In the Dark of the Night

Most of you that know Lonnie and me, also know our horse Maggie, the Missouri Fox Trotter Mare, and that she is also an escape artist.  Yes, she likes to unlock the gates or lift the rope fencing and crawl through it. That is one of the main reasons why Lonnie has low currency electricity running through the rope fencing that surrounds the horse pasture. That is, of course, if any one of us remembers to plug it back in after unplugging it for feeding time or exiting the gate for riding purposes. However, the portable, temporary pastures that Lonnie sets up for better grazing areas, does not have the electric safe guard connected to prevent Maggie, the escape artist from wondering or in her case “running” away, and then her buddies, the other two horses gladly follow her.

Well, last night at 9:00 p.m. it was already very dark outside, here in the country, with no surrounding city lights to illuminate our neck of the woods. When it suddenly occurred to me that I have not seen Lonnie and Quentin return the horses from the temporary pasture to the fixed pasture yet. Quentin had already gone to bed and I saw Lonnie very relaxed, reading his newspaper, lounging on the couch, when I said,” Lonnie, have you put the horses back in their pasture?” At that simple question, Lonnie instantly jumped to his feet, threw the newspaper down and with a slightly raised voice said,” OH NO, I forgot!” and proceeded to bolt out of the house. I followed him to help retrieve the possible “runaways”. He said,” I will round up the horses, if you will just fill their bowls with sweet grain to encourage them (to return cooperatively.)

So he walked quite a distance to retrieve the horses. First he brought back Nitro, the herd leader. Meanwhile, I filled their bowls with grain as always, on the outside of the ropes, then I deliver it to their feeding spots.

All of a sudden I heard Lonnie shout,” Maggie is loose, she is running towards you!” so I rushed to the closed gate to open it for her entry. Just as fast as I reached the gate, which was latched, she was turning the corner in the very dark night at FULL speed with her mane and tail blowing upward by her speed, right for me!!

I shouted at her with one hand upward in a “stop sign” position and the other hand trying frantically to unlatch the gate quick enough for a swift entry and said, “WHOA, WHOA MAGGIE!”

Just as I was about to jump over the gate, because the gate latch wasn’t unlocking fast enough to persuade her direction into the corral, she swiftly turned again and ran past me. PHEW /: and stopped dead on, right where her bowl of grain was placed, on the outside the roping near her feeding spot.

Finally, Lonnie walked up to my area with Rebel, the third horse, and placed him in the corral, then retrieved Maggie, grabbing her halter to bring her back into the corral. He started to tell me, without him knowing what had just taken place between Maggie and me, that she got loose as he tried to grab two, haltered horses at the same time, she looked at the small flash light that he was using to see in the dark of the night and apparently Maggie was startled. She then bit his wrist and then ran in my direction toward the corral where she met up with me.  OH, what a nightmare! I can add this memory to my collections of getting acquainted with country living. :/               October 9, 2013