Relative Something

Throughout the spring and summer, the horses go through phases of showing emphatic frustration with being harrassed by flies and stoically tolerating their persistent presence. I stood for a while yesterday and watched Swings manipulate her tail. A horse swishing their tail is a quintessential aspect of the animal.

It is iconic. It is what they do.

As I focused on Swings’ tail movements, a new level of appreciation arose in me. The amazing number of subtle muscle movements at the dock of the tail can make the long hairs (the skirt) twirl around in a circle, snap like a whip, or strike a fly on their underbelly.

The gyrations of the skirt become an artistic random wave pattern with a really long reach.

I have been swatted in the face many times as I wander too close when filling hay bags or scooping manure while the horses are eating from their feed pans and swishing away flies.

It is almost always unintentional on their part. The exception is Mix demonstrating remnants of the food aggression she showed when the horses first arrived.

Mix still has moments when she very intentionally shows us her powerful awesomeness.

I admit to smugly enjoying that her ploys don’t intimidate me, partly because she just as quickly will approach and gently share breaths with me.

She never does that (share breaths) with the flies buzzing around her head.

Cyndie and Asher pulled up the driveway yesterday just as I was sitting down in the front yard to enjoy a popsicle on a break from using the power trimmer along fence lines. They both seemed happy to be home again.

I’m pretty happy about it, too.

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