Ponytales

On a cold, snowy weekend in February, Boyfriend Extraordinaire and I ventured out into the country wilderness and came upon a corral of horses who were just itching for some human contact.

By far, one of the largest horses I've ever seen, this beauty, named Tiny, towered above the other horses. He reminded me of a viking with his shaggy blonde mane and enormous stature.



There were three folks on horseback in the parking lot and we walked over to chat with them. Their horses were very friendly, and one seemed to be quite taken with me. Perhaps it was because I whispered in her ears, "You are such a beautiful horse. If I had a horse like you, I'd never ride you. I'd just worship you as the beauty you are." She must have liked those words because she actually snuggled her head against my chest and let me stroke her pretty face.

The corralled horses were a riot.

Quite a bit of horsing around was taking place. Despite the cold, the horses seemed to be eager to get some exercise by play fighting with one another.


Sometimes it was painful to watch. Other times I had to giggle as I imagined comic book exclamations like "Pow!" and "Bam!" as they reared up and elbowed one another.


Whap! Slam! Bang! Boom!


Some of the horses were a little shy.


Others were feeling quite amorous.


QUITE amorous! I think I saw some tongue kissing going on. Get a room!

At one point, Boyfriend Extraordinaire approached the fence so closely, I felt compelled to warn him, "Um, you know that fence is electrified, right?"

He couldn't hear me through his many layers of hooding and said, "What?"

I repeated, "The fence is electrified. Be careful!"

Still he couldn't hear, and then suddenly...

Bzzzzzzzzzzz... "OUCH! I got shocked!"



It was really cold. I'm not usually one who complains about the cold, but I was stomping through 8 inches of snow in my gym shoes, bundled up in a down coat and heavy gloves, with a hood wrapped so tightly around my head that I had only a small hole to see out of. Boyfriend Extraordinaire wore his enormous sleeping bag coat and mittens with hand warmers inside. Judging by this reaction, I'm guessing the horse thought we were wussies in the cold.


Yeah, okay, so we were all bundled up and they were naked, but shouldn't we be the ones laughing at them, then?


These two seemed to get into some serious fighting, and the darker horse let out some primitive screams that made me think they were griffins in disguise. Maybe chimeras. Definitely not horses.

No matter what we did, now nicely we spoke, we couldn't get the horses to get close enough so we could pet them. That is, until B.E. started reciting Shakespeare. Standing at one end of the corral, he began the speech, "Friends, Romans, Horses, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with Caesar."


I could not believe it, but the horses stopped what they were doing and listened. Imagine that! All this time people have been calling them, trying to lure them with sweet talk, and what they really wanted was someone to recite Shakespeare. Remember that next time you're around your equine friends.


Within moments, they started to walk closer to him and took turns allowing him to pet them. Shakespeare! Who knew? Mark Antony's words wooed the herd and B.E. had his hands full of some friendly horses that wanted to be touched by the man who gave them Shakespeare.


I fell a little in love with this guy. I'm convinced he is a recovering unicorn.


His lips were polka-dotted. How cool is that?!


White eyelashes! What gorgeous eyes! He was so sweet and pretty that I just didn't want to leave.


Yum, tires!


Then it was time to do the hokey-pokey with the tires. Or was it horse calisthenics? Hurdles? Whatever the case, I was amused watching him step into and out of the tires repeatedly.


His parting gift of making me laugh was great.


With that, the sun had set and all the other horses had retired to the woods for the night. My friend slowly wandered off to join the rest of the herd and Boyfriend Extraordinaire and I returned to the warmth of our car. Sometimes it's good to get out of the chaos of suburbia and get in touch with nature. Just remember to brush up on your Shakespeare beforehand.