Abandoned Horse Toys

October Not So Long Ago

Mangled Made Up Toy

The Ho-Hum Ball

It is that nebulous time of year when I'm not certain of the season. My calender tells me it is fall; the snow shouts winter. It was only a month or so ago that the horses were roaming the pond pastures in tall, browning grass. They are gone to winter shelter, the horses of Elmira. And they have left behind their toys.

Like kids, horses have a playful nature. In the spring, the brown gelding made sport of a discarded plastic bin. He must have found it in the barn. He smashed it up enough to ruin whatever it once was. It's now bent black plastic. Once destroyed, he would pack it around the pastures. I found it abandoned along the pond.

Thinking the horses would appreciate a store-bought toy, I purchased a horse ball pretty as a pink rose. But often as is the case with children, the made-up toys seem to be the favorites. The ball was greeted with ho-hum-ness by all three horses. The sorrel mare played with it once out of curiosity, and after she abandoned it, the ball has never moved.

Whether it is still fall or just winter, I  know that it is no longer summer! Thus the days continue to shorten and the horse toys cast shadows in empty fields.