Relative Something

Sometimes a girl just wants a little alone time. I don’t blame her one bit. Poor Mia holds the dubious position of being last in the herd hierarchy and frequently gets told she is not allowed to stand where she happens to be at a given moment. Constant admonishment has got to get old. I find it annoying to watch.

It makes Mia the jumpiest of the four horses. Yesterday, I spotted her laying down for a mid-morning nap all by herself way out in the front field.

The situation stood out to me because, for a horse, that vulnerability of laying down to sleep usually relies on another member of the herd watching over them. I suppose Mia had just gotten fed up with the rest of the herd and needed a little extra space.

When I got close enough to see around the barn I was relieved to find the herd wasn’t entirely neglecting to keep an eye out for one of their own.

Light was standing guard, just from a distance this time.

I always feel a little bad about interrupting a napping horse and paused for a moment, on my way to put a splint on the broken post, taking pictures while contemplating whether or not to proceed. I hadn’t even finished that pause when I saw the initial movements of the way a horse gets up off the ground. Mia’s nap had ended.

Did she feel the energy of my arrival? It wouldn’t surprise me one bit.

It isn’t pretty, and I doubt it will withstand any additional assault from the weight of a horse, but I’m thoroughly satisfied with the temporary fix of the post that Swings ran into at the gate opening.

I had grabbed the first two saved sections of 2×4 I saw leaning on a wall of the shop before hiking down to the scene of the damage. This band-aid will suffice for now. Being that it is located well out of view from most vantage points, there is a high likelihood I will let this crude “temporary” repair remain in place until a new reason triggers a need to replace it entirely. I’m in no hurry to go through the effort of unscrewing all the boards and pulling up the bottom half of the broken post to install a whole new one.

Temporary is a relative measurement, isn’t it?

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