The Ones That Didn’t Get Away

Like every morning, after I get everything set up, the fresh avocado toast mixture made, and brewed my first coffee, for me, I sit down to have a breakfast. But this morning was a little different.

As the first bite headed for my mouth I heard a whinny and then a flash of horse flesh as something streaked by the gate. I hear the clack of horse hooves all day, every day. But never running. Then, I heard Pilgrims shouting. Something wasn’t right. The warm waffle, dripping in real maple syrup never made it to my mouth.

Running to the gate, I saw my neighbors horses, and Pilgrims in the road trying to stop them. The horses and the Pilgrims looked scared. This was not a good situation. The Xunta are building the Autovia, and huge trucks barrel down that road all day. I worry about Pilgrims getting hit sometimes. Scared horses? Even worse.

I ran back to the food truck and quickly cut up some apples. Looking around for rope, I saw the hammock ropes, grabbed those and took off running. The Pilgrims who had stopped to try to get the horses under control all spoke ingles. I gave ropes to two dudes and handed out apples.

‘They know my voice so I will go first. If they come near you, hold up the apples and click your tongue. Once they calm down they will take an apple. Then you can slip the rope over their heads.’

We fanned out, but I took the lead since these horses have been fed apples and carrots by Jeff and I for more than a year. It took about a half hour but they finally settled and came over. We all fed then apples as the guys secured their ropes. Then we led them back to our house so I could get more apples from the food truck. Topped up with apples we walked them down the road towards Melide, back home. Our neighbors had been out driving, looking for them and they pulled up when we arrived with the horses.

Jeff arrived home from the bank. It seemed he missed all the excitement. And then, he looked out and spotted horses heads peeking above the all bushes in the field next door. They were out, again! I still had the ropes the owners had brought back from the last adventure and Jeff ran out to take on round two.

I am going to change our sign and my CV. The Happiness Cafe and horse wranglers. It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?😉