I hope you all don’t mind if I share this brief story about something that happened to me yesterday. I’m so looking forward to sharing it with some fellow horse lovers, because when I told my family this story, my twinlings thought it was kind of cool, and my hubby didn’t seem too impressed. But, my daughter was with me when it happened, so she was as entertained as I was………
I had just finished harvesting the remainder of the apples off one of our two apple trees. Between the birds and Apache eating most of the granny smith apples, there weren’t many left over for us. But the red delicious apple tree gave us a pretty good harvest.
During the gathering of the apples, I found some bruised and dented fruit, so I placed them in a basket to take up to the horses, both mine and my neighbors’.
As I was sharing the apples with my neighbor friend’s 4 horses, over the fence, Apache came over to hang out and bum a few apple slices, even though I had just given her a couple apples before lunch time.
I was feeding Yalla! slices of apple when one of the slices fell to the ground. After a couple minutes of Yalla! snuffling around for the apple I realized I’d have to pick it up and re-feed it to her. So, my daughter handed me a stick to poke through the fence, and as I was squatting down, poking at the apple slice, trying to pull it closer, I felt something rubbing me on my head. I didn’t become alarmed because I figured it was just Apache licking my hat, which she has been known to do. But a minute later, just as I dragged the apple slice through the fence, I felt my hat lift from my head!
I looked up to see my hat gripped firmly, but lightly, between Apache’s teeth! What a silly mare! haha!
She shook it gently back and forth and then turned and walked away. (At this point I was giggling!) When she got about 10 feet away, she bent her head around to look at me, with my hat still clutched in her mouth. I was so tickled and entertained by her impromptu playful behavior, I didn’t want her game to end, but when she turned her head back around Apache dropped my hat onto the ground. Awww.
Of course I have no pictures of Apache taking my hat, but later I took a photo of my hat and noticed the spot where my mare had picked it up with her lips and teeth.
I wish I could have gotten it on video tape, so I could replay it. Apache mare was just so darn adorable. My daughter just wanted to know why Apache took my hat, but I didn’t care why. If I had to guess I’d say that she wanted me to stop feeding and petting the other horses and pay attention to her instead, but I’m not a horse, so I can’t be positive. But if that is what she was trying to do, she accomplished her goal because all of my attention was on her and not any of the other horses.
The other neat thing about this experience, is that I’ve been wondering for a while if this particular hat is bad luck. I hoped not because it’s a special hat that was sent to me all the way from Australia from a blog friend soon after the surgery I had to repair my ACL, after falling off of my mare Baby Doll.
But I have already been knocked down and broken my knee by Baby Doll, while wearing this hat, and recently kicked in the face by Apache, while wearing this hat.
But maybe this cute display of playfulness erases all the bad stuff? Sure hope so!
As for Apache’s behavior, I was hoping this was a trick someone had taught her earlier in her life, so I tried to get her to take my hat in her mouth again, but she wasn’t interested. She did lick my arm and hand for a while, though. And she also seemed very pleased to receive wither and butt scratches from me.
So, what I’d really like to know…….has your equine pal ever played a game like this with you? Has he or she ever stolen your hat? Your gloves? Your drink or snack? Does your horse have a sense of humor and creative ways to get your attention?
