Relative Something

There is nothing else I need to do. Caring for and entertaining (in Asher’s case) our animals is my only duty for a week. When Asher and I approached the paddocks yesterday morning, I thought it looked like the horses might have been spooked into the back pasture. Light was alone in the round pen. Her movements gave me the impression she didn’t want to be in there anymore. However, she wasn’t making any progress to the open doorway.

I carried on with cleaning up under the overhang, filling hay nets, and preparing their buckets of wetted grain while they messed around in the fields.

The horses kept looking in the direction of a crowing rooster pheasant to the north. The apparent alarm of the horses had me wondering if the pheasant was calling out a warning of a predator in the vicinity. The next time I looked to see if I could find what was bothering the horses, I found the pheasant strutting around on our driveway like he owned the place.

Well, that indicated to me there was no threat around, or that pheasant would have noped out of there long ago.

I walked through the small paddock toward the crazy bird, and he took to the air with all sorts of squawking and disappeared across the plowed field north of us. Slowly, the horses made their way in and settled down to eat.

Asher and I headed out mid-morning to check on how nice the thaw was progressing and found the horses standing rather sleepily in the sunshine.

Since the dog and I had trudged a full circuit of the property, I offered him a chance to pause in the warmth radiating off the doors of the hay shed, which was also serving as a good windbreak. I leaned back against the shed door and closed my eyes, knowing it was going to be very easy to fade into a nap.

The sound of a horse stumbling rejuvenated my alertness. It was Light. She is notorious for failing to lock her knees sufficiently when she drifts off into a standing slumber. I liken it to the feeling when fading off to sleep at night, that suddenly the bed is flipping over and startles me back to awake. That hasn’t happened to me for a long time. My sleep arrives easily without any fuss these days.

Asher was too busy surveying his kingdom to nap with the rest of us. He saved that for later, on the floor in the house where the heat was amplified through the full-length glass in a door.

I never said focusing on the animals is strenuous each and every minute. Since they are all great nappers, there are plenty of moments when it can be superbly calm and restful.

Even more so when the weather is sunny and warm.

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