Lessons learned the hard way...

One of these days, I intend to sit down and write a list of life lessons I've learned the hard way...things like, don't second-guess someone who knows what they're doing, which I learned when I got dumped off a horse who spooked after stepping on a downed fence I didn't see (she didn't want to take the step, I pushed her into doing it...and I paid the price.)

But, for now, I've got a new one--the futility of losing your temper with someone for doing what they're supposed to do. I went to Marla's place today, to help haul some more hay for the horses (7 tons...if you do that every day, 7 tons isn't much...but if you do it maybe twice or three times a year, 7 tons is Herculean...)

Because of road conditions, they left to start loading the truck before I got there; so, while I was waiting, I went over to say hello to the horses. Two of them are mine, after all.

But Marla's llama, Squeakers, was rather forceful about staying between me and the horses, at the gate. Every time one of them would walk over, he'd step in the way.

Now, to really explain my lack of patience with Squeakers, I have to tell another story. Several months ago, in early November, Marla's mare had just foaled, and we had a nasty storm blowing in. Horses can handle cold fairly well...they can tolerate being wet. They don't particularly like wind, but they can deal with it. But, like any other mammal, when you combine all three, you can end up with a very serious problem. And this was one of those storms. So Marla and I went out to catch the baby, Beowulf...he'd only been born a couple of weeks earlier (very much a surprise baby, Marla had been intending to keep her mare separated from the stud but misjudged the timing).

Now, windy weather makes a lot of horses very 'spooky' and high-strung...and Beowulf was no different. On top of that, he's a very big-boned warmblood, which means that he's extremely large for his age (at two weeks, he was the size my foal had been at four weeks). So, armed with two different sizes of blankets, we went out into the storm, intending to get one of them strapped onto him...this, complicated by the fact that he'd never seen a foal blanket before, and horses notoriously don't like new objects in their proximity, especially very large ones.

Things weren't helped, either, by the fact that his dam, Adee, was worked up over the storm, and wouldn't stand still for us to get anywhere near her...and he was right by her side. As it continued raining, we kept chasing them around, until, finally, we got Adee to stand in one spot, while we succeeded, after another few minutes, in catching Beo. We toweled him off, then got the smaller foal blanket on. It fit pretty snugly...so Marla decided to try the medium.

That was way too big, large enough that he could tangle his legs up in the straps and hurt himself, so we decided too tight was better than too loose, and went to take the blanket back off. I was holding him, while Marla worked with the blanket. She undid the straps, and began lifting the blanket, while I let go of his neck so the blanket could go up and over his head.

He bolted, and instinctively, I grabbed the blanket, using my body weight as a drag to try and slow him down. I had the presence of mind to realize that planting my feet would be a big mistake, so I tried to keep moving...I succeeded in keeping them off the ground, mostly, while Beo's motion pulled me forward faster than I'd ever run across that paddock in my life. My eyes started getting a little wide, and I had visions of a painful end of the run, as I realized he was heading straight for the corner, and potentially into one of the most solid sections of the fence out there.

Apparently, at that moment, he realized the same thing, because he suddenly tried to change directions, shifting right in front of me as he tried to spin around. I slammed into him, throwing him off balance, and my grip on the blanket dragged me down on top of him.

I found myself a little disoriented, aware of a wet spot soaking into the hip of my jeans, and tried to get up...but couldn't, for some reason. Then I became aware of Marla yelling something, and heard something flopping overhead. And I realized something was on top of me, though I couldn't imagine what in the world it was.

Finally, it moved...and as I got up, I saw Marla chasing Squeakers off, with the hat that had been yanked right off my head by Beo's launch forward. Yes, I may be one of the few people you'll ever hear of who's been attacked by a llama.

So, you can imagine, as I was standing there, wanting to scratch either of my horses' heads, that a pushy llama did nothing to improve my mood, especially with a certain degree of bad blood in place between us. Yeah, I know llamas are guard animals. I know they perceive the animals they are fenced in with to be their flock, regardless of what those animals may be. Squeakers is good at it...he's even managed to alert Marla and her husband to raccoons that were sneaking in to raid the chicken coop on several occasions.

So, acting as a floating barrier between the horses and me was only natural for him (I don't think he's ever forgiven me for knocking Beo down...and I'm quite certain he hasn't forgotten the several minutes I spent chasing him around the paddock, in the rain, kicking him in the butt any time he slowed down long enough for me to reach him, just to teach him to keep his distance from me...the lesson was OBVIOUSLY highly effective, right?)

But I was still irritated. So, after trying to shoo him away a couple of times unsuccessfully, when he stuck his nose in my face again, I took an open-handed swing at him, thinking maybe that would encourage him to move away.

Ever seen a llama? They've got a neck that can flop around like a wet spaghetti noodle one minute, and be as unyielding as a tree stump the next. He saw the swing coming, did some funky twist with his neck, and completely side-stepped the swing...and my hand smacked into the fence, led by the tip of my thumb.

It hurt...a lot...and it didn't stop hurting. So I took off my glove (last time something like that happened, I put a big bruise under my fingernail, which has only just finished fading out, two months later), to assess the damage.

I split my thumbnail...in THREE PLACES. I caught the fence at JUST the right angle, folded the nail over, and split it down into the quick. My thumb was bleeding, it was cold, and I felt like Squeakers was just standing there, mocking me.

To my credit, all I did was swear at him a little bit...swore more at myself...and went inside to get a bandaid. It was already going to be a long afternoon--but it just got longer with the throbbing in my thumb reminding me that losing my patience, once again, accomplished absolutely nothing.

So, this post is taking half again as long to type, because my thumb doesn't feel right, both because of the tender tip and because I can't feel the keyboard through the bandaid. It's nothing serious...but it will serve as another one of those little physical reminders...just like the scar on my cheek reminds me to not get too caught up with looking at where I've been in life (because when I was too busy looking over my shoulder one time, I ran right into a bus timetable and dug a little furrow in my cheek.)

Some people can learn these lessons the easy way. Some need a little more physical reminder. I hope I don't forget this one...because it hurt. I don't want to imagine what the next reminder will feel like.