When you have animals of any species, you seem to develop some odd sixth sense that instantly recognizes when something is out-of-place or out of the ordinary. I imagine it’s much like the eyes in the back of Mom’s head, invisible, but she always knew what we were up to. At my house, an empty ziplock bag in the center of the living room floor means my puppy probably just ate a pound of baker’s chocolate. When my brother drove by the barn and saw two horse butts in the breezeway, it meant that Heidi and Boogie had broken out of their paddock.

Who, me?

My brother is not a panicky fellow. He turned off his car and got out. On his way into the barn, he shut the big breezeway doors behind him, so the horses no longer had 40 acres and the highway just a few steps away.

Boogie had gone to the hay stall and dragged a bale of orchard grass off the top of the pile and into the center of the breezeway. He looked up at my brother, all innocence, “What? I don’t have an entire bale of hay right here…and I’m certainly not eating it.”

Heidi had gone into the alpacas’ stall, as casual as can be, and started eating right out of their feeders. The girls were locked out into their paddock, and Brittany was looking into the stall, greatly distressed, “She’s eating our food! She’s eating it!”

She's eating our food!!

Both horses were easy enough to round up, and they hadn’t been out long. In fact, Brittany seems to have been the most disturbed by the entire adventure! How dare that big animal just march in there and eat her food? The nerve. 🙂