Ideas of Grandeur or “Angel with Hooves”
Picking up from yesterday, my two older kids are at the car [or supposed to be]. Me and the two younger kids have our backs to the tree [and thorns from some sort of plant poking through the leg of my jeans].
A different brown horse came from my left, sort of poking at me, poking near my feet where those two bags of food were.
The big horse? He moved closer to us. Went nose to nose with the new guy and finally sort of butted the other horse in the nose. The other horse backed off and [eventually] walked away.
I came to realize [much earlier than this – before my older girls walked away really] that this big horse was watching out for us. Protecting us.
Me with the horse two days later :).
He stayed nearby, prevented other horses from getting too close and just basically stood guard.
It’s weird, I’m sure, but that’s how I felt. That’s what I told the kids [while praying I was right and that he wasn’t just waiting for his shot at all the carrots ;)].
I never doubted this horse, who I’d never met, was looking out for me and the kids.
Red swoosh arrow is where the horses came from.
Eventually, it was just the big brown guy and another white horse. The brown horse walked away [maybe he knew we were safe with the white/gray one?] and eventually, the other one followed. Once they were far enough away, the little two kids and I gathered our things [out of the thorny plant at the base of the tree – pricked right through my jeans], and walked to the van.
Once I got to the fence, the kids changed their tune :p.
“Mom, can you see if the horses will come here so we can feed them over the fence?”
Fine.
Horses around the gate
I walked back up the hill and spent about ten minutes trying to get their attention and get them to come my way while trying to stay close enough to get back to the fence without getting overtaken.
My focus was on one horse who seemed to be thinking about it. All of the sudden, about ten of them came around a stand of trees [I’d been keeping an eye on it but hadn’t seen movement]. I didn’t dawdle, but made it over the fence with plenty of time to spare. We got the carrots and apples back out, but by then all of the horses were crowding the gate area and after a couple minutes, I decided it was time to cut our losses and just leave.
So we did. I’ll likely take the rest of the carrots and apples over tomorrow and drop them off for a horse or two to find. From the time we climbed the fence until the time we were back in the van was a bit over an hour. No wonder I’m sore! Most of it was spent trying to get two little kids to be calm and quiet ;).
God took care of us. He sent us a four-legged angel with hooves to keep an eye on us. None of us were ever truly scared. None of us were ever really in danger, despite tons more horseflesh than we’re used to.
The whole time I thought of my sweet friend Candace Calvert and this picture.
Candy Calvert and Winter Winds
It makes me smile. It made me smile as the big angel horse got near us.
We got to pet a couple horses on the nose and feed apples to a few of them.
And I got a story to tell ;).