We pulled down the lane to sprawling pastures, rustic buildings. There was a pen full of horses to our right. The horses were screaming and running around like lunatics as two young handlers seemed to be working to catch them, or maybe just calm them down.
“That doesn’t look encouraging.”
Jeremiah shook his head no, exasperation apparent.
“Part of me just wants to turn around and leave now.”
We had just pulled into the drive at a local summer camp. A new client of Jeremiah’s, they had called for trims earlier in the week. He scheduled with them–seventeen local trims in an afternoon is nothing to sneeze at–but he was vaguely nervous about the whole experience. He last experience with summer camps had led him to a corral full of ill-behaved horses with completely green handlers. (And by that I mean that they literally had never worked with horses before. Ever.) He was concerned that this one would be the same, an accident just waiting to happen.
I came along just in case. If no one there knew how to hold a horse for trimming, I was there to pick up the slack and try to keep Jeremiah safe. I would be able to manage vaguely naughty animals, but if they were truly dangerous, we would leave.
They were screaming and carrying on as we pulled up next to the horse barn and parked alongside a beater truck that probably belonged to the camp. As we climbed out, we were introduced to the director of the equine program at camp. She was on the shorter side with long, dark hair. Only twenty years old, a fact that she kept apologizing for, she was the one in charge of the seventeen horses in the corral and soon to be in charge of all the children who would ride them. As we made introductions, I watch another girl, her helper, climb out of the horse pasture carrying a fawn.
The director glanced over.
“I’m so sorry about the horses. They were spooked by the fawn just a few minutes ago and took off running.”
I think Jeremiah may have breathed an audible sigh of relief at that. When spooked, even good horses sometimes behave badly.
I watched the helper carry the fawn to the shade.
“How’s Bambi?” I asked.
The director shook her head. “Bambi got trampled by the horses, and I think she has a broken leg. I don’t think she’ll make it.”
… Continue reading “Oh Honey.”
Almost Farmgirl 