Rolling out the Welcome Mat

We arrived at Crazy But Lotta Fun Farm in the early evening  one late November day. It was a Friday, allowing us to be around the next day during their first turnout and in there first few days of acclimating to their new home. We got the horses settled in to their stalls in the upper barn, a temporary location until their stalls in lower would be ready.

The upper barn was also affectionately known as the Ghetto barn.

The Ghetto barn was a small structure, with only seven stalls. It was a quaint concrete block barn, with a narrowish aisle. The stalls closest to the entrance were probably 9' x 11'. The back two stalls were a bit larger, one of which had a connecting run off of it that was a good 90' by 100' or so, if memory serves. Klaus and Cappy were squished into two of the smaller stalls, but this was temporary until stalls in the lower barn were finished up enough to accommodate them.

The boys fared well overnight, and the next morning I arrived out at the Ghetto, ready to ride my boy and explore his new digs. I saddled him up, and we went out to check out the galloping field, which also had a few jumps sprinkled about. Cappy hacked along with interest, peering curiously at the water jump and the bank, snorting with suspicion at the ditch, and generally enjoying himself. We walked through the "quarry", a strange 80' or so circumference area with abrupt wall like sides along the majority of it and a rough rock bottom with some areas of standing water.

The outer perimeter of the galloping field was where they spread manure from the barn, and it made a nice sort of track. There were meter markers up along a further inset area of the field, to help those who needed to learn pace. Most curious of all, there was a perfectly groomed stretch of grass in nearly the center of the galloping field, which I later learned was an airstrip for the owners planes. NOT TO BE RIDDEN ON.

After we had seen the galloping field and looked with some suspicion at the cows on the neighboring property, I rode back to behind the main barn. I hopped off, led him  into the turnout field, and hopped aboard again. There was a bank complex out in this field that was a bit worse for wear due to erosion, as well as some trails someone had mentioned to me near the back wooded section, along with a little tire jump. We rode up two of the small steps of the bank complex, wandered along the back fenceline, and headed in to the woods.

There was a steep descent along a narrow trail with close, overhanging branches. I clung low to his neck, occasionally turning my head up to check our progress, my eyelids squinched against attack branches. Cappy surged over the dry creek bottom at the bottom, and hauled butt up the steep opposing side with me still a burr-like passenger along his neck. Gaining the top and a bit of open forest, I sat up and turned left to follow the trail. Cappy took two strides and froze.

I felt the tension in my little green bean, like nothing he'd done before. He had stopped breathing, and his heart thumped palpably through the girth against my leg. I braced for whatever may come as I tried to see whatever it was that was alarming him. When I saw what he had seen, my bowels and blood ran cold.

Bear. A standing bear, barely disguised by the autumn thin underbrush.

A brief stab of terror prevented my mind from processing. My brain was a jumble of survival mode questions, with the voice of reason attempting unsuccessfully to break through. This is Ohio, we don't have bears... do we? Can a horse outrun a bear? We're screwed anyway with the fence and gate, and... Please don't dump me and leave me to the bear, Cap.

From Cappy's mind all I heard was, Oh shit bear. Oh shit bear. Oh shit BEAR. Oh shit bear.

He was from Minnesota. He should know.




As I tried to breath, I realized the bear was not moving. At all.

Curious...

Cap and I realized the truth at the same time, and we breathed out in a huge collective exhale that on my part turned into laughter. Plastic. Fake. We had been frightened to within an inch of our lives by a big piece of fiberglass. I felt somewhat mortified by my stupidity. Of course there are no bears here in Ohio.

Although... who the hell buys a life-size fiberglass bear and puts in the back woods?


Welcome to Crazy But Lotta Fun Farm.