Jo, Allen, et al-

That's a great story.  I've seen the white one before, on a number of occasions, and he likes to whinny.  When he came to visit me, my trusted, loyal and chicken-hearted blue heeler, Peaty let out a low growel and then retreated to the truck bed!  Some help he turned out to be!

The horse was very curious about my gear, and I had visions of him grabbing my binoculars by the strap and slinging them around. (Ouch!)  He wouldn't take a hint as far as my suggestions to leave, and as you mentioned he just sort of dissappeared when he felt it was time.  What a funny guy.....

Joe Borgione

 Grahn Family <bsi@xmission.com> wrote:

Joe,

We were up there last night until about 3:30 am. The temperature never got
lower than 14, and there was no hint of snow. HOWEVER.... we did have a
couple of visitors that really worried us for a bit. As we were unloading
the trailer when we first got there, the whinnying of the horses in the
field across the road seemed pretty loud. Then the clip-clop of the hooves
got quite loud. Suddenly, about 20 feet away, two very large (at least 15
feet high!:)) horses came out of the shadows at us. (okay, maybe they were
just average size horses, but for a minute there, they seemed huge and
scary.) My best hand waving and shouts of "Git!" did nothing to dissuade
them from their desire to see what we were about. We could not get them to
move more than 10 feet away, and every time we turned our backs, they moved
right in, peering over our shoulders. All I can think is that our trailer
must have looked like their trailer, and they clearly wanted in. They were
very friendly, and I suspect that if we had a saddle with us, we could have
gone for a ride. After a few minutes of checking out our trailer, and
seeing that no new friends awaited them inside, and they were not going to
be invited in, they finally allowed themselves to be shooed away. Of
course, they made me chase them with a light and yell the whole way,
stopping and looking at me every time I quit, as though to let me know that
they were making the rules for this game, and it required that I make a
really big fool of myself....

They left us alone for the rest of the night, but I must admit we hesitated
about getting the scopes and binoculars out. They were big enough to do a
lot of inadvertent damage, and I have no question that they would have
wanted a glimpse of the horsehead nebula, if they came back.

About 3:15, I began to get an uneasy feeling. I could hear something
moving about in the bushes, but none of the tell-tale noises of the horses.
I finally got out the weak white light, and was completely unnerved to
see two eyes looking at me, from a height of at least 5 feet. The light
was not powerful enough to see what was behind the eyes, just them. Then
the eyes swung down to 2 feet, back up, and started moving. I yelled at
Allen to get the big light, but even that did not make it clear what was
out there. Only after the animal moved a bit closer, and was joined by a
second pair of eyes, did we realize that it was a return visit from our
earlier friends. Once again they insisted on being chased on their terms.
At that point, we decided to pack up and head home. All in all, a
delightful, if adrenalin filled, night. Be forewarned, apparently the
resident horses up there have both advance warning and stealth modes of
operation... And they like to get a rise out of observers!

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