The Horse Whisperer

Yesterday we were taking our morning walk around the neighborhood. It would have been quite enjoyable if it wasn't for a certain two year old that decided to cry during the whole 2 miles. Grace had been up the night before and didn't get very much sleep. She is not a huge fan of riding in the stroller in the first place. I know that taking her on a walk was like poking a bear with a very short stick; but mommy needed to step out of the house! We don't really have what you would call neighbors anyway so I knew the only people she'd be bothering on our quiet country roads were the people accompanying her on her walk which only was Maddie and myself. What I did not expect was that one of our neighbor farmers had moved his cattle out of the field and replaced them with his horses. Over the whining I begin to hear "clop, clop, thump." I look to my right and there is a cluster of seven or eight horses galloping next to us. Then they started running in circles next to us and shaking their heads like they were agitated. "Hmm," I thought, "I wonder what's got those horses all worked up?" Well it didn't take long for me to figure out that horses don't like wailing two year olds hanging out at their ordinary quiet turf. Grace was causing a semi-stampede with her screeching coyote impressions. I said, "Grace, shhhhh!! Look what you're making the horses do. You're making them go crazy and run in circles." She responded to this by not crying for approximately 3.5 seconds and then resuming her normal high pitched shrieking level. Well out of sympathy for those poor horses (who finally high-tailed it to the other end of the pasture. Flight or fight anyone?) I took Grace back to the house and we cut our walk short.