Maggie on the Lam

Murray had his taste of freedom, I guess Maggie deserves hers as well.

There's just one problem with letting the horses run into their stalls from the attached paddocks. The inner stall doors need to be closed, or else they can run right out through the front of the barn and into the driveway.

It's supper time and Maggie, as usual, is waiting outside her door to go in to her feast. The door that leads from her paddock to her stall has to be opened from the outside, so, I go outside, crawl through the space between the fence boards (too lazy to open the gate), and open the big door. As I swing the door back, I can see through her stall to the inner door. And I see that it's open. It's too late for me to close it though, Maggie's already shoving her way into her stall.

For a moment, I think that she might ignore the open door and choose to eat the hay that's already neatly piled in the corner for her, but no, her natural curiosity propels her out the door, out the barn, and onto the un-mowed grass immediately behind the house. I head toward her thinking that at least she's much easier to catch than Murray, but she's got a green-grass buffet, and she's not anxious to give it up. She looks at me out of the corner of her eye, and trots a few steps further away, without ever lifting her grass-mowing muzzle from the ground. I head back to the barn to get a bucket of grain.

Inside the house, Dave is sitting in the rocking chair by the picture window. Suddenly, he sees something large and black on the lawn. His first thought is: "Melissa must be taking Maggie out for some grass, that's odd though, 'cause it's supper time". His second thought is: "That's odd, Melissa's taking Maggie for some grass, but Maggie doesn't have a halter on". His third thought is: "Melissa's taking Maggie for some grass, but she doesn't have a halter on and, Melissa's not there". At this point, he puts down the laptop and comes outside.

Dave comes outside just in time to see me standing on the lawn, wrestling Maggie into a halter while she has her nose shoved into a bucket of grain. "What are you doing?", he asks. I glare at him and ask for some help.