I mentioned my Haunted Pasture a few blogs ago and many of you wished that I would elaborate.

I thought about this request and wondered if I had enough to say about the Haunted Pasture besides:

a)  my horses hate being in there so…

b)  it must be haunted

But then I stepped back and thought that just about every haunted house story is the same – no one can prove anything but everyone clamors to the haunted house in the hopes of seeing/hearing/feeling something.

I find this interesting… humans will investigate in the hopes of being truly frightened and horses will run away in the hopes of not being truly frightened.

Duh, I know.  It is the Prey vs Predator thing.

Except for some of us humans, a haunted house is about as enticing as a… haunted pasture.  Take me, for example.  I don’t wanna know.  I’d just as soon run from a bump in the night as I would stand there and investigate.  No thank you. I’m outta here.

THE HAUNTED PASTURE

To be honest, I see nothing wrong with the pasture.  It is full of grass, nicely shaped, has many trees which look onto a fairly serene view of grassy knolls with a lookout towards some parts of our house.

Having said that, I did take a burning sage stick and some incantations into it about 3 years ago.

SAGE

You see, we had rented this ranch for 2 years while we had to be elsewhere.  When I came back to the ranch, it felt oogey.  I cannot explain it but my lovely setting, which once held such sweetness and bird chirping happiness, now felt oppressive.  Ugh.

The worst part was that I didn’t feel safe.  Since Hubby travels often, this was not good.  So, after a few chit chats with friends, I was told to get some burning sage – and some other thing that I’ve forgotten – and take those items to all four corners of the ranch and say forceful commands like “get out” or something cryptically poetic to that effect.

So, I did.

The dogs followed me while I was doing this and I remember thinking that the dogs were a good choice as partners in this venture because they love me no matter what silly thing I’m doing…

THE RITUAL

I went to all corners of the ranch… except there are several corners, really, since it isn’t a square.  Hmmmm.  I did my best and also covered some of the jigjags in the fences, just in case the underworld and I were not aligned in our ‘corner’ definitions.

Ahhhh.  I felt better.  And, actually, I truly did feel better.  So, for whatever this ritual accomplished, I was grateful – even if it was all just in my head.

BUT THEN

OK, so a year later, I created another pasture which connected to the arena.  I did this because I have an addiction to fencing.  (I am also addicting to hoarding boxes – but that is linked to my need to recycle via Ebay…)

Anyway, I love to see nice, clean fencing.  And, I like any other type of containment devices… purses, luggage, Tupperware, things with lids or compartments – I think it has to do with my need to organize.  But, whatever… what I’m trying to say is that I decided to fence-in the unused grassy knoll behind the house.  So I did.

THE NEW PASTURE

The new pasture is very nice.  It has just enough shade and sun, the horses can look into the house or the pony pasture. And, the grass is really nice in there.  Fresh.  Not over grazed and under fertilized.  I thought I would use it as a ‘bonus’ pasture where I could graze horses that needed some green grass.

Luckily, I had my thinking cap on when the fence builders were here (often I don’t don it until after they’ve left and I get the shuddacouldawouldas) and I asked to put a cross fence in there and a gate between the now 2 pastures.

Done.

THE TWIN PASTURES

So I now have the option of using the area as one big pasture with a run-through gate, or I can use it as two separate pastures.

Here is the issue…

When I use it as one big pasture, all the horses will migrate to the pasture behind the house and stay there.  If I make it into two pastures, the horses in the first pasture will freak-out and do stoopid things while the horses in the 2nd pasture behind the house eat quietly.

This makes no sense because the 1st pasture is just as nice as the 2nd pasture PLUS it has a view of the arena, Finn’s pasture and all the way to the Hallelujah Gate.  But, when I put any horse in there, it takes about 5 minutes and they want O-U-T.

CLINICAL TRIALS

OK, they aren’t really clinical, but I have tried feeding horses in there with the hay in all different areas to see if they stare in any one direction – looking for something.  Maybe there is a coyote den up there, dunno.

Nope.  Nothing changed.

I tried leaving horses in the double pasture hoping they’d get tired of the 2nd pasture and wander over to the 1st side.

Nope.

I tried sitting up there with them.  There I was, sitting on a rock in the 1st area with the horses in the Happy Pasture looking at me like, “What are you doing Crazy Human?  Come over here with us!”

I just don’t get it.  I’m pretty certain I saged and incanted up there.  I don’t think I missed a spot.  But maybe I sneezed during the ritual or stunted my energies in some manner when I happened to be throwing salt over my shoulder while in that field…

TO BE HONEST…

To be honest, when I was up there, it did feel oogey in an odd way.  It felt as if the world was askew or a bit sideways.  I guess this feeling is difficult to describe but it was something like being forced to drive on the passenger side of the car or something equally as disorienting.  It kinda felt like I was in an odd vortex.  Hmmmm.  I mean, I knew where I was and I knew nothing was going to hurt me, but I did feel a minor disorientation.

I had to agree with the horses; it was unsettling.

So, I decided to let them only use the 2nd pasture even though I keep the gate open to the first just in case any brave soul lets hunger win out over fear.

HOWEVER

Last fall, when the grass was all gone from my neighbor’s place, I let Finn and BG into the Haunted Pasture.  Finn became frantic as he does in new places, and ran immediately into the 2nd pasture and proceeded to graze.

BG, on the other hand, put her head right down and grazed, all day, in the virgin grass of the Haunted Pasture.  Huh?

I couldn’t believe it!  Never, ever has any horse here been willing to stay in that pasture but here was BG, content and happy to be eating away.

Unbelievable.

What does she know that we don’t?

CONCLUSION

I have no conclusion.  Either there is something scary or smelly up there that BG doesn’t fear or doesn’t care about…  Or, she is lacking in horsey sense so she doesn’t know to leave there at once.  Or, she vibrates at a higher frequency than the rest of us and couldn’t be bothered with such trivial hauntings.

Dunno.

I do know that BG is the most sensitive horse here.  So, you’d think she would pick up on anything that was OOO (Out Of the Ordinary).

I guess I need to find out what that other ingredient was that went with the burning sage and those incantations.  I prolly I need to sit up there with all my Chippewa Spirit Forefathers and conjure up some good juju for that pasture.

Or, I can just leave it be.  BG deserves to have a place of her own after spending so much time being controlled by Finn.  Maybe instead of the Haunted Pasture, I need to refer to it as ‘BG’s Pasture’.

Or maybe I need to get a few of my friends and spend a night up there with just tents and flashlights… Ha!

 

HORSE AND MAN is a blog in growth… if you like this, please pass it around! 

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