Feeding The Horse[s]

My mom, sister, and I were all talking about the things I do for others without getting paid, so here's an excerpt from my new book The Things I Do For Free:

Feeding the Horse[s]

I have a friend who asked me to feed her horse one weekend while she and her family were out of town. With nothing better to do that weekend, I agreed. I knew where the barn was, but I didn't really know anything else...

Once I got to the farm, I parked my car and headed out to the corral where The Horse and his corral-mate were, thinking the food would be nearby. They both saw me coming and ran over, thinking I'd have food. I didn't have the food, and it wasn't nearby, so they were disappointed and I was lost. I had to walk back over towards my car to get the food, then headed back to the corral. The corral-mate knew I had food this time and stayed by the fence [I had to tie him to the fence so he wouldn't kick The Horse when he was eating]. The Horse, however, had been so severly dejected that he headed back out without his food. Nothing I could do from the safe side of the fence would bring him back, so I had to venture inside the corral to lure him back. Since the corral-mate was tied up right inside the gate, I had to carefully walk around his backside to not get kicked, then walk out to The Horse. He ungraciously ignored me--great. I had to walk back to his feed bucket, grab some feed, walk back out to him, offer my feed-hand, let him eat the feed out of my hand, then walk him back to the feed bucket for the rest of the meal. Then it was carefully back around the backside of the corral-mate to get back out of the gate. Whew!! Since the corral-mate was still tied up and would kick The Horse to get his food once he was done eating his own food, I had to wait about 20 minutes or so for The Horse to finish eating so I could untie the corral-mate. Luckily I had grabbed a book to read. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my anti-chicken repelling goo to keep the chickens away.

The next day, I had to do this again! Luckily, I knew where the food was and was able to take it with me the first time so I didn't have to get into the corral again and have The Horse eat out of my hand again. Unluckily, someone else had been there since my first visit and had removed the halter from the corral-mate. How was I supposed to tie him up?!? Fortunately, the nameless visitor had left the halter on a nearby fence post and I was able to use my summer-camp-with-horses-training to get the halter around his head and neck in only about three tries. Unfortunately, I had once again failed to bring my anti-chicken repelling goo to keep the chickens away.