Horse Lesson 47

Today's guest blogger is my beloved husband, Stephen...

(This lesson builds upon horse lesson 12 - corelary to Murphy's Law)

A horse can spin in a circle much more quickly than you think it can. Why is this important? Because it means that a horse can kick you in the head, even if you think you are safe. So let's give a practical example of how these two lessons come together.

The horses were separated from the cattle by a fence, and had been for some time. I could feed the cattle grain without worrying about the horses. Because of short supplies of grass lately, the other day I opened the gate to let the horses and cattle share the same fields.

I knew full well that it would take quite some time before the horses discovered the open gate, so I decided to feed the cattle. Let's look back at lesson 12: "The horses may not come when called, but they will come if you don't want them to, so use proper caution." Now you can see that I've failed to heed lesson 12. So what happens next? The horses immediately chase the cattle away from their feed and start eating it.

Problem is, the cattle feed makes horses sick. So in this real life example, I had to try to get the hungry 700 lb horses away from the feed and into stalls. And this is where we learn the lesson of how quickly a horse can spin around and point its backside at you, already locked and loaded. Chasing a horse away from feed makes him mad! I figured as long as I kept in front of him, he couldn't kick me. But much to my surprise, a horse can turn around and point his back legs at you faster then you can scream "I'm going to die now!" The Good Lord clearly has more work for me to do down here, and I avoided being hit by the horse.

I got a scoop of horse feed, and tried to lead the horses away. No dice. I chased the horses hoping they would head far away. No dice - they just ran in circles around the feed. After a while, the sly animals would stop about 50 feet from the food and nonchalantly eat some grass. Then, as I walked toward them (and away from the feed), they would suddenly bolt past me back to the feed.

After a 15 minute wrestling match, requiring physical stamina and a whit sharper than that of any horse, I finally managed to corral the horses, and so completed horse lesson 47.

Patti's note: Not knowing the whole story, I watched this transpire through the kitchen window. I thought Stephen had decided to break the horse (who can not currently be ridden) in the middle of an open field. I thought he had gone mad. I saw Joe try to kill him. I prayed and prayed. Later when he came in I said, "I was praying for you," and he said "That explains why I'm not dead."