Farrier Fiasco Continued
[Following on from Hurricane's first encounter with a farrier - swift, efficiently handled and with me as spectator... TSM = The Sheep Man.]
Heads (or bottoms) up, I can’t write funny so this scene is short – much shorter than the event described… No doubt it looked funny with me the butt (pun intended) of the joke, especially from behind and now – ten years on – with hindsight. It wasn’t at all funny at the time, not least having been teased about having a big bottom since primary school and being well aware that I looked like an idiot.
The action takes place in two adjoining fields totalling about x acres. The gate between them is open. Both boast invisible pit-holes for feet to stumble upon.
It’s hot and I’m already bothered, since TSM never has much time unless it’s for a cigarette, waiting for a lamb to ewe or to yarn with fellow farmers about the weather…
Today I’m his novice assistant getting Hurricane into an enclosure he’s already been tricked into entering once before – so we're dealing with a clued and revved up horse.
That’s before he senses my anxiety waving like a red flag down to him at the bottom of the bottom field…
‘Here. Take this.’
I take hold of the end of a Very Long Rope.
‘I hope you can run.’
He doesn’t wait for an answer. Just as well. Never been much of a runner.
‘Watch me, and don’t let him get past you.’
It is now inevitable that I will.
So starts a fiasco during which Hurricane makes a beeline for my end of the rope every time our rope fence decreases the size of his field, guiding him into the enclosure. He knows who’s the slower and less intuitive.
Without the heightened hearing that most farmers are endowed with, I am deaf to the nature of the bawling directed at me. Perhaps it’s just as well.
We start again from the bottom of the bottom field. And at least TSM closes it. We only have one field to work with now.
We start again.
And eventually of course we succeed, as TSM quips before disappearing,
‘I told you. Only good ‘orse is a dead ‘orse.’
But Hurricane’s hooves get loving attention from the ginger-haired farrier while I get my breath back.
And by the next time my beloved chestnut has to be moved it is not TSM who helps out. Nor is it my relationship with Hurricane that helps either.
Sex – or the prospect of it – turns into a lifesaver.
But before that, we're going to get very muddy.
#horse #farrier #funnynotfunny