Diplomacy
There has been something on our minds for the last month or so: Sam the Horse in the back field has morphed, so to say, into Sam, Barley and Holly the Horses. We have nothing against these amiable beasties other than that one of them bit Miss Kit on one occasion, but we have come to feel, with sinking heart, that they are being a bit self defeating. Patrolling ceaselessly across their territory, they have not only scoffed every blade of grass more than half an inch high, but their weight is helping to prevent any grass from regenerating — their hooves, I think, must be slicing up the stolons by which grass extends its grip on a territory. Whereas almost every where else in Aberdeenshire is green, the horsefields are a sea of churned up mud, and the poor creatures have taken to eating the bark off the trees. They are fed dry stuff, but their desire to graze is insatiable. We have finally managed to bring ourselves to have a conversation with their proprietors, and suggest that if they don’t take the animals away and give the grass a chance to recover, it won’t. From our point of view, we don’t really want to be looking out at what seems, at the moment, strangely like a pig farm, but we also feel it can be no fun for the horses. It’s time they went on their holidays.