It’s been a windy April, and a darned chilly one. In the pasture we’ve experienced rain, snow, mud and wind of Biblical proportion. (I’ve always wanted to say that!)

So I can’t fault my horses for taking a little down time to enjoy the fact that it wasn’t windy.

Or rainy.

Or snowing.

So when I went out to feed them yesterday, they weren’t at the gate. They weren’t even close to the gate.

Where were they?

Smack, dab in the middle of the pasture. Asleep.

I mean sound asleep.

No one even moved when I called.

This freaked me out, because they looked, well, not alive. I sometimes joke about dead horses in the pasture when I see them sacked out, but with my two old sweeties, it’s not so funny anymore. A little too close to reality.

I opened the gate and walked toward the sleeping beauties.

“Hey Bud, wanna eat?” I called out. That usually gets him. He lives for food.

One ear wiggled.

Whew. I was relieved to see movement.

Up popped one head. Then the other.


Bud: “Yikes, we almost missed lunch!”

Pepper: “What?”

Bud: “She’s here with our grain. Come on. Get up.”

Pepper: “I’m still tired. Could you get it to go?”

It took Miss Pepper a couple of minutes and some elaborate stretching to get herself moving. Arthritis is no fun. In the end, both she and Bud made it to the chow wagon.

The moral of this story: A little napping in the middle of the day is a good thing.

For all of us – horse and human.

So if you’ll excuse me, my bed is calling.