Grounded!
I am off from work this week.
To my coworkers’ utter confusion, I am remaining in town. I mean, who wouldn’t want to stay in hot and humid Houston in August when they could get away?
Actually, I hadn’t thought this through. I see where they are coming from now.
What I was thinking was “hey, cool, boot camp!”
I’m getting extra lessons on a schoolmaster so that I stop flapping around like a monkey in canter transitions. Ro is getting extra work sessions so (hopefully) she will start to realize she is a horse and not a giraffe.
Since she’s working hard, I thought I’d be nice and also give her some extra hand grazing time. I’ve been letting her run free on the property for a little while each day, since her idea of “run free” is to graze in place for an hour.
Today? Not so much.
She saw an opportunity and started ping-ponging around the property. In deference to the heat, she stayed at the trot. She made it clear, however, that she had no intention of being caught.
You know how they say people can run faster than horses over short distances, because people only have two legs to coordinate? The people running those tests clearly never tried to catch a horse that doesn’t want to be caught.
If I were being brutally honest, I’d admit that it was the slowest chase in history, with Ro only trotting as far as she had to go to snatch some grass while I caught up (at a walk). And I’d admit that it only lasted about ten minutes before she decided even trotting in the heat was too much work. But that would be a rather sad chase indeed, so imagine something spectacular, would you?
After I caught her and the horse she coaxed to trot along with her, cooled them out, and put them up, I went into her stall to explain the consequences of her actions.
“You’re grounded,” I said. “Hand grazing only from now on. On a lead rope. And only for as long as I want to stand in the sun, which is much less time than I was willing to sit in the shade and watch.”
“So we’ll do it again tomorrow?” she asked.
“No, grounded. No more. Ever again.”
“Tomorrow?”
“No!”
And then I realized I was trying to reason with a horse.
I blame the heat. The sun. Whatever mental defect caused me to stay in Houston in August instead of going someplace cool, like the Sahara.