Horsing Around

The creamy linen envelope was stiff with importance. It contained a single embossed card under a square of translucent tissue. In perfectly set script, it read:1

The Park Commission2

wishes to announce that3

your back yard has been4

selected for a game5

preserve and that the6

first shipment of 5007

buffalo will arrive at8

your home on Tuesday9

at 3:45 a.m.10

Grandpa Joe had kept in touch with his best friends after selling his innovative dry cleaning businesses in the city. They had a few belly-laughs over the idea of him buying a 5 acre spread and investing in real estate in the distant mountains of Montana. The elegant announcement was representative of the kind of humorous interactions they had always enjoyed with each other.11

After his own fashion, Grandpa replied in kind. He spent hours with his beloved horses and pony, teaching them to come when he whistled, and lift a foreleg and move it up and down at his instruction to “Shake hands.” Queen, the palomino, he trained to lift is cowboy hat in her teeth, as a reminder he should always remove his hat in the presence of a lady. He would apologize for the oversight, and she would return the hat. King, a chestnut with a white blaze and white stockings, could prance forward, back, and high-step sideways at his instruction. He spent a lot of time and effort on these, and other, entertaining tricks. When he was satisfied, he wrote his old friends about how marvelously trained his Western horses were (not at all like Eastern horses), and how pleased he was with their progress. The next time they were headed out West, they really must stop for a visit at his little spread and meet these remarkable animals!12

After meeting the horses and participating in their tricks, the friends were always impressed. Certainly, these were exceptional horses! Then Grandpa would take them to see his beautiful red and white barn. 13

He would share one or two successful training tips as he put on the lights just inside the well-maintained double-Dutch door, which opened on the cement walkway which ran in front of the stalls. Each was immaculately clean, strewn with fresh straw, with sweet dried alfalfa fragrant in the mangers. In each stall, a metal pail stood a few feet in from the wall containing some horse apples (the brown, smelly kind). A partially used roll of toilet paper was mounted on a spindle on the wooden dividing wall between the stalls. On the floor, within a few feet of the bucket, would be three or four wadded pieces of toilet paper with smearings of horse dung. In exasperation he would apologize to his guests, and with some irritation explain that while he had been able to teach them to poop in the buckets, they just couldn’t seem to grasp the notion that the toilet paper was to go there as well! With thinly disguised embarrassment, he would collect the papers into the bucket. Testimony to this general difficulty was, regrettably, similar in each of the other stalls.14

After some head-shaking commiseration and reassurance of their appreciation of his animals’ fine abilities, his friends would savor a lovely dinner of fresh-caught trout with garden greens and homemade preserves on piping hot biscuits. Yes, they would have to admit there was a lot to be said for country living! 15

When they departed after an enjoyable stay, they would look forward to sharing their experiences back home with the guys. Such impressive horses! How frustrating it must be, that they had trouble entirely mastering this one hygienic skill, even under expert tutelage! Poor ol’ Joe! 16

Back on the homestead, Joe would be currying his horses, and joining them in a horse laugh!17

18

[For you non-farmers, how long would your horse’s neck have to be to reach its tail end, or how else would such a delicate maneuver be accomplished?]19