Gusty Winds and Rain

Monday was an especially windy, rainy day, and while we were busy with visitors to the farm in the late afternoon, a very large tree came down in the back pasture. We had neither heard this nor saw it happen, but while in the house preparing supper, I looked out the kitchen window, I wondered why I could only see one grey horse. I ran down to the pasture, and was greeted by a very calm Lincoln and Danny & Dakota at the gate. It was then that I could see that the tree had come down. Duke Diesel & Gillette were the only ones brave enough to walk over the electric rope on the ground, laying under the tree's massive limbs, to make their great escape into the woods.

Naturally, our woods are full of trails, which Gillette knows like the back of his hand by now. He must have taken the others here and there, then up to the road on the driveway that parallels our property. Terry, grabbing the tractor to meet me in the back pasture, happened to notice that cars were slowing down and lining up in front of our house. Sure enough, the three greys were at the end of the driveway. Terry ran up there to round them up, and they turned and raced back down the driveway, this time coming through the opening to our property line between us and the neighbor. Before I could get up to the top of the ring (I was trying to put up as much fence as possible to be sure to keep the other three in), Terry had them rounded up and tied to the hitching post. All this in a gusty rain.

One of yesterday's chores was purchasing round bales, and so we took a bale down to Lincoln, Danny & Dakota to keep them occupied while we sawed up the tree. It didn't take us very long, but still it was dark by the time the fence was back up and all six horses were back together again.

In the night, I had dreams of heavy rains and winds, of flooding and washouts, and of my giant horses, defiant and beautiful, racing through it all.

Photos: Top - Terry uses the tractor and a chain saw to remove the large tree from the fence.

Bottom: Two of the run-aways, Duke & Diesel, look as though they know they've been caught!