Today's revelation

I went out to the farm this morning, as one does, to see my horse.  He was being a sweety.  First I drove to the south end of his field to check out his hay bale (so freshly installed that it's still perfectly cylindrical) and then I turned to drive up to the barn where his gear is.  In the meantime he had started walking toward my car, so he had to reverse and walk the other way with me.

I love having a horse who recognizes my car, and likes me enough to follow my car around.

Of course, despite that he didn't want to be caught, so instead Mystery got a handful of cookies and some attention.  And then Pluto was ready to be caught.  I imagine that if anybody else ever ends up with this horse, they'll be cussing me for his quirks.  But I swear I didn't install those quirks.  He came this way.

He was oddly good on the lead - no lunging for the grass, just sort of calmly walking along at the end of a loopy rope, as if he were well trained.  What's up with that?

I brushed a few loose hairs off him and neatened up his mane a little bit, but he was already looking pretty shiny.  Pluto pretended to be scared of the fly spray when I fwooshed it at him, but he didn't pretend very hard.  Not much is worth the energy to really act out on a summer day.  I said "stand still" and then he did.  A really scared horse would have jigged in place, or maybe just stood and shook.  Whereas Pluto just stood.

I intended to stay with Pluto and let him graze today like Bonnie does with Mystery, but instead Pluto wanted to stand with his head three inches from my face.  We did that for a few minutes while I blew zerberts against his nose, but eventually I decided to put him back out with Mystery and mosey on home.  Between the new grass the rain brought and the fresh round bale, I think he has plenty to eat without grazing outside the field anyway.

After grooming and spraying and making much of him, I suddenly realized that my middle didn't hurt.  I stopped to think about it.  I guess it did still kinda hurt.  I just hadn't noticed.  And that's when I had a revelation.

My brain has been trying to come up with a reason why I should keep a horse when I mostly don't ride anymore.  My heart says "I love him" should be enough, but my brain keeps looking at my wallet.  But today, my brain finally figured out that when I'm with my horse, I forget about everything else.  And I don't have to be riding him for this to happen.  This is valuable.  This is a good enough reason to have a horse that I don't ride.


PS My middle really doesn't hurt as much today as yesterday.  I'm not as swollen up, either.  Yesterday was a very bad day.  Today is making up for it.