Hiking, Attack of the Birds, Horse Round-ups and Fat Lips

Today was a true adventure...

Okay, it starts normal - I wake up, shower, check my email, eat my breaky and change for work. Go to the restaurant, wait tables for five and a half hours and meet up with Renee for some hiking....

...and that's where things go crazy. Renee is house/dog-sitting for two weeks and invited me to join her and the dogs for a long hike today. The dogs are German Short-haired Pointers. When hiking, they both wear zapper collars, which would only be used if they decided to come back with any wild animals in their mouths...hopefully this zap would make them drop whatever wildlife they've found.

The beginning of the afternoon was normal. We changed our clothes, doused ourselves in bug spray and off we went. Apparently there is a loop in the woods that takes about 40 min and brings you back to the house. We hiked and hiked, up and up...then came down, following an arrow on one tree that we assumed would take us towards the loop.

Shortly after choosing our path, I mentioned to Renee that I recognized the song of one of the birds in the trees. We stopped to look at the bird and noticed that it was COMPLETELY FREAKING OUT! Then, we noticed another bird on the other side of the path that was also COMPLETELY FREAKING OUT. Little did we know that on the path lie a baby bird that the two dogs were eagerly sniffing and perhaps licking...we couldn't tell. We yelled and yelled at the dogs, and the birds were doing the same, bodies puffed up, throats swollen with fear and loud, angry, chirping-cries. Eventually, without using the zappers (we're nice dog-sitters), we called the dogs away from the baby bird and went on our way, thinking that would be the most exciting part of our hike....

At a spot that could have been part of the loop we had a choice to turn left (back towards the house? maybe) or right down a short hill, towards the sounds of four-wheelers. We chose the latter. So we went down the hill, passed some four-wheelin' dudes and came out to a road. But where were we? We turned right to see what might be at the crest of the hill. There was a small, rural neighborhood, but we had no idea where we had ended up.

Luckily, a red truck came upon us and Renee flagged it down. She asked which major road we were near and the man said it was West Housatonic Street (it's about four miles in a car from where we started the hike). In return for his answer, the man wanted to know if we had seen a horse. A HORSE? He was on his way to find a horse that had run away! At this point, I realized that I knew the man. I re-introduced myself as the sister-in-law to his friend Jay. Then, kindly, I asked what the horse looked like and what its name was...just in case we came upon it. As Renee points out, perhaps I was crazy asking about what the horse looked like and its name, as if we would really find more than one horse? And as if horses actually answer when they are called??? Probably not, but we would soon find out....

Since we were in the opposite location of where we needed to be, we turned and went the other way down the road, in the direction that Grant (in the red truck) had driven. Turns out it was a dead end. And what do you know...there were about EIGHT HORSES RUNNING WILD IN THE DRIVEWAY! Instantly, I was intrigued.

There was an old German lady named Martha outside the house (I guessed this because there was a fake street sign on her porch that said "Martha's Way" and later I found out she was German - from Berlin, aka "Hell" as she put it - after all, she lived there through "the war"). Anyway, she was standing there staring at us, expecting us to just jump into the herding process. The horses had apparently gotten loose from part of the field where the barbed-wire fence had been removed. Someone thought the horses were eating too much of the grass in the back field and stupidly moved the barbed wires to allow them into the front field, closer to the house. Maybe they hadn't realized that the front field didn't have any barbed-wire...hence how the horses escaped.

So, we asked Martha how we could help. She said she was tired, and with her cane, sat down and said, "Maybe you can take over for me." What? Take over? What the hell was she doing in the first place, besides letting all the horses run free in the neighborhood! (Her poor neighbor just moved in and has all new grass in his yard. I have a feeling he's going to need new seed.)

So, Renee, the dogs and I walked into the yard and starting rounding up horses with Grant. Grant was using an old crooked walking stick to chase the horses; he immediately herded three horses into the barn (one was a cute, little dark-brown foal). I walked around making clicking noises, thinking this was something that horses respond to. Renee tried to keep the dogs at ease and also had the job of keeping the barn door closed so the others wouldn't break loose again.

I then tried to round up some of the horses with a child's plastic yellow wiffle-ball bat (to no avail). Five of the horses ran towards the neighbor's yard: three stayed on the property and the other two probably tore up that poor guy's new lawn. The three on the property somehow found their way back into the field and we were left chasing the last two.

Martha mentioned she had grain in the small barn. Unfortunately, due to her German accent, I didn't understand her at first and thought she was saying she had some "green" in the small barn. There was no small barn. It was just a separate room attached to the large barn. Eventually I figured it out and she said, "I told you so." I threw some grain in a large bucket and carried it out to the yard where the horses were running around. I shook it so they would hear the food inside. Hungrily, the horses came and I hand-fed them at first to get them close to the barn door. Grant ran to grab a halter, which would most likely make it easier to get the horses inside. The darker of the two horses stuck his face in the bucket and Grant sneakily placed the halter on its head...and into the barn they went.

One down, one to go.

At this point, Renee warned me not to get too close to the horses while feeding them. That last horse knew what he was doing and knew how to play our game. He really didn't want to go back inside the barn. I held the bucket out to him, let him eat and tried to caress his neck to keep him calm. He just wasn't having it! At one point, Grant tried to place the halter over the horse's head and, just like that, he bucked up his head, knocking me back and giving me a big ol' fat lip! DAMMIT! Renee was probably also thinking, "I told you so."

After checking to see if I was bleeding, someone suggested bringing the bucket into the barn doorway and offering it to the last horse. I held it there and shook it, making sure there was still grain inside. The horse sauntered over with as much attitude as he could muster and we got him. Mission accomplished!

Grant fixed up some of the rope fencing...rope fencing...yes, you read that correctly! I have no idea what convinced Martha or any of her helpers that rope fencing would be a good idea. Then, it started to rain lightly. Grant and Martha thanked us for our help. Martha offered up some home-made confections and scoffed when we refused. I was still mad that she didn't have any ice for my fat lip :) and Renee doesn't trust strangers.

At that, Renee, the two dogs, Grant and I hopped into his truck and he drove us the four miles back to the neighborhood where we started our hike about two hours before.

Nothing can top this afternoon.