Cheese and Ho

Back when I was a young teenager my father had obtained several horses on trade for work he had done. These horses were as varied as the things you would find between the couch cushions. One horse was blind in one eye and spooked whenever you would approach from the blind eye’s side. One horse was named Satan but was as mild a horse as you could get. One horse was named Ho- named by my brother Taylor who was 2 at the time we got her and would only say “Ho” instead of “horse”- we ended up breading this horse and Ho had a baby boy we named Cocheese. We had another young horse named midnight that was a pretty decent horse but we always had health problems with this horse. One day she ate dog food and almost died from that!

Josh and I ended up getting stuck with the duties that come with owning horses. We mucked out the crap in their stalls, etc. I think that is the reason my father had children- so he could get us to clean up the crap from all his pets!

A year or so later, after the dog food incident, she was struck by lightning and was sadly killed. My little sister Brittany was traumatized by the incident and when another lightning storm rolled in a few weeks later she was insistent that the remaining horses be brought into their stalls.

Josh and I drove over to the place where we kept the horses- only three were there: Satan, Ho, and Cheesey (Cocheese- calm down dad!) Satan came nice and quiet to the stalls, Ho and Cheesey were a different story. Josh and I tried everything we could think of. We tried to bribe Ho to the stalls with carrots, apples. She was not easy to catch either. We finally caught her but couldn’t get her to budge without her precious little Cheesey who was only a few months old. So, Josh and I devised a brilliant plan. We tied Ho to the fence with a strong horse rope. I then proceeded to pick up precious Cheesey and carried him toward the stalls. Momma didn’t like this and strong as she was she broke the rope that we had tied her to the fence with and came charging towards me like the Ho she was!

Not being stupid I tossed poor ol cheesey and ran for my life, escaping the trampling hooves of Ho by mere feet. She angrily ran around until my dad showed up (at Josh and my request) to help with the troublesome duo. He quickly caught Ho and led her quietly to the stall, with diligent Cheesey following closely behind his Ho momma. My dad tried to explain how simple a task this was and seemed a little perturbed that we couldn’t do this ourselves.

We no longer have any horses- incidentally this came about around the time that he no longer had any children at home to clean up their crap. I think the dog is next on the list!