They Tried

Sophie the Lodge Dog is getting old.  She's on anti-seizure medications that make her kind of dopey, and affect her ability to "hold her water".  She needs to go out every four hours.  Or less.  So we let her out before we go to bed, and then get up and let her out in the wee hours of the morning. (Do you suppose that's why they call them that?)

This morning after I let the dog back in at 3:am, as I crawled into bed, I just barely heard something.  I couldn't quite identify it, but it sounded familiar. I looked out the window to see if I could spot what was making the sound.

I saw a sight I had never seen before.

A half dozen horses had escaped from the livery across the street, and were TIP-TOEING DOWN THE ROAD.  This is no mean feat when you are wearing steel shoes, but they were managing it.  I will normally wake from a dead sleep when I here a  horse walking on the pavement, but these clowns were very quietly just shuffling along, trying to keep from waking anybody that would catch them and make them go home.

Early in the ensuing round-up (which soon involved an additional half dozen horses breaking out and having to be turned back to their corral), Juanita stopped to check on our horses to see why they hadn't raised an alarm, as is their want when the neighbor horses get out.  Our horses were still asleep, and when she woke them up they were sort of bewildered as to why we were out at that time of night.

After we got all of the escapees back in their pen, we headed home.  As we went in the lodge,  I abruptly realized that the horses weren't trying to sneak past me.  They were sneaking past our horses.

Nobody likes a snitch.