Thoughts Why Animals Wait Until You Are Gone To Get Into Mischief
The Culprit-Kula
My horses are the most sedate, boring in behavior steeds. Winter is especially taxing for them, as they stand around eating all of the hay they can hold, whilst enjoying the horrid abuse of twice daily grain rations and heated water. Truly, life on my plantation is just terrible for an equine. This point seems even more obvious as they exhibit the awfulness of their lives by NEVER trying to escape.
Grandma Angel-She supervised the escape with detached disdain
However, it appears there is a way to motivate my lazy nags; I just have to drive six hours from my home for the weekend. Escape guaranteed! We had just left our hotel and were flying down the banks of the Columbia Gorge when I received this text from my neighbor:
"Hey, we are all outside and noticed that the horses got out of their pen. Is that okay?"
Ugh. I was like t-minus 5 hours from being able to accurately assess that situation. I mean, my old grey horse, Angel, I could just let roam around the place like a dog. She wouldn't go anywhere, and the very few times she has got out, my old mare comes to my bedroom window and stares in it's glass depths until she spies my form. As I tried to talk my neighbor through returning my naughty creatures to their pen, I was simultaneously pondering how the heck they made their escape, and a thought came to mind: The gelding.
My gelding, Kula, is a bit of a clown. One night when we came home from the movies with some friends he let me know that I hadn't fed him according to his time table. He was sitting in the field fencing like it was a hammock chair, all 1100lbs kicked back and chilling. My friends still tease me about that clown. I had a strong feeling that he was at the root of the Great Escape.
I was able to talk my neighbor through returning the escapees to their paddock, but a couple hours later she texted that they had bolted again. Grrr....Naughty ponies! She texted a few minutes later saying she had returned them, but I just knew that Kula would have the girls in the yard again when I got home.
Sure enough, when we rolled down the driveway my horses ran to greet us. It was really exciting to have Kula and Gemma jump in front of the car in a welcome home dance. My husband got out and yelled and gestured something very R rated at all of them, but honestly, I don't know why he yelled at Grandma Angel, for she had this sedate, resigned look on her face that basically communicated, "I only got out to keep an eye on these two idiots."
Gemma-The new girl, I think Kula was just showing off for her.
We quickly found the source of the escape, one of the horses (Kula, I'm sure) had removed the wire holding the gate latch. I find it ironic that he waited to do this until we were gone, but I have a feeling that it was his way of letting us know that he missed us. That or he really, really wanted to present us with a welcome home parade. I sort of feel like my husband was so annoyed that he would have welcomed Kula into the freezer....Yikes!
There is a huge amount of thankfulness residing in my form right now for my awesome neighbors!
And as always, all of the images in this post were taken on my alfalfa hay scrap covered iPhone.