I discovered my senior mare has a set nap time and a set nap place. Just by happenstance I was outdoors around 10am last weekend both Saturday and Sunday. The sun was shining, and a spot in the pasture in the northwest corner on a southeast facing slope, there as my mare sitting and snoozing. When she was younger I’d go up to her and sit on her, calling her my horsey couch. These days, I’m a bit bigger and she’s a bit older and arthritic, so I wouldn’t do that. Instead, I walked up, patted her head, told her how much I loved to see her resting and dozing in the sun like a big equine cat. Her pasture mates snoozed upright nearby, ever vigilant, ever watchful, and I was thankful that they’d stepped up to the plate to keep watch while the old lady rested.
I wasn’t able to get a picture, and I had been in the middle of doing some things, so my husband came out of the house to see what I was doing when he saw me start across the pasture. “Just bugging the horses,” I told him. “Enjoying the sunny days.”
Before moving the Ozarks I was a big fan of snowy cold, Iowa winter. I loved shoveling snow (look up the Weight Watchers exercise points on that some time!) However moving to the south, discovering that I didn’t have to be below freezing for weeks on end, and the joys of not having to deal with frozen hoses and hydrants except for a few times in the winter…well, I’m as spoiled as my horses are.
And as I look out the window to the blue sky, I’m glad my horses are able to enjoy the good weather. With a round bale of hay, a tummy full of soaked alfalfa pellets (for the old lady) and grain for the others, what more could a horse ask for on a lazy winter day?
