145. Taking the spring out of springtime

The early May grass at Gus’s farm is gorgeous.  All the equids are gobbling it up like starvelings.  For me, that presents the perennial problem of getting Gus to leave the pasture when his grazing time is up.  The horses may resist a bit when their owners pick up the lead rope and head them away from the grass, but they reluctantly assent and follow politely along.  Not Gus.  As with all things in his life, Gus does not do what he doesn’t want, and nobody can make him, so there.

Each spring, I have to remind myself how to handle — or avoid handling — this intractable problem.  With the lead rope looped both over and under his muzzle, I can prevail if it cinches tightly, and if I give it a bit of slack before he hits the end of it, and if I pull back with all my weight.  It’s not fun, but it seems preferable to letting him realize that he can pull the rope away and run off and keep grazing.

Today, I need to bring Gus into his stall  after about 20 minutes on the grass.  He shoves his anvil-like head into my ribs and pushes me away.  I dance around and evade.  He dips his head to drape the lead across his neck and starts to pull away hard.  I scurry to his other side, bringing the line off his neck again.  He backs up and backs up and backs up, until I grip the rope, at which instant he barges forward and then curls back against me.  Now I’m getting steamed and tugging on the rope, which irks him so that he resists more . . . and war is declared.  When he turns tail and revs into a fast trot straight away from me, I hang on for dear life, vituperating through gritted teeth.  He tows me across the whole pasture, my arms outstretched, my body leaned back, my knees bent to stay low, and my feet running fast to avoid being pulled down.  Not a dignified picture.

But I freakin’ win, damit!  The rope’s latch-snap digs into Gus’s chin so he finally stops running.  After that, I gather up the rope and he marches alongside me into the barn like a good soldier.  He’s smart enough to know when resistance is futile.  

Me, I’m not that smart.  Or that athletic anymore.  Within two minutes, I realize I’ve strained some crucial core muscles:  I’m not hurting, but I’m feeling jittery and woozy and almost queasy — some major abdominal nerve is panicking . . .  As I groom Gus and put away our musical toys, I begin to feel pain illuminate my lower back and wash down my right leg.  Shit!  When I suffered this same injury years earlier, from hours of digging in clay soil to haul out a buried hunk of heavy iron, the misery lasted for many months.  And here I’ve done it again just because I got mad at a donkey?  Who’s the ass now?

While I nurse my sore back, I ponder what to do when next I visit Gus.  He does need to be grazed — it’s good for his belly and brain.  But he does need to stop grazing at some point, and how can I make that happen?