Thursday, July 3, 2008

Counting to Nine

I have this ritual when I'm heading for the farm. As I turn in the gate, I count horses. The magic number is nine. They graze in little groups of two and three, noses together or strategically positioned to catch the full benefits from their partner's tail. Five chestnuts of varying shades, three blacks and a bay pinto. The blacks are pretty distinctive - even a silhouette is plenty to tell who's who. But when the chestnuts are all crowded together they tend to merge at a distance into one horse.

Last night as we pulled past the front pasture they were spread across the field grazing. I only got to eight, and I had the fluttery adrenaline surge you get when everything looks okay, but something might be wrong.... A second count - still eight. As we pulled closer, I realized that Amyra was sandwiched in between Sunny and Sahara, making one very long three headed horse. Nine horses. All there.

I think I was predisposed to look for trouble for two reasons: 1) we're headed out of town for a few days, so although the horses are looked after quite well in my absence, I won't be there to see to them. 2) We'd just retrieved one of the neighbor's draft horses from another neighbor's corn field. We'd been spotting wildlife on the way out: deer, turtles, very large duck... so when T said he saw a horse, and was pointing the wrong way, I thought he was being funny. Nope. Right out in the middle of the corn field was a huge, black Belgian. Oh-oh!
The saddle horses across the road were quite interested, trotting up and down the fence, and no one was home. I raided the barn for a halter that would fit that huge head, collected a pan of corn, and set off to see if I could catch her.Thankfully, she was quite content to munch a handful or two of corn and walked calmly along beside us down the rows to the gate, across the road and home. We put her back where she belonged with her teammate (who wasn't the slightest bit concerned at being left). A quick check of the fences showed no obvious holes, and everything was quiet, so we left, with a vow to call later and let them know about their escapee.

That was, thankfully, our excitement for the evening.

Collected a few pics of the herd to tide me over while I'm gone....
The light saber
Making friends with StarThe problem with having no hands....Find of the evening!

4 comments:

buckpony said...

Found your blog through "Saving Argus" who I found through "Fugly Horse of the Day." You live in God's Country! What beautiful photos. I loved reading through your blog. There is something so intriguing about horses and horse people. Thank you for sharing a little piece of your heaven with us through your blog.

SunnySD said...

Thanks, buckpony - it's amazing to ride and look out across the plains. A lot different than what I grew up with. It's sort of funny to ride the occasional horse that thinks trees are going to attack him because he's never seen or been ridden under them before!

Pony Girl said...

What a nice neighbor you are! It's a good thing that Belgian was so cooperative. Sometimes a loose hores insists on staying loose! ;)
Made for nice photos, too!

SunnySD said...

Isn't that the truth! I was lucky - I know from past experience that a) his team is older and very gentle, and b) they'll both come to the sound of a rattling grain pan.

Even so, I had my fingers crossed she'd stay with me once I had the halter on. Those feet are MASSIVE, and so is the rest of her - there's no doubt who'd win a tug of war! lol!