Right from the Horse's Mouth

I think at one point in every member of my family's life, we have each wanted a horse.

And in the past few years, anytime a horse decided to come visit us resulted in broken trees and an unhappy father, mother, or brother (not to mention the brown presents they left all over the place).

When there suddenly is either horses or cows in the yard it normally means our neighbor left his gate open, and I’d simply plop on the nearest shoes to me (sometimes flip flops and sometimes overly large boots) and chase the beasts out the same way they came in( ok sometimes I let the dogs or other family members help). Occasionally my battle cry of "For Narnia" can be heard (as I tramp through the weeds in the aforementioned oversize boots) and the cattle are dealt with without much fuss.

Let me preface a little more with a few nights ago. I heard a noise outside my window, ignored it, only to hear Princess (our fearless golden retriever) making a fuss a few minutes later (I ignored this too), and later I was informed by my dad (in an unhappy tone) that there were cows in the yard. Of course, chasing ensued and since my valiant father had stopped to put on a coat and actual shoes he was much less chilled to the bone and poked in the feet by weeds than myself and therefore he got to do most of the work. He was most unhappy that they had been in his garden. Looking back I think we should have taken full advantage of the free fertilizer that could have come of it all.

Last night, however, I was quietly retired to my bedroom delved deep into Harry Potter where I was celebrating Sir Nicholas De Mimsy-Porpinton's deathday at his lovely party with the gang when I head hooves running past my window...

Knowing that catching the animals before trees broke or the yard was covered in free manure was the best practice, I left the quiet of my room to investigate the noises I had heard this time. I told my mom who was also enjoying the company of a book at the late hour and we peered outside. We didn't see anything, but just as I was headed in I heard something so I scanned the backyard again. My faulty (out of battery power) spotlight didn't reveal anything though. I went back inside and my dad had decided to ask what we were doing. I peeked outside the back door and heard a large something, coming TOWARDS me. This “towards” word is really important as all the other animals to ever enter our yard have always retreated when a person was near. 

Thus this development  freaked me out and I closed the door quickly exclaiming, "There's something out there. I don't know what it is, but there is something out there and it was coming."  

To which I received the response, “Let the dog out.” 

Of course it was then my duty to exclaim, "I don't know what it is. What if it's mean and hungry and eats her." (Because clearly I am not overreacting and am completely in the right state of mind... but honestly who doesn't like to SEE what is approaching them in the dark? Especially after reading some Harry Potter?)

But I did as I was told and sure enough Princess went out barking away once she detected something out there (Edison our other dog who only wants in on chasing things when he deems them “cool” decided he’d like out of the house too and off he went only to be quite quickly disappointed). My mom went out on the back porch to look around and sure enough, two horses stood in our yard. But instead of running from the dogs, they walked towards my mom, super friendly-like. 

This told us that these horses were not out dear neighbors' who often raided our yard. SO my dad escorted them to where we thought they really went, tried opening the gate and startled them up the street. We called the owners, who said that they weren't theirs and then mom and dad went to look for them so as to keep them in our pasture for the night. They were nowhere to be found.

This morning though. Lo and behold. Two horses outside my window again, so we took them to our pasture and watered them and left them to graze (don't worry, there is plenty of food + hay in there) while we searched for their real place of home (which is proving more difficult than originally thought).   

So today I’m just enjoying watching them (I've also enjoyed hunting for our two baby fish that have managed to survive in our aquarium for weeks, which sort of reminds me of this commercial.) My day has been pretty complete I tell you. And that is the story of how I got myself two horses for the day... or so…

I guess I could get back to job hunting (or maybe just reading) now.