Annie's Bobcat Ride

Why is it that horses only do the craziest stuff when you don't have a camera? I've been working on some major renovation projects lately. Unfortunately, it's been taking up so much of my time, I've been largely ignoring Annie, and she is getting bored. This led to a very interesting situation this week.

A couple of days ago, I needed to get the bobcat/skid-loader out of the back of the barn in order to move a shit-ton of cinder blocks, a project I was less than enthusiastic about. I gave my horses some scratchies and pettings, then dragged myself to the barn. Annie followed me inside and watched intently as I opened the rear gate and climbed in the ancient, bird-shit-spattered bucket seat. She's seen the skid loader lots of times before; she and Mr. Strut don't even flinch anymore when the ancient thing rattles past them to scrape poop. Today, however, she seemed very interested.

I bent down to turn the key over and pull the choke knob, located conveniently so far under my crotch that my own stomach fat gets in the way when I try to reach it. When I finally struggled upright, Annie was looming over me.

"What? What is it? You've seen this before. You've seen me on this before. I think I've lectured you a million times about how I wouldn't have to use this damn thing so much if you'd just learn to poop right on the manure pile!"

Grumpily, I bent down again to crank on the starter. When I had the engine going and lurched upright again, Annie was still there. Actually, she had stepped into the bucket.

"Hey, move. Hey! Move! Annie, move! Moooooooooooove! ANNIE. GET OUT OF THE WAY!"

No matter how hard I yelled, clucked, kissed, squealed, flailed my arms around, pushed on her head or mooed like a damn cow, she did not budge. I couldn't exactly get off to get a halter lead her away either, since she was effectively blocking my only exit. So I did the only thing I could do. Very gently, I started moving the bobcat's bucket.

I went up a bit, and she stayed put.

                         I edged forward a bit, and she stood as solid as a rock.
                                                        
                                                                      Up and forward, up and forward, until....

The entire time she was completely calm and stared directly into my face. If she could talk, she would have been saying, "I'll teach you to ignore me. Try to ignore me now, bitch!"

Annie did eventually get down/off, but then stood directly in front of the bobcat and would not budge an inch. Just for fun, I actually pushed her a few inches across the smooth concrete floor by gently shoving at the base of her hooves. She stood quite calmly, with a "fuck you" look on her face. When she finally let me leave the barn, she followed me everywhere, hindering my every movement, until I made it out of the gate (which she tried to squeeze out of as well).

The moral of the story, kids? Don't ignore and/or piss off a 1,200 pound horse-- she WILL find a way to get revenge.