dancing horses

dancing horses

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Charlie the Sequel

Sorry guys about the delay in completing this story. Life got away from me a bit. 

As you know, Charlie came to visit last september and we thought we had seen the last of him. However, that idea turned out to be wrong. 

A couple weeks ago I came home from work and decided to do some work with steele. I got him  all geared up with his surcingle, cavesson, boots and we head out to the ring. As I entered the path between the paddocks I stopped dead. Between us and the ring is Charlie. He raises his head and looks at us. Steele stops and both ears swivel foward and all three of us stare at each other. Charlie goes back to grazing on the grass beside the riding ring fence. 

Crap. 

I turn around and head back to the barn. Muttering I take all the gear off of Steele. He's looking at me as though to say 'what was the point of all that?'

I look out and there's Irish grazing happily on the other side of the fence from Charlie. They both look relaxed and happy. 
The horse that is rendered to a quivering mass of nerves and panic by a mini horse is completely unfazed by the bull. I then remember that he was born on a cattle farm. sigh. 

I head into the house and tell Ed what's happened. He asks if I want him to come out. No! I don't want him out there again.

I get in my car and drive over to the second driveway. There's a house on the road so I stop there to check and see if they are the owners. A young girl (19/20) tells me that it's her grandparents and they live up the top of the hill. I get back in and drive up. As I drive I"m muttering to myself- they are going to have to get proper fencing I decide. And I"m going to tell him so in no uncertain terms. 
As I head towards the house an elderly man comes out. I tell him that his bull in my field. 

'over with the horses?' he asks
'yes!' I say
'he did that last year!'
'yes i know' 
'well I'll drive over with you' he says cheerfully and hops in. I get in and turn us around. 

When we got there, he jumped out and walked up to Charlie. I hung around behind to see how he got on. Charlie looked at him sulkily and walks away  with Irish and Steele following along on the inside of the fence. Charlie heads through the brush to our other neighbours with his owner in hot pursuit. Irish watches all of this with great interest. I debate whether to follow and end up standing uselessly holding a lunge whip. I see a truck come down the road and come to halt. A few minutes later he moves on and I assume that all is good. Charlie is back home. 

I deicided that there was no point in discussing the fencing.  I'm thinking of planting a barricade so that Charlie is discouraged from plowing through. Any ideas? 


3 comments:

  1. That's sad how poor the guy is... Unfortunately I have no useful suggestions for keeping the bull out.... it's hard to keep a hungry bull in his pen without a strong barbed wire fence. :(

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    1. I should mention that the cow and bull are well fed and have lots of grass. Charlie just seems to like to visit.

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    2. Oh really? Around here if they get out it's because there is a drought and no grass growing, the pasture is weedy and/or they don't have hay. Hmm... I'm glad he's not hungry at least. :) How big is his field? Are there any other bulls he's having to compete against? If not, maybe he's just a nomad lol.

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