Huh. It’s time for us to be either turned out or worked, so what’s going on?

  “Hey, good-looking. You ready to head out?” Bill, who has on a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a pair of brown pants, and a brown leather vest, looks pretty good himself. Meg, cute as always with her spiky hair, is dressy in a long sleeved brown blouse and brown pants, topped off with a white leather vest.

  “Watch out, world, here comes The Chocolate Farm,” says Meg, as she does a little dance step.

  After loading a bunch of things into the back of the truck, Bill hooks the trailer on and backs it into the stable. I know what that means. Sure enough, we soon climb into the trailer and head down the road.This time, it’s not just a short trip to the pasture, for we keep

  to help us unload.“I’ll take Bubba, Bill, and you get Julie.”

  Since we’re the only horses on our farm (Julie is the only other horse I’ve ever seen), it’s a real shocker to back out of the trailer, turn around and see horses everywhere. Kind of scary, when you think about it. Plus, the noise! Horses are whinnying, horns honking, and people shouting.

  pretty dancey as Meg leads me into a huge stable, lots bigger than ours at home.

  Once Meg and Bill put us in a couple of stalls and I hear some of the horses talking to each other, I settle down and my heart and feet stop jumping around. Oh, but this is an adventure for sure.

  Something’s going on down the row. It looks like a black stallion is carrying on. He’s rearing and kicking, making a terrible racket. Oh, good. Here comes Doc. After Doc sticks a needle in him, he settles down. I whinny to Julie,“That’s a good lesson for us: don’t act up or you get stuck with a needle!”

  In the show stalls, Meg and Bill do a pretty thorough job brushing and cleaning us up…again. I didn’t think I was dirty, but it’s okay ‘cause I love to be brushed. Meg goes over to the tack trunk and pulls out two

  You are going to be snazzy!”

  At horse shows, the stable owners decorate the fronts of their stalls with their stable name and maybe some ribbons won. Meg and Bill went a step farther, commissioning a local wood carver to carve some wooden horse heads to hang under the farm sign:Arabian Show Farm. It makes us look a bit different. I like it.