I left it up to her, and she took us on my favorite loop, which is 2.5 hours but doing it on foot was partly miserable. The donkey helps pull me up the hills, but every time I say good girl Bellis she stops and asks for a cookie: )
Mag walking Ani directly into the brush for snacking. *sigh*
When we finally got back up to the road, we heard a couple of tractors coming and as they came into view behind us, I saw one of them was pulling a hay trailer. Ani was still mounted on Mag, trusting him completely. I was curious what would happen.
The first tractor passing him was OK, but the second, with the trailer, put him in a panic. He backed up fast and ran straight into Bellis and I. Trying to get out of his way, I almost ran into the tractor. Mag went down into an almost sitting position on the street, not sure where to go, with the other tractor in front of him. Then he slid off the road into the gully as Ani flew off his back and tried to get the reins over his head to contain him.
Afterwards we both agreed we'd never seen a horse so scared, and not take off. It was unbelievable. She has been thrown by him in one of his panics, twice. She said, "It felt like he was sitting down." I said, "He was." I remember several children in the tractor looking at him and I remember his snorting, shaking, and his sides heaving, all his veins standing up. The tractor driver politely observed my raised finger requesting a moment : ).
The donkey didn't get what the fuss was about. *sigh*
Before we got back off concrete and onto trail again, we found the field the tractors were haying.
And we found the most adorable scene. 4 little kids in a tractor, their mom sitting in the grass, their dad driving the other tractor, bringing round bales to the trailer. The music.
Apparently tractors have stereos?! It was blasting "We will rock you" by Queen and the kids were having a grand time screaming the words and thumping and clapping along.
Except they don't know English and all they could manage was "We will, we will, we will, we will."
Hilarious. A happy ending to a terrifying tractor encounter.
If you listen carefully you can hear Queen:
5 comments:
I love the self control! sounds like progress!
poor Mag! He reminds me of Carmen when she's trying to hold it together!
Scary! Glad everybody survived to join the chorus.
Seems like it was a good coincidence to come upon the two tractors again afterwards...Mag could see them, and hear them, and maybe recognize that they weren’t as big a deal as he thought (though he was still obviously on edge). Glad all survived intact.
Have you tried a Magnesium supplement? No pun intended :-) Thankful all are OK!
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