the creek monster

My significant other is a six foot tall, 250 pound farmer whose only gate is mosey. A no-sense-gettin'-thar-dead, kind of guy. His quiet way about things endear him to my mares, and Hawk, my arabian gelding loves to bring out the extrovert in him. In short, my horses love him.
I called the horses in to dinner last night, and usually it is a mad, rollicking gallop from the back pasture, with a lot of snaky neck, a-dirt-a-flying, with Lou in the lead. A couple of times, the race became so competitive Bunny didn't make the corner turn for home, and fell skidding, with hoofs held high. It's a big deal, coming in to eat. Everyone lines up politely at their designated spot and I fill the buckets for the 4 obviously starving equines. Usually.
Last night I noticed all four horses frantically running back and forth on the other side of the creek crossing, spooking at the creek, and then running back and forth again, very right brained. Finally, the desire to eat overcame fear, and Lou pushed through her threshold, crossed the ditch and three of my four horses came thundering up to their buckets. No snaky neck, no frolicking, joyful gallop. This was a right brained dash for the safety of their buckets.
Lou and Bunny began to eat, but it was not their usual slow, content munching. It was frantic, with much bucket slamming. Meanwhile, Hawk whose main priority in life is to eat, stood their looking off to the back pasture, obviously stressed. Bit could not push past her fear, she was still running back and forth, panicking that the herd had left her, it was dinner time, and she was alone. Hawk looked at me, looked at Bit and I swear his brow was furrowed in worry. I told him I would go get her, but he would not walk over to his bucket until he saw me start to walk towards the back pasture and his herd mate, Bit.
When I got to her, her eyes were staring, she was blowing and something, was terrifying her on the other side of the ditch. I crossed the ditch, and quietly told her I was there, and would protect her. I put her on the "safe" side, and put myself between her and whatever was scaring her, and we crossed the ditch, together. We did it slowly, with a lot of hesitation, stops and starts, but together we moved through several thresholds, and then we were both off at a trot to her bucket. She was one relieved mare, and everyone quietly settled back down. Buckets were quiet, no more banging and all you could hear was horses breathing and the crunch and smack of equine lips.
I chose the walk back down to the ditch to see exactly what was scaring my herd. There has been some deer poaching on our property lately, Tony has seen mountain lions here, and whatever it was, I was going to find out. I could find no reason for the horses fear. No electric fence popping, no lion, no dying deer, no reason for such right brained behavior, so I started making my way back to the horses.
Just then I saw Tony drive up in the pick up and park up where the horses were finishing up with dinner. I ran on up and told him what had happened and we both started walking down towards the ditch for a closer look. All four horses followed. The six of us made it across the ditch, calmly and without incident. Tony and I turned right to walk the creek and the horses headed up the hill for a quiet graze.
We never found any reason for the horses behavior and made our way up the hill to the horses. Now keep in mind, Lou hasn't spoken to me in a week. I had shocked her a few times from static electricity, and she wanted nothing to do with me. When we got to the top of the hill, all three mares were all over Tony in a very, "Isn't he cute? He's so tall! Don't you just love how he smells?" kind of way. Hawk stayed off to the side with me, looking on probably thinking, "when I get him alone, I'm going to move his feet!"
After the love fest, and much rubbing, licking and chewing, Lou finally forgave me for shocking her, (she wouldn't let me near her, before) everyone had sleepy eyes, and all was right with the world.
Tony and I started back for home, I looked behind us and all four horses were following. I looked at Tony and said, "TROT!" Tony does not trot, but I think I caught him so off guard that he was trotting, with this very confused look on his face. I looked behind us and all the horses were trotting with us. "Gallop Tony!" and we were off, all six of us running down the hill, snaky necking, head tossing, over the ditch and back up to the tack room.
I bolted for the tack room, filled a bucket full of cookies and Tony and I held a cookie fest right then and there. We were shoving cookies in as fast as they could take another one, and there were cookie crumbs flying!
By now, the sun was going down and the sky had turned pink and orange, and the last of the bird songs were echoing in the pasture. Tony and I ducked under the fence and walked back to the house, and all four horses headed towards the water trough together. Fear forgotten, the back pasture once again their safe place to be.
Horses began teaching me all about life around 2003. They are a perfect mirror of who you are, so if you don't like what you see, don't look at the horse. If you have a horse with a problem, that problem is you. It makes you utterly accountable for your self, and your horses very fate lay in your own healing. Your horse is only as good, as you are.