redroanchronicles

I know the holidays are supposed to be full of heartwarming moments, twinkling lights and joyous caroling and... whatever. But the truth is that between buying that first present and glazing the Christmas ham, we all go a little crazy. Some people get into brawls with grandmothers over the last available fad toy. Some people... put Santa hats on a bunch of miniature horses and take humiliating pictures.

To be fair (if only to myself), this wasn't really my idea. (It wasn't Flash, Rudy and Rosey's idea of how they were going to spend the afternoon, either.) That blame rests entirely with my friend Kira. Kira is the kind of person who, in the course of her daily life, occasionally thinks to herself, "You know, I should put some Santa hats on some miniature horses." I think that might make her a genius. An evil, evil genius.

This is Kira with one of her horses, Chara. Chara has no winter coat. At all. It's ridiculous. My horse looks shaggy enough to be a muppet, and Chara looks like she's planning on a vacation in the Bahamas.

Rosey doesn't seem to mind this part very much. As I took these photos, Rosey started licking Kira's wrist. Like, a lot. Sure, she looks cute, but apparently she loves the taste of human flesh. This is worrying. I guess miniature horses go a little crazy at Christmas, too.

People often ask me how I wound up with such a robust and vigorous imagination. Okay, nobody's ever asked me that, actually, but if they did, I would tell them that the strength of my mind's eye, as it were, depends at least in part upon the weakness of my actual eyes. I have horrible eyesight, you see. Beyond just making me stumble over things in the morning and contributing to my ability to get hopelessly lost by making it difficult to read those tiny little street-name signs, the general problem with my eyesight is that it turns much of the world into a mystery to which I will never know the answer. Luckily my brain, being accustomed to being constantly deprived of real information, has learned to make up its own.

Take yesterday. I'm driving home through surprisingly thick traffic, and I pull up to a stop light, and the car in front of me has a license plate cover which says, in part, "GOATS & HERBS."

I know, right? "GOATS & HERBS." What a mystery. What could it possibly mean? I'm sure I'd know, if only I had slightly better eyesight, because the license plate cover said something else on the top, no doubt something that would've blown the lid off the whole affair, but the type was smaller. I couldn't read it.

I was left instead to ponder this great question of the universe on the way home: what about the "GOATS & HERBS?" Exactly what idea was that license plate cover meant to advertise? Feeding herbs to goats? Goats marinated in herbs? A program teaching inner-city goats to grow herbs? Or perhaps the owner of that car just likes goats and herbs equally, and though they have nothing to do with each other, he didn't want to give either one preference over his heart. Or license plate. "It's like asking me to choose my favorite child!" he must've wailed, when the kid at the license-plate-cover kiosk in the mall told him that both I have a very high regard for goats and but my love for herbs equals it wouldn't fit.

I don't blame him, honestly, but I don't see what herbs have got on goats. Herbs can be delicious and all, but goats are adorable. Goats like a good scratching and they like a good snack even more. They're easily pleased, and I like that in an animal, because I also have very low standards.

Goats are awesome, even when they smirk at you like they know something you don't. Probably it's something about herbs.

I'd like to introduce you to someone who is very close to my heart.

She's close to my heart pretty literally, most of the time. Especially if I'm sitting on a particularly delicious bit of grass.

I don't know if you realize this, but whatever bit of grass you're sitting on is always more delicious than the rest. I have a theory that it's because your body heat has pre-warmed the grass and therefore made it more tasty.

Or possibly they just like to see if they can get you to move. They want to know exactly how soft your heart is so that they can discover ways to use that to their advantage.

In any event, this is that special someone I wanted to introduce you to. This is my Juno. (No, I did not name her after that movie with Ellen Page, though I like both that movie and Ellen Page. And no, she is not pregnant. Even when she sort of looks like it.) Juno is my horse, and when I say that she is mine what I really mean is that I am the person who is privileged enough to feed her and dote on her and keep her in the luxury to which she has become accustomed.

Juno is somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 years old. I think. Possibly. And she's a mustang, which is awesome, because I'm all about mustangs, and she was wild until she was about 10 years old or so, which I always like to tell people because it totally makes me sound impressive.

Here on this shiny new blog, I'll be posting a lot about Juno and our various shenanigans, so here's what you need to know, in a nutshell: Juno is my best friend. She's a work in progress as a horse living in the human world, and I'm a work in progress as a human trying to open some meaningful lines of communication with a horse. We're getting there, and we've already reached some big milestones. (The biggest one, I think, was when Juno decided I wasn't half bad. It kind of all falls into place from there.) We've got more work to do, and I hope you'll come along for the ride as I natter on about training and share epic and overzealous photo essays and perhaps write a haiku or two about just how soft Juno's nose is.

Because it really is incredibly soft. And kissable. And expressive and wiggly and fuzzy. And it smells of grass. Just look at it, and admit it to yourself: you are helpless to resist the power of that nose.

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Entries tagged with animals

Holiday Fever

Goats. And also herbs.

The Amazing Chronicles of the Most Epic of all Junos

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August 2011

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