Relative Something

Our herd of four like to pair up in twos and yesterday at their mid-morning nap time they looked downright synchronized.

Mix and Swings have their snouts on the ground while they are sawing zzzzzs and Light and Mia are about as side by side as possible pretending that they are not nodding off during their shift on watch.

During the afternoon feeding, Cyndie took advantage of the food distraction to detangle a snarled dreadlock in Mix’s tail that was never going to come out naturally. Mix seemed to understand what was going on back there and gladly tolerated the activity.

I have no idea how wild horses must deal with this kind of thing.

In ever so small steps, the horses are showing hints of developing the beginnings of a possible bond with us. If I could hedge that statement any more, I would. I’m not sure that it is any more them adjusting to us or the other way around.

Yesterday morning, they were almost perfectly matching our intentional routine without a fuss until Mix made one slight gesture toward Light and Light accidentally smacked her neck against the corner of a fence post in her frantic attempt to instantly exit stage right.

Think of how you feel when you stub your toe in a major way and that will inform you of how Light looked in the ensuing seconds.

She stood on three feet while flexing her front right leg for long enough I began to wonder if there was a bigger problem than just stinging pain. Then she set it back on the ground and shook her head like she was trying to get out cobwebs. She repeated both actions one time, in shorter intervals and then seemed to be over the worst of it.

I looked at the fence post and found a surprising tuft of her hair lodged on the corner. My gosh, that must have hurt. Checking her neck, the spot of impact was obvious but hadn’t broken her skin. It looked a lot like the places on their butts where they get bitten by each other.

Makes me think about how much those nips must hurt. That explains why they react so frantically to get the heck away when aggressors pin back their ears. Keeping their butts just out of reach of a biting threat is a high priority born of experience.

Next thing you know, they are napping together peacefully.

Thunderstorms and sunshine.

War and peace.

Do we really need the first in order to appreciate the second?

I could do without the warring part of the equation, thank you very much.

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