The Not So Great Escape

Monarch writes . . .

We lovez our livez at Bits and Bytes Farm — nice big cozy stalls, plenty of grass in the big pasturez, good company from da other hosses — but once in a while you just got to shake things up a bit.

It wuz about seven o’clock in da evening on Memorial Day, and I had just gone out to the pasture wid Fofo Andy and Saint Lawrence, who we still call “The Baby” even though (at the age of two) he’s 16.3 hands.  We wuz all grazing and just hanging out, and all of a sudden The Baby says, “Hey, I bet we could break out of here.”

Just like dat. Out of nowhere. So I sayz, “What fer? We gotz grass here. We gotz trees ta stand under, we gotz water. What would we do if we broke out?”

The Baby wuz already nibbling on da gate latch. “I don’t know,” he said. “We could . . . we could run out back and see the horses out there.”

“Yeah,” Fofo chimed in. “We could have a race to see who could get all the way to the back of the barn first. That would be fun.”

Me, I’m not much for racing. Never was. So dis did not excite me much. “Count me out,” I said between mouthfuls of grass.

“But there are hay bags in every stall,” The Baby said. “You know how you love hay.”

Dis made me lift mah head out da grass so fast I almost got whiplash. Hay? Nice plump, full hay bags in every stall, wid no one guarding dem? Dis might be worth the effort of escaping. “You keep working on dat latch,” I said.

Fofo went over and together, him and The Baby actually managed to work the latch free. I was surprised, but as soon as The Baby pushed dat gate open, I saw dem hay bags in mah imaginationz, and I wuz off like a rocket. Or like a Thoroughbred. I don’t think I ever came out of da starting gate as fast as I came out of dat pasture. Maybe if dey had thought to put hay bags at the finish line, I’d have been another Secretariat.

Anyway, we wuz all giddy wid the excitement of being free. Free! Free! We flew on winged hoofies down the driveway, across the yard, and into the barn. Freedom! Lovely freedom! And all the hay I could eat! We galloped all the way down toward the end of the 300-yard long barn, toward the back end where the big piles of hay bales are. I wuz all ready to just jump into dem and roll around . . . when I wuz brought up short. Dere was a board across da end of da barn, between where da stalls are and where da hay is stored. Dere was no way fer us to get back dere, or to get out to where our buddy hosses were, in da back pastures. But we didn’t care. Fofo just tossed his head, spun around, and said, “C’mon, let’s race the other way!”

So we started galloping back, but unfortunately our freedom run was interrupted by Elizabeth and Barry, who were waiting fer us at the barn door with stern looks on dere faces. We wuz all brought up short, very short. I didn’t even get to have any hay! And we got lectured, and had to put out halters on and go back to our pasture.

And now we iz separated. Fofo has been put in solitary confinement in Pasture 6A, and me and The Baby iz together, but dey haz put a better latch on our pasture.

But the summer is young, and dere iz still lotz of time fer us to plot more escapes. Watch this space fer more newz of Da Next Great Escape.