Our horse Lilly escaped her enclosure on a beautiful summer day. I spotted her across the road at the boat landing parking lot, dining on lush virgin grass. Grabbing the rope to lead her back, a young fellow pulled into the parking lot ahead of me. I knew he was bright, because he said:
“Hey, do you know your horse is out?”
I simply smiled and waved to him to show that he’d been heard.
He ran toward Lilly, trying to get on the other side of her and drive her towards me. Running, Lilly running, no progress because Lilly ran wherever she wanted to in the wide-open boat landing.
Now, if I were a mean spirited, rotten sense of humor type country guy, I would have shouted instructions to him.
“Try to surround her.”
“Sing while you’re chasing her, she’ll come up to you.”
“The faster you run at her the quicker she’ll give up.”
“Eventually if you chase her enough and yell at her, she’ll stop and let you pet her.”
But that’s not me in real life. After all the guy was gracious to stop and offer help. Waving to him, I yelled at him to come back to me and let Lilly run. He sat on the large rock with me, I talked to him a little, and I shared a couple of horse sense/ animal sense basic rules.
“Chasing only excites her, and you’re just one person. Also as a stranger she has no sense of trusting you. Watch this, see what she does.”
Shaking the pan of grain and calling her name, she looked our way. Slowly she walked in an “ah shucks” manner toward the two of us.
In 3 minutes she stood by us, eating the feed while I put the halter rope on her. The guy got a kick out of that, and with a wave and a goodbye, got back in his car.
This reminds me of the poster and saying that advises a person a way to achieve happiness and how to get a butterfly to land on a person’s shoulder.
Don’t pursue it wrecklessly, do calming things and live your life with good intentions, and soon the butterfly will be resting on your shoulder and also you’ll find happiness has also arrived in your life. Excuse the mixture of these sayings, but I’ve got a sneaky suspicion that you know those words of advice.
(Below: not our horse, just thought you’d enjoy this photo)
