Why I Hate Horses

Disclaimer:  I am in a shitty mood, Cleveland is dead, and if you think this blog sounds like the rantings of a spoiled brat, come pour yourself into trying to keep a good horse comfortable for a few years, just to have to lose him anyway.  Watch him die, knowing you failed at prolonging his pain-free life, and then tell me I'm whining.  

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a Horsechick.  I don’t know anything else or any other way to be.  I started with miniatures when I was five, and I suppose I never really grew out of it, much to the dismay of my parents.  As long as I’ve been in the horse world, I’ve heard people (mostly my siblings or former significant-others) say, “I hate horses”.  Generally this came out of their mouth when I was in the midst of foiling their plans with something horse-related.  I can’t say I blame them.  I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately too, actually.  And to be perfectly honest, not only do I see where they’re coming from, I’m beginning to agree with them. 

I’m facing the very difficult and unpleasant part of ownership right now in that Cleveland was laid to rest a few weeks ago.  I miss him and, frankly, this makes me very frustrated and pissy.  I don’t handle grief or vulnerability well, and I tend to display any negative emotion in the form or sarcasm or anger.  It’s wasn’t his fault that he had to die, he was used up hard his entire life, and not afforded the luxuries that a horse of his caliber and kindness should be until it was too late.  He was in pain, despite the medications he was on to try and help, and his quality of life was unmistakably low and I had to make the call to end his suffering before his body failed him completely and he ended up passing in a painful, miserable way in the middle of winter.  He didn’t deserve to have to go out like that, no horse does, and it seems like there are quite a few assholes in this world who will turn a blind eye to their pet’s suffering and wait for nature to “take its course”.  He died quickly and peacefully, high as a kite on pain meds and still chewing on a mouthful of grass.  Exactly how I want to go out, the lucky bastard.  It still hurts though, in that tiny space where they say my heart would be, if I had one.

This pisses me off, and leads me to wonder why in the hell I do what I do.  What’s the point, if there are still people out there doing the exact opposite of what’s right?  Why should I have to be the responsible owner who anticipates her horse’s pain and does her best to avoid it for the good of the horse, even if it means looking like a jackass sitting in my car in traffic with tears streaming out from under my sunglasses for a full two weeks before the horse even dies because every time I’m alone, all I can think about is the fact that he’s one of the kindest damned horses I’ve ever come across and I only got a couple of years with him?  Talk about torture….at least I could blame my red, puffy eyes on allergies.  Thank god for waterproof mascara.

Since I have a job that affords a large amount of time for internal reflection (which I’ve learned is never a good thing), I spent most of the past few weeks contemplating why I do this to myself.  Verdict: I have no idea.  The pain and aggravation far outweighs the rewards, it seems.  I’ve decided that I, much like the aforementioned men in my life, hate horses.  And upon further discovery, this is a feeling I’ve evidently held for quite some time.  I just didn’t know it.

I hate horses because, as an elementary and middle-school age child, no one ever invited me to their houses for playdates or sleepovers.  Looking back, one could probably assume it was because of my inability to get along with others, but I know it was because I had ponies at my house and everyone knows ponies are the most powerful magnet in the world to little girls.  Everyone came over to my house, I went nowhere.

I hate horses because I could have bought a much nicer dress for senior prom, had I not had to pay board or pay the farrier that month instead.  Let’s completely disregard the fact that my prom date ditched me for another girl mid-dance whom I’m fairly certain is a male, post-op, these days.  And no, I’m not going to let that one go. 

I hate horses because I probably could have gone away to a fancy school and gotten a shiny, expensive degree in something that pays a whole lot more than I’m making now with my less-shiny degree, but because I refused to “give up the damned horses” (thanks Dad), I’m working my ass off every week just to hand my checks over to the horses in one fashion or another.  Gucci?  No.  Grain. 

I hate horses because when my friends post Facebook pictures of their epic vacations and world travels, I know that I’ll never do the same because no one will be able to comprehend the feed chart in the barn or keep track of what horses need what care on a daily basis.  I also know that I’m a complete control freak and couldn’t leave town without stressing out the entire time.  Also, see above regarding paychecks….

I hate horses because we could be living in a lakefront house right now, but at last check, horses haven’t adapted to life as aquatic creatures yet, and I’m sure there’s a zoning ordinance against keeping horses in a walk-out basement and letting them graze a public boat launch.  I could have been living the boat life, but my blinding white legs (from wearing jeans or breeches constantly) prevented my bikini-body from ever taking shape.

I hate horses because I could have a closet full of the trendiest clothing and shoes, but instead, I have a closet full of outdated show clothes, Underarmour and “barn jeans”, and have legitimate anxiety attacks whenever an event arises that requires me to make a conscious effort to dress up.  I couldn’t curl my own hair if my last breath depended on it.  I couldn’t curl ANY hair, actually.  But I can braid the hell out of a fake tail.  Just don’t ask me to do it in heels.

I hate horses because fall doesn’t mean cider mills and trail rides and pumpkin-spice lattes for me.  Fall means panicked phone calls from owners who forgot that it snows in Michigan and desperately want me to sell their horses for top dollar.  This week.  For free, to “help them out”.  Even though the horse hasn’t been ridden in five years and hasn’t seen a farrier in the last six months.  But it should bring close to what they paid for it ten years ago because it’s a nice horse. 

I hate horses because instead of being ecstatic and eagerly planning a wedding, I’m trying to guesstimate how much winter hay needs to be purchased based on how many horses may end up dumped here and signed over by their owners when the snow flies.  I worry about how many I can afford to save and what happens to the ones I can’t help.  I see no rational reason to have a wedding when that money could be invested in the property in the form of a stall barn or arena footing or paying off the house.  Having horses has robbed me of the ability to take joy and excitement from something that the majority of girls dream about from the time they get their first Barbie.

I hate horses because at the end of the day, when all I want to do is curl up on the couch with a book guilt-free, I can’t.  I have a dozen emails, calls and texts to respond to from other horse owners asking for advice, tips and tricks to make life easier for them and keep their horses happy and healthy.  I hate that I dread calls from unknown numbers because they usually involve someone saying “My friend said you can probably sell/take/give away my horses for me so I don’t have to send them to the auction”. Never mind that I have a herd of my own to attend to, if I don’t answer and help them, the horses suffer. 

I hate horses because when I go to a show, its’ not with a nice, finished, expensive show horse that I can show off and take pride in.  I take what I have at home, and more often than not, I’ve loaned it to someone without a horse and am just along to help while they enjoy their day.  I cannot justify spending substantial money on a problem-free horse when I know there are hundreds at any point in time desperate for a home to keep them off the kill truck.  My guilt cripples me.  Actually, no.  My shitty knees cripple me.  My guilt (and cheapness) keeps me from owning a nice show horse. 

I hate horses because I know that at any point in time, there are at least a dozen people in the horse world that I’m forced to interact with that should eat a bullet the ugly way for what they do when no one is looking.  I see the shit that goes on, the abuse, the lies, the cheating, and because the horse world is so unbelievably small, I have to shut up and even sometimes smile.  The worst offenders, yes, I can try to do something about those (and I do), but for every big fish that I fry, there are a hundred little ones waiting for their turn to grow.   

I hate horses because I can look out in my pastures and know that every face staring back at me (only at dinner time, of course) has been on the receiving end of one of those “big fish”.  Every horse I have and that passes through my hands is broken in some way, be it physically, mentally or emotionally.  They are all the products of humans, and there is nothing I can do to change that.  Some I can fix, but the scars never truly go away, they just get covered by a little bit of hair, or pushed to the backs of their minds and maybe forgotten about for awhile in lieu of cookies, kindness and a little bit of patience.  Some are like Cleveland, who had a handful of years of peace and comfort at the end of his life, but whose life had to be cut short far too soon nonetheless.  They are products of man, never designed to be broken so badly, but broken.  And because of this, I cannot walk away.  Sure, I could quit.  Sell everything and buy that lakefront house and the nice clothes.  But then who will take care of everything I’d be walking away from?

I hate horses because they’ve built my reputation for brutal honesty for me.  This one has an issue, and no, I won’t sell him to you because you have kids and I won’t put anyone in the position to get hurt.  This is a nice horse, but you’re not experienced enough to be successful with him, sorry, I’m not going to take your money, go spend it on lessons.  This also causes me to loathe the asshole “trainer” who talks parents into an unsafe ride for their kid just to make a quick buck.  That kid gets hurt, that horse gets dumped at a sale, and I inevitably have to tell the “trainer” that she’s an irresponsible idiot and is going to get a kid killed, try to save the horse from a death sentence, and find the parents a new trainer.  Then I get accused of having “anger issues”.  Which is only slightly untrue. 

I hate horses. 

 

I Was Right

Sometimes, I have a good idea.  My good ideas are usually quite profitable.  However, more often than not, my ideas really aren’t that good, they usually end up being more trouble than they’re worth, and I end up having to admit that I may have been wrong.  As much as this would delight most men that I’ve been in relationships in the past with, Pat is not one of them.  I suppose he would be, save for the fact that my “good ideas” generally involve him working on something, so my failures become his wasted time and efforts.  For some reason, despite all of this, he still wants to be with me.  Poor guy, I suspect he might have a bit of brain damage….who the hell wants to stay with a Horsechick?

Anyway, because we have come face to face with the harsh reality that the tractor we need around here is going to cost dangerously close to $20,000, my latest efforts have been focused on quick-flip “projects” that will turn a substantial profit in a short amount of time to generate tractor-money.  Most of these projects require a human much handier than I, enter Pat.

When we bought this place, Pat fell in love with the barn.  At this point, I’m certain the house could have been filled with dead bodies and snakes and he would have still made the offer on the property.  To be fair, it is a great barn.  It’s huge, easily bigger than the house, with cement floors, high ceilings, and lots and lots of room for stuff.  It also could have easily held six stalls comfortably, but I was quickly informed that hooves had better never touch the concrete floors or I’d be sleeping in said barn.  Without stalls.  Okay, fine.  I was allotted an 8x8 square in the corner for my tack and equipment (a space that quickly turned into 10x16-something because, let’s face it, I have a lot of shit), and the rest quickly turned into big-ass-workspace/Man Cave.  He has a mini fridge, which makes it official. 

I firmly believe that all significant-others of Horsechicks should have access to a space that is wholly and entirely theirs.  We are a tough creature to survive with, and since it is only a matter of time before show clothes and bridles take over the kitchen table, polo wraps and saddle pads cover the laundry room floor, and Vetwrap and Betadine appear in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, the least we can do is give our significant-others a space that is theirs.  Gloriously uninterrupted, horse-free, and beer-filled.  Pat quickly filled his space. 

Because of the existence of Pat’s barn, and the fact that he is a fantastic welder, my “good ideas” have gotten generally larger and more complicated.  The man can fix just about anything, and when it comes to welding, he is an artist.  There isn’t much he can’t make good as new, it’s just a matter of whether or not his efforts will be more than the profit margin allows for.  Last week, on a tip from a good friend, I drug home a rather tough-looking horse trailer.  The ’94 Bison had certainly seen better days, but for the amount of work that it needed, it was worth waaaay more than what I paid for it.  A hefty contribution to the tractor-fund, for sure.  When Pat got home from work, I didn’t get my ass chewed out from the driveway, so I must have done well.  I left the trailer hooked to my truck, knowing he would put it where he wanted it to start the deconstruction process. 

Now, maybe this is female-logic speaking, but since the barn is at the top of a hill, and the truck is already hooked to the trailer, I assumed that the future Mr. Horsechick would have taken the most logical approach and backed the trailer up the hill and into the barn with my truck.  Not so, says Pat.  That would result in the trailer facing out and a further walk back and forth to the welder.  Evidently, we are going to do things his way.   “Ooooookay babe, whatever.  Can you please not kill yourself while I go take a quick shower?”  “Yep.”

One would consider “Yep” to mean that it would be safe to take ten quick minutes of relaxation and scrub off at least one or two layers of dirt and that a grown man would take that time to do something other than nearly kill himself.  Pat is a pretty intelligent guy (aside from his decision to stay with me, but we try not to hold that against him), and is very safety-conscious.  I generally don’t have to worry too much about him.  But as I’m rinsing the conditioner from my hair, and I hear my phone start to ring from the bathroom sink, I get that gut feeling that this is a phone call I really need to take.  It’s Pat.  Oh hell….

“Are you dead yet?”

“No, but I’m going to be real quick here if you don’t come out here and help me.”

“Oh Jesus…Can I put clothes on first?”

“Only if you can do it like real fast…”  I can hear a little bit of panic in his voice.  Pat does not panic.  This is bad.

It was at that point that I leaped into the bedroom and spent a solid ten seconds trying to decide the pros and cons of finding underwear, shorts, a t-shirt, should I opt for a bra?  Ugh, what about shoes?  Where the hell were my flip-flops?  Wait, if he’s doing something stupid, I should wear more than flip-flops…I’m likely to get my foot crushed otherwise.  But then I’d need socks.  I’ll never find two socks right now.  WHY didn’t I put the clean laundry away instead of leaving it in the basket?!  F-it, I’ll just wear the towel.  At least I’m clean.

Clearly, crisis management isn’t my strong point. 

So I go sprinting out of our bedroom, down the hallway, towards the back door, snag my flip flops and jam my feet into them mid-stride, while holding up my bath towel, which sends both dogs into a full-blown OHMYGODSOMETHINGISWRONG!!!!-panic, and the three of us dash out the back door.  They’re barking at nothing and running in circles, I’m trying not to trip over them or my own two feet.  I run across the driveway, silently praying to whatever higher power governs this type of shit that the super-religious neighbors didn’t decide to grill dinner in their driveway tonight, and bust through the side door of the barn.

Pat is straddling the quad, which is a youth-sized 200cc machine and probably weighs less than he does, which he has hooked to the 2,800 lb horse trailer in an attempt to pull the trailer nose-first into the barn.  Up the hill.  Into the barn.  It didn’t go as planned.  The quad made it, and then lost traction and began getting drug backwards down the hill by the clearly much heavier trailer.  If he had let go of the brakes on the quad, the trailer (according to him), would have rolled back down the hill, probably swung sideways, and flung the quad (and himself) like a Frisbee.  I’ve never really thought about it until that moment, but I’d imagine Pat would make a pretty shitty Frisbee.  And wearing nothing but a bath towel and $3 flip-flops wasn’t really the way I wanted to meet the paramedics in this township. 

So he has me finagle myself to where I’m now the one holding the brakes on the quad, he’s grabbing chains, ratchet straps, come-alongs, whatever he thinks will remedy this clearly-fucked situation, and somehow manages to get the trailer worked into the barn and on solid, non-hilly ground.  I am still awkwardly sitting on the quad, trying to figure out what was so wrong with using my truck when two very important thoughts dawn on me:

1)   I was right.  Ha!  I wonder when he’s going to admit that...

2)   Mosquito bites end up in some very uncomfortable places when you’re wearing nothing but a bath towel.

Family Values

I hate the holidays. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I love my family.  For all of their quirks and arguments and obnoxious habits, they are a great group of people.  Unfortunately, none of them are horse-people.  This isn’t generally a problem, they have their lives, I have mine.  We live a pretty hefty distance apart, and that works quite well for me.  They are city folks, with block parties, dance clubs and bars.  I am not.  My neighbors have chickens and a donkey, and a date night for Pat and I usually consists of a trip to Tractor Supply or Home Depot.  Both if we’re feeling a little crazy that night.  They go on weekend sightseeing road trips, we go get hay and consider it a win if we make it back with as many bales as we left the hay guy’s place with.  They lease new cars every 24 months, I own a ¾ ton four-wheel-drive pickup with seat covers to try to slow the takeover of mud and dog hair.  Their dogs go to groomers, mine get a dunking when I’m scrubbing water troughs.  There is a blatant and significant difference in lifestyles.  And I am completely okay with this.

But then the winter holidays roll around.  During the summer, I can usually dodge those “family get-togethers” by whipping out the good old standby excuse of “I have a horse show that I’m hauling a few to.  Need to do it for marketing purposes so I can get these ponies sold!  Got a house to pay for, and you know how that goes!  Sorry!”.  That usually works fairly well, but come Thanksgiving and Christmas time, I’m out of options.  I have to go and make my annual appearance to quell the brewing rumors that I’m pregnant with an illegitimate child and trying to hide it from my relatives. 

During the holidays, I have to actually dig out something that somewhat resembles “dressy clothes”.  I have to find footwear that doesn’t have spur marks or the slight aroma of pine shavings and horse shit, and put makeup on.  Like eyeshadow and stuff.  My baseball cap has to stay home, and it is only this time of year that I become aware of the fact that it’s been a year since my last haircut and…oh god….when was the last time I actually colored my hair?!  THAT’S my natural color?!  Ugh. 

I can usually make it through dinner without too many stares or comments about how much I can eat (sorry, don’t believe in Jenny Craig.  Anyone that moves tack and hay and chases escaped horses doesn’t need that bitch anyway), and when one or more of my cousins brings their new baby (which is apparently the accessory to have), I can sit quietly in the corner and ponder what halter colors would look best on the new horse at home.  They leave me alone, babies are much more interesting anyway, I suppose.  To each their own.  Although I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m becoming the token “weird animal relative”.  The equine version of “Crazy Cousin So-and-So with all the cats” that every family seems to have. 

Inevitably during the course of the evening, I run out of places to hide and someone asks me what’s new.  I am Facebook friends with some of these relatives, and they pretty much always ask me about my newest shining star of a prospect that I enthusiastically post about.  “I saw that new horse you have!  The red one, she’s really pretty!”.  This is where things usually go south.  I try to be patient, I really appreciate their attempts to relate to me and try to seem interested in the happenings in my life.  I really do try to dumb down my language so that it’s comprehendible to the common non-horse person, but I can’t  I’m terrible at it.  Rare is the horse person that can simply shut down horse-speak, and if anyone knows someone that can teach that ability, I’d love their contact information.  Our conversations usually go something like this:

Me: “Oh, thank you!  She is actually a he, but that’s okay.  He’s such a doll!  Really a great mover too!  Did you see him jump in the videos?”

Them: “Um, I saw a video where he was running around hopping over things!  Did he really win those ribbons?”

Me: “Yep!  That was his first show actually.  He showed in the baby greens and did really well!  Got a little squirrely down the first outside line but the girl that I had riding him kept it together…”

Them: “What do you mean squirrely?  Do they have squirrels there?”

Me: “No, sorry.  I meant he’s kind of green, er…untrained, still, so he wasn’t very good at staying straight between the jumps.”

Them: “Ohhh!  So, is it like, hard for them to jump all of those jumps?  Don’t they get tired?  I mean, it didn’t look like he was going very fast, he looked like he was tired.”

Me: “Nah, he was jumping a hunter course.  They want those horses and ponies nice and slow and consistent.”

Them: “What do you mean ‘hunter’?  Do you hunt on them?”

It is usually at this point that I begin to appreciate why half of the horseshow world tends to go south for the winter.  It’s not because of the shows…it’s because of the forced family interaction if they stay here.  I get it now. 

Our conversations never seem to last long.  I suspect this is because you can only try to explain the difference between a pony and a horse or a hunter and a jumper to the layperson so many times before they give up trying to understand and go back to incoherently babbling at whichever diaper-clad shit-machine baby is in the room.  So I do what I assume every horse person does at a family function: I finish whatever big-kid beverage happens to be in my cup at the time, pour myself another a little stronger than the last, and wonder how I can possibly afford to spend next winter in Florida. 

Polo Knots

     I hate winter, but I hate spring even more.  At least during the winter, I have a valid excuse to bundle the horses up in seven blankets a piece, park them in front of all the round bales they can eat, and hibernate in my house under the mantra “It’s so damn cold out!” and feel relatively guilt-free about doing so.  People don’t judge you for hiding inside when there’s frozen tundra on the other side of the front door, because they’re doing the exact same thing.  Unless they happen to have a heated barn and indoor arena at their disposal, in which case they post stupid selfie after stupid selfie of themselves and their horses being all warm, fuzzy, cozy, and productive in their training.  And the rest of us hate them for it.

     Anyway, I hate winter, but to me, spring is much MUCH worse.  Spring brings sunshine.  Sunshine brings the thaw.  The thaw brings mud.  I hate mud.  Mud means that no matter how warm and sunny it is outside, my feet are cold and wet because those great boots I bought on sale in January are no longer waterproof, and, damnit, there’s another puddle that I end up shin-deep in because puddles apparently eat Thoroughbreds.  Try as I might, there’s no convincing this stupid horse that walking THROUGH the puddle does not mean that puddle monsters will painfully devour her from the hooves up and consequently turn her into a pony.  Leaping sideways and dragging me into the middle of aforementioned puddle is clearly the only way to handle this situation. 

     Spring means that all of my fellow horse owners are getting a jump on their show season schooling, their trail rides, their pasture-seeding, and I’m over here trying to figure out how to lure an ornery old Appaloosa mare to the pasture gate without actually having to let go of the post I’m clinging to, because if I take one more step in, the mud WILL suck my boots off of my feet.  Evidently, this wonderful new property we have has drainage capabilities comparable somewhere between Louisiana Bayous and the Florida Everglades.  I’m certain we already have mosquitoes.  Completely ignoring the fact that the entire property features a grade that makes it nearly impossible to construct an arena or erect a barn without bringing in massive amounts of site-prep equipment, apparently this “grade” isn’t enough to drain anything to the point of being considered usable.  This is bullshit.

     Unfortunately for me, my hatred for spring and the accompanying mud is matched equally by my love of a long, thick, beautiful tail on a show horse.  Yes, I have a garden-variety of tail extensions in my arsenal of show tools, but there’s something so gratifying about a gorgeous natural tail on your horse that leaves everyone wondering how the hell you got it that way.  This past fall, a friend on Facebook finally shared her secret to her “Holy Crap!” tails on her horses: The Polo Knot.  She shared a video and within two days, I was outside with conditioner, VetWrap, and a lot of concentration trying to balance my iPhone on the back of my horse’s ass while trying to watch the YouTube video and mimic what they did.  It worked.  For a while, anyway.  Practice makes perfect though, right?  By the fifth horse, I’d finally figured out how to perfect the knot, wrap it tightly, and make sure that those tails were tucked away high and clean to be left there all winter, fully expecting them to come out in the spring and cascade to the ground like a Herbal Essences commercial. 

      Fast forward four months, and today I found myself ankle-deep in mud chasing the back end of my stupid Thoroughbred back and forth as we played our favorite game: “YOU’RE GOING TO EAT MY TAIL!”-Keep-Away.  She was the only one of the five to still have her tail wrapped from the original attempt back in December, a clear testament to my ability to do anything right.  Because of the mud, and the fact that show season isn’t that far away, I decided then and there to re-wrap all five horses in hopes of trying to preserve what tails they had, and maybe have enough there in a few months to successfully hide an extension in. 

     Now, my original wrapping experience was back in December, and I knew there’d be no way in hell that I’d find that original YouTube video, taking thirty seconds to search for it just wasn’t in the plans either.  I decided to redo the polo knots from memory.  It couldn’t be that hard right?  I knew there was a three-piece braid in there to start with, pull out a small piece at the top to twist with before you start the big braid…braid a little, fold, split the three pieces into two, fold them back and forth a few times around the big braid…some twisting…some turning…wrap with VetWrap and voila!  Couldn’t be that hard at all!  I mean, hell, if I could remember all of that, but I couldn’t even remember what I had for breakfast this morning, CLEARLY I knew what I was doing.  Video schmideo….I had this handled.  It wouldn’t take more than five minutes per horse, tops.  I’d be done in half an hour and could go start dinner.

     Two and a half hours later, as I finished up Cleveland’s tail and realized that I have horrible time-management skills, I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that these stupid polo knots just didn’t look right.  I kept looking out in the field and figured that if the four other horses’ tails all looked exactly the same, just like this one, I must have done it right, but….I just didn’t remember the ones last fall looking like this.  It wasn’t until I pulled out the black VetWrap for Cleveland’s tail and finished the roll that I looked down at his tail in my hand and it hit me…

….Oh my god…My horses have dildos for tails…

     Bright pink, two neon green tails, a purple, and now this gigantic monster of a black one.  My pasture looked like a Lover’s Lane store.  I'm sure that the small population of porn-star horse-owners would be proud, but I am clearly the Worst. Horsemom. Ever.  A quick holler up to Pat in the barn elicited an eruption of laughter from him and a confirmation that even a non-horseperson could recognize what I’d done.  I have no idea how I managed to do it once, let alone five times without realizing what I was making, and I’m certain that if Sigmund Freud were alive, he’d have a field day and would come up with a very complicated explanation centered around my subconscious desire for a vibrant-colored horse-sized device or some crazy shit like that.  I can assure everyone that I get quite enough action in that department, no toys necessary, thank you very much.  I really just have no idea what happened there…in hindsight, I probably should have searched YouTube for the instructional video.

     After realizing that anyone that looks at my horses distinctly-colored tails would wonder just what in the hell goes on here, (seeing as the occupied pasture is along a main road), I had to make the decision.  Do I chase down all five horses immediately and rewrap them one by one?  It was getting dark and I knew I wasn’t going to have that kind of time.  In the end, I decided to leave them in all of their phallic-shaped-tail glory and take care of it during the week as time allows.  Screw it, we’re new to the neighborhood, we should probably just give everyone something to wonder about right off the bat so the crazy shit we do doesn’t come as such a shock. 

Worst. Horsemom. Ever.