Trolls

Lucy is deathly afraid of trolls.  She believes that they live in the trees up by the top corner of the dressage court.  If she is in a suspicious mood, it is very difficult to ride her deep into that corner -- heck, its hard to ride her anywhere near that corner.  And she will use it as an excuse to spook.

Saturday she discovered where they live.

And, what they look like.

I was in the girls' pasture picking up manure.  (If it seems like I do this all time, it's because we do).  Lucy was standing on the near side of the fallen tree, pushing her nose around in the debris.

I was on the far side of the tree, scooping and flinging.  I pushed the cart a bit further along and startled the quail that live in the tree branches, laying on the ground by the fallen oak.  They flew out, skimming the ground -- away from Lucy, past me, and over the fence into the blackberry bushes.

Lucy spooked, and bolted, and bucked and farted as she ran as fast as she could away from the tree.  I laughed.

At the pasture gate she spun, dug in her heels, and ran as fast as she could past the troll tree, straight towards me.  She slid to a stop and thrust her face at me.

Did you see them?  Did you see them?  Oh, my God, there were like hundreds of them!  And they flew!  I didn't know trolls could fly!  

Um, Lucy, ...they were quail.  And there were 15, tops.

She gave me a dubious look and walked over to Pistol.  She kept one eye on the tree and the other on me.

Silly mare.