It happens almost every time a new horse comes to stay with us, most of them for a relatively short time. Somehow, some way, they find a new way to to end up on The Other Side of the fence.
It's dark and raining again (still?) when we pulled up to our gate. My husband gets out to unlock and open the gate for me to drive through. He heads out to collect our emptied trash cans. I pull slowly around the curve of our driveway, mindful of our furry, white escorts trotting along up to the house. Headlights plow straight through the rain onto the the generous blanketed bottom of Princess Cinderella, our Haflinger and The Mare In Charge. The others are orbiting around her, wandering the yard, snacking on grass. Everyone is on The Other Side of the fence. It doesn't look like they've been out for long and they haven't yet busted into the hay barn.
I leave the car running, headlights shining on my jail breakers. Needless to say, they want nothing to do with me while they dine away on wonderful fresh grass. If you are a horse, there is nothing in this world you want more than fresh green grass. Other brief interest may past through their furry minds but if you're a horse, in the end, it's all about grass.
Walking through the harassing rain, I consider all the halters I have to go haul out to bring everyone back in, assuming they decide to allow me to catch them. I'm stepping carefully down the puddled gravel drive wearing my work clothes, including silk blouse, heeled shoes, and a designer leather jacket that was an anniversary gift from my husband. I'm not sure was ever intended to get that wet. I'm wondering again how I've ended up hear and how many of my weekday colleagues are doing something similar, i.e. none. The office people go from house to car to indoor parking garage into work and back again. No need to worry much about weather other than to look at the opaque grey that hasn't brought snow in the mountains yet.
I think better of the default plan of haltering and returning one horse at a time and fill a wheelbarrow I use for hauling hay with Dinner. I give The Food Lady Whistle I use every time I approach and begin wheeling toward the pasture. Pete follows eagerly at a trot, stepping ahead and stuffing his long dark face into the pile. This gets everyone's attention. I move ahead and Pete stares and me, torn between the departing meal and The Herd behind him. A handful of hay waved at his nose decides for him and we're off at a bisque pace back toward the gaping pasture gate.
It doesn't take long before I am surrounded by a swirl of running horses and dogs in the dark and wet, my heels sinking into the grass and mud. I can't see them and I hope they can see me as they rush past, nearly brushing me. I have to trust their skill and grace in not running The Food Lady over. Everyone pauses at the pasture gate to see if I'm really offering dinner, piles of hay just a little better and a little less work than all that green grass on The Other Side of the fence. As soon as the flakes hit the ground, the herd comes in and arranges themselves around the piles of sweet grass based on their social ranking.
We examine the gate, it was a poor installation of the chain that broke when a large someone leaned hard on it to scratch their bum or to stretch under for some of that taller green grass. My husband comes out with a new chain and we replace them in a safer manner. I knew we should have fixed that, but it was one of 1,000 things we hadn't gotten to.
During the time I'm standing alone, feeling the rain soaking my hair, I wonder again what I was thinking when I made the zillion choices that brought me here. My lungs are tightening from the cold and the fungus on the huge tree we had to take down that still needs splitting. I breath slowly and try not to allow a breathless coughing fit to to start. I feel myself getting sick again, the sinus infection that never goes away and takes hours and days and weeks away. The leaden exhaustion caused by infection sucks at my body and mind. I'm going back to the doctor tomorrow but I'm also scheduling another visit to the ENT clinic. My symptoms are an allergic fungal infection. I want them to run that test, one of the few they haven't. I'm holding a silvery, soft ball of fear in my belly, the online articles say this can't be permanently cured, it's often not diagnosed.
I watch horse shapes in the rain and ask my husband to hurry, it's hard to getting breath. We fix the gate ad my mind goes back to fixing dinner after changing into my farm clothes. I'm The Food Lady here, it's my job. Inside it's light and warm and my inhaler is waiting for me aling with fish and greenbeans. And, Yeti's completely indifferent Cat thinking his small predatory thoughts.
It's dark and raining again (still?) when we pulled up to our gate. My husband gets out to unlock and open the gate for me to drive through. He heads out to collect our emptied trash cans. I pull slowly around the curve of our driveway, mindful of our furry, white escorts trotting along up to the house. Headlights plow straight through the rain onto the the generous blanketed bottom of Princess Cinderella, our Haflinger and The Mare In Charge. The others are orbiting around her, wandering the yard, snacking on grass. Everyone is on The Other Side of the fence. It doesn't look like they've been out for long and they haven't yet busted into the hay barn.
I leave the car running, headlights shining on my jail breakers. Needless to say, they want nothing to do with me while they dine away on wonderful fresh grass. If you are a horse, there is nothing in this world you want more than fresh green grass. Other brief interest may past through their furry minds but if you're a horse, in the end, it's all about grass.
Walking through the harassing rain, I consider all the halters I have to go haul out to bring everyone back in, assuming they decide to allow me to catch them. I'm stepping carefully down the puddled gravel drive wearing my work clothes, including silk blouse, heeled shoes, and a designer leather jacket that was an anniversary gift from my husband. I'm not sure was ever intended to get that wet. I'm wondering again how I've ended up hear and how many of my weekday colleagues are doing something similar, i.e. none. The office people go from house to car to indoor parking garage into work and back again. No need to worry much about weather other than to look at the opaque grey that hasn't brought snow in the mountains yet.
I think better of the default plan of haltering and returning one horse at a time and fill a wheelbarrow I use for hauling hay with Dinner. I give The Food Lady Whistle I use every time I approach and begin wheeling toward the pasture. Pete follows eagerly at a trot, stepping ahead and stuffing his long dark face into the pile. This gets everyone's attention. I move ahead and Pete stares and me, torn between the departing meal and The Herd behind him. A handful of hay waved at his nose decides for him and we're off at a bisque pace back toward the gaping pasture gate.
It doesn't take long before I am surrounded by a swirl of running horses and dogs in the dark and wet, my heels sinking into the grass and mud. I can't see them and I hope they can see me as they rush past, nearly brushing me. I have to trust their skill and grace in not running The Food Lady over. Everyone pauses at the pasture gate to see if I'm really offering dinner, piles of hay just a little better and a little less work than all that green grass on The Other Side of the fence. As soon as the flakes hit the ground, the herd comes in and arranges themselves around the piles of sweet grass based on their social ranking.
We examine the gate, it was a poor installation of the chain that broke when a large someone leaned hard on it to scratch their bum or to stretch under for some of that taller green grass. My husband comes out with a new chain and we replace them in a safer manner. I knew we should have fixed that, but it was one of 1,000 things we hadn't gotten to.
During the time I'm standing alone, feeling the rain soaking my hair, I wonder again what I was thinking when I made the zillion choices that brought me here. My lungs are tightening from the cold and the fungus on the huge tree we had to take down that still needs splitting. I breath slowly and try not to allow a breathless coughing fit to to start. I feel myself getting sick again, the sinus infection that never goes away and takes hours and days and weeks away. The leaden exhaustion caused by infection sucks at my body and mind. I'm going back to the doctor tomorrow but I'm also scheduling another visit to the ENT clinic. My symptoms are an allergic fungal infection. I want them to run that test, one of the few they haven't. I'm holding a silvery, soft ball of fear in my belly, the online articles say this can't be permanently cured, it's often not diagnosed.
I watch horse shapes in the rain and ask my husband to hurry, it's hard to getting breath. We fix the gate ad my mind goes back to fixing dinner after changing into my farm clothes. I'm The Food Lady here, it's my job. Inside it's light and warm and my inhaler is waiting for me aling with fish and greenbeans. And, Yeti's completely indifferent Cat thinking his small predatory thoughts.
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