Home on the Range

Well, things are going well still, but there is a big ol' adventure to report. One of the paddocks that I drive to each day to feed the horses is a retirement of sorts. There are 4 old horses, ranging from old but mobile, to nearly skeletal. The trick of this specific paddock is that you drive up, get out of the car, open the gate, get in the car, drive through, then get out to close the gate before proceeding to where they're fed. The problem yesterday was that not only where they waiting unusually anxiously near the gate, but I managed to drive the car in on top of the strings that are the gate, so I couldnt' close it without pulling the car futher forward. Now at this point I probably could have come up with any number of genius solutions, but I figured I would just sort of shoo the horses away and try to move the car and close the gate real quick. Next thing I know there are four old geiser horses trotting down the road with me behind them trying not to totally lose it and scare them more. They eventualy walked past another field they liked the look of, wandered in and just started to graze like they did this kind of thing all the time. I'm freaking out and unable to call Anette because I purchased only 5 minutes for my phone and had used them up. Finally I was able to sort of close them in the field and drive all panicky to find Anette to help me. She made sure I felt a little foolish, and understood how serious of a problem it was (horses in the road are worse than deer), but then sort of admitted that these things can happen to anyone. Horses seem to be the sort of animal that is really easy to manage 95% of the time, but that other 5%, you just never know what kind of stunts they'll pull.