Journal of a Living Lady #214

 

Nancy White Kelly

 

Spirit and Skip. Skip and Spirit. Where there is one, there is the other. One is eleven. The other is seventeen. Introducing the two newest additions to the Kelly menagerie. Officially, they don’t belong to us. They are on loan from young friends. Unofficially they have become family members, constantly running, eating, and you know what else.  Piles of it.  I now tip-toe through the formerly vacant pasture.

 

We used to have goats who begat more goats. A family friend took them to her farm which we affectionately call the Mountain Zoo. We’ve had a cow or two, but they ate more grass than we could grow and weren’t very cuddly. The one with horns glared at me and snorted like a bull.

 

Buddy and I used to enjoy chickens, ducks, and guineas. Unfortunately, the vanishing night varmints out-smarted us with their game of Fowl Prey. After finding feathers and feet almost daily, we stopped raising anything that crowed or quacked. Neighbors say the sneaky, mysterious murderers of the night might have been possums, foxes, or coyotes. I think they are wrong. It was the Poultry Monster who is second cousin to Big Foot.

 

Skip and Spirit are tall and feisty. We don’t need to worry about them being victims of the night phantoms. While they are somewhat skittish in their new surroundings, the mare and gelding are slowly warming up to this other old couple down the hill. They are partial to Buddy. He has a knack with God’s creatures. Buddy communicates with this covert language, a combination of sounds and motions that only they understand.

 

Buddy’s earsplitting whistle must be a man thing. I can’t do it. The few times I have attempted a horse whistle, with two fingers spread across my lips, all that comes from my distorted mouth is blubbering air. Buddy can whinny too. I won’t even try to make that sound. Now, a horse’s rear…I can imitate that in real life, but try to be a respectable Southern-like lady most of the time.

 

Buddy took Spirit and Skip red apples today. The horses much preferred those juicy orbs to my over-kneaded, hard as rock dinner rolls. I couldn’t dent the concrete-like bread with my dentures. Buddy wouldn’t eat them. So, I renamed the brown nodules, Equine Delight Treats, and took them to the pasture. Skip and Spirit weren’t impressed. My attempt to get them to at least nibble my humble offering was in vain. I tossed the tough, baked balls of dough, one by one, into the air. Each fell with a deep thud. Maybe the feral barn cats will use them as soccer balls.

 

nancyk@alltel.net