- When I first settled into Paradise, I thought about how
good a place it would be for our horses, Huck the Spotless Appaloosa and
Elaine the Not-So-Wild Mustang.
-
- After all, they'd been living for years in Southern California,
where the only way to make grass grow is to spend more money watering it
each month than people in most other places spend on their mortgages.
-
- Cloud Creek Ranch has a fair-sized pasture complete with
a spring-fed pond that my neighbors swear hasn't gone dry once in the last
50 years. I envisioned the two horses grazing contentedly with me looking
on instead of schlepping hay as I'd been doing back in L.A.
-
- That dream, however, got blown out of the water early
on. Because Huck's been my equine brother since he was a foal, and as far
as he's concerned he should be living in the house, not outside. And certainly
not as far outside as the pasture.
-
- "I can't see you from down here," he told me.
"Can't hear your voice or Gwen's. No way I'm staying that far away."
-
- And he backed up his talk with the kind of horse screaming
that made it sound like he was going through the kind of torture that would
put me smack dab behind bars.
-
- So, instead of chomping their way through the pasture,
Huck and Elaine inhabit a corral about 10 feet from the main house. Sure,
grass was growing quite well there when we put up the fence, but by a week
later it was gone. Eaten. Crushed. Burned out by horsepucky. Anyone who
knows horses knows how that goes.
-
- And anyone who knows horses also knows what corral life
means.
-
- Schlepping lots of hay.
-
- And, in the late winter and early spring, trying to find
enough of it to schlep.
-
- Especially if the horses are totally devoted to alfalfa.
-
- In California, Huck and Elaine dined on alfalfa that
was moist and sweet and ribboned with little purple flowers. And why not?
Alfalfa thrives there. But in Paradise, the ground is too hard and rocky
for long alfalfa roots.The hay's got to be imported, and as time slips
further and further behind the last summer-cut alfalfa becomes more and
more scarce.
-
- Last year's drought conditions have added to the problem,
and, to cut to the chase, last week I started feeding the horses bales
of Bermuda, orchard and Timothy grass, and the result has been one mighty
battle of wills.
-
- Huck hates the stuff. And let me know it from the beginning.
-
- "Pfaugh! Yuck! You call this food?" His voice
rose shrilly. "It's not even soft enough to be bedding for a pig!"
-
- He shook his head. Pawed the ground. Squealed and reared.
Kicked the water trough.
-
- And when Elaine came over, he wouldn't let her touch
it, either. He pushed her away, and when she returned hungrily he nipped
her.
-
- One of those horse authority bites that takes a smaller
chunk out of whoever it's directed at than an anger bite, but it still
hurts a lot more than a bite filled with horse love.
-
- "Don't do that," he said. "Don't let Larry
B see you eat this junk. We've got to stand firm. Hold out for what we
deserve."
-
- Huck's been standing firm since that first day. Making
a bigger show of his disdain for what every other horse accepts without
a problem with every meal.
-
- He's even taken to running at the flakes and scattering
them or pushing them outside the fence.
-
- Except that it's all for show. Late at night, when he
thinks Gwen the Beautiful and I are asleep, when he's sure no one is watching
- yes! - that's when Huck saunters over to the strewn Bermuda and orchard
and Timothy grass, like a street dude whistling and looking at the sky,
and starts scarfing it down. Lets Elaine join him in the repast.
-
- And in the morning, when most of the hay has "magically"
vanished, he swivels his big eyes at me and screeches, "Alfalfa! Alfalfa
now! You @#%$!" and turns up his nose at what I give him instead.
-
- At first Huck's attitude angered me. Now, though, I find
myself watching and laughing at what I clearly hear as his refrain:
-
- "Fight for what's yours! Don't let The Man see you
bend!"
-
- I couldn't ask for a better horse brother.
-
- Or one more like me.
-
- _____
-
-
- Copyright c. 2007 by Larry Brody. All rights reserved.
-
- Author Larry Brody's weekly column, LIVE! FROM PARADISE!
appears on his website, www.larrybrody.com. He has written thousands of
hours of network television, and is the author of "Television Writing
from the Inside Out" and "Turning Points in Television."
Brody is Creative Director of The Cloud Creek Institute for the Arts, the
world's first in-residence media colony. More about his activities can
be seen on www.tvwriter.com and www.cloudcreek.org. He welcomes your comments
and feedback at <mailto:LarryBrody@cloudcreek.org>LarryBrody@cloudcreek.org.
Brody, his wife and their dogs, cats, horses and chickens live in Marion
County, Arkansas. The other residents of the mythical town of Paradise
reside in his imagination.
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