The annual masquerade ball

Summer wouldn't be so bad were it not for the heat. Or the flies. Actually, the flies this year aren't too bad...yet. 

The only places they're hanging out are around the eyes of my precious equines. I think it's a drought thing and the flies are simply thirsty. 

They consider the corners of my guys' eyes to be tiny watering holes, and I won't tolerate it.
So this week, everybody got a new fly mask.

 Since I put on fly masks before I put on coffee every morning, 

I got smart this time and bought everybody a different color and/or style so I would remember whose is whose. 

George's mask is green (it's a G thing); Alan's is blue, because his similarly colored buddy Nigel is sporting a blue mask this year.

Lucy, woman of mystery that she is, prefers the full burqa look.

I have never met an equine who loves a fly mask as much as Lucy. 

She's a girly-girl and loves to play dress-up.

Hank's new fly mask is "shimmer weave silver with lynx trim" because he is all jealous
of Lucy's Vogue cover and fully expects to be on GQ sometime soon.

Remember a few years back when we tried the fly fringes? 

They worked really well for about a year, until George and Alan made toys out of them.

The funny thing is, George and Alan like to keep their toys organized, so even though they ripped each other's fringes to shreds

and left them in the far corners of the pasture, they brought them back to the barn eventually...

...along with every other fly mask that's been sacrificed to the pasture gods over the past seven years.

At the end of last summer, I ended up with more fly masks than I'd started out with.

And of course I saved them to try to shame the boys into believing 

that they should take better care of their belongings.

George: Don't look at me. Alan did it.