Held Captive For a Ransom of Apples

I lived in the country around Winnipeg for many years. On the next acreage was Joan, a woman who took pity on her city slicker neighbour and who became a friend and a source of knowledge about the care of a rural property.

She owned and boarded horses, having a herd of five. Our properties were separated by a bush line, and we created a walking path through the bush as a shortcut as we moved back and forth to visit or chat.

While Joan was at work, I would wander over to her place and call the herd to me. During the spring, summer and fall I would take the horses grass clippings from my lawn and apples from my trees or carrots. They soon learned to run to greet me for their treats.

Not knowing much about horses, I watched them closely each time I interacted with them. A large gray horse called Smokey was the long time leader of the herd. He clearly viewed Joan’s property as his. He and I locked horns one day.

Joan piled the horse manure in the back area of the pasture. She had piles of manure that had decomposed down to dirt. I had a passion for gardening and created new gardens each year. Gardens needed manure. What a perfect solution for us both. I had a lawn tractor and wagon in which I could haul the manure. Joan agreed to be the supplier of my garden needs.

To get to the manure piles meant going through two horse gates and then driving through their pasture, around the barn and then to the stockpile. In my preparation for entering the herd’s territory Joan walked me through the process to ensure the horses would not be inadvertently set free. She suggested that I not take treats with me for the horses as they could rapidly overcome me once I was in their pasture.

I loaded up my shovels, hitched up the wagon and rode over to Joan’s property one sunny day. I made sure to leave the apples behind. I made it through the first gate with the herd not paying much attention to me. By the second gate, they started watching me and began to mill around. I did not talk to them telepathically or verbally but drove slowly into their midst. They moved into my path, sniffed my hair, sniffed the tractor but didn’t impede my journey. I distinctly got the impression that apples were on their minds.

As I rounded the bend to the manure piles there stood Smokey, horizontally across the road. He looked at me but remained there, blocking my passage. I could not move the tractor to go around him because there was bush on one side of the road and hay bales on the other side.

I stopped the tractor. Smokey continued to look at me. I asked him if he would move so that I could pass. He refused to move. I asked him two times to move, after explaining why I wanted to go by him. Both times his response was “No”. Finally I asked him what I could do in order for him to let me pass. His response was quick. He said the next time I was in HIS yard, I was to bring apples with me. I agreed without hesitation. Smokey gave me a steady look and then stepped to the side of the road, allowing me to pass.

I restarted the tractor and continued to the manure piles. As I started to shift the manure into the wagon, I glimpsed a large gray shape in my peripheral vision coming towards me. “Rats” I thought, “he’s back for more blackmail”. Not so, Smokey walked over to the manure pile and climbed to the top of it. This pile was at least 20 feet tall, so no ease feat for a horse. When he got to the top of the pile he urinated. Then gave me a steady look to see if I had received his message. I had indeed. I told him “Thank you for allowing me to take some of YOUR manure from YOUR yard.”

From then on, when I went in the horse pasture, no matter why, I always took treats with me, especially apples and I never again had any problems with Smokey.