Kefir Madness

Lately I've been going a little crazy making kefir. I blame Wildwood Farm for this.

It all started innocently enough when I was over there one day, doing sheep chores or something - I don't even remember what. S announced that a friend of hers had given her some kefir grains. Now, I've had store-bought kefir, and it was more or less like liquid yogurt. I liked it fine, so I was mildly intrigued by the thought of making my own. However, both becuase S seemed entirely too excited about this, and I was confused by the term "kefir grains", naturally I had to learn more. I thought maybe that the kefir bugs came in a little granulated powder like baking yeast or wine-making yeast or something, but what S was spooning out of her fermenting kefir looked a lot more like some mutant cross between cottage cheese and a cauliflower, with maybe a little alien brain matter mixed in.

However, I was game to try it. I must first point out that it was NOT like the store-bought version - it was not sweet, nor fruit-flavored and -colored. It had a tang and texture more similar to buttermilk (which I quite like), although it had a little bit of a fine-grained spritz on the tongue, like barely-fermenting fresh-pressed cider. It also had some deeper notes to the flavor, something that reminded me of certain kinds of ripe French cheeses. And there was something else: It made me feel sort of.... good. Like it was making me cheerful and peaceful and all... good-like.

Eventually S gave me some kefir grains from her culture so I could start my own. Now, here I must point out that making kefir is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT and not for the faint of heart. The instructions follow:

1. Pour some milk in a jar.
2. Put your kefir grains in.
3. Put the lid on the jar and set it somewhere in your house.
4. Wait 2 days.

See? Extremely difficult. If you try it, you should probably lie down for an hour or two afterwards and make people bring you food and hot buttered rum so you can recover from your labors. A foot massage would definitely aid the process considerably, so be sure you mention that.

Ideally, the kefir should (supposedly, and if you can wait that long) be refrigerated (after you scoop out the kefir grains on the top to inoculate your next batch) for an additional 2 days. This is because apparently, if you put it in the fridge, the little kefir bugs will keep metabolizing and making nutrients for you to drink, but they produce different nutrients in the cold than in the room-temperature. Or so I hear.

Having done a little reading, it appears that the reason kefir makes you feel all good-like is that it contains significant amounts of protein, vitamin B and tryptophan - and small amounts of alcohol. It also has all kinds of other goodies in it, including several different strains of beneficial microbes (the home-made kefir, I mean; the store-bought kind usually only has 2 strains of microbe and no appreciable alcohol.) Originally, it seems that kefir was made of camel milk, but if you don't happen to have a camel - or if you do, but don't feel up to milking it, which in my view just shows good sense - it also appears that you can kefir a lot of things that aren't camel milk: cow milk, sheep milk, goat milk, soy milk, rice milk, coconut milk, fruit juice, ginger beer, sauerkraut, (which I guess would be kefirkraut, actually), even water and sugar. Some people believe that kefir can cure cancer, initiate world peace and intimidate harmful yeasts and bacteria and viruses right out of your body. Which may or may not be true - I have no proof either way - but I have to say: I'd drink it anyway, because I find it all yummy and stuff.

It's been like a little biology project. The kefir bugs seem to grow at nuclear speeds, so I can make many many different batches and mess around with them as much as I like. I can put in raspberry jam (which several of my clients bring me in the home-made version because they know I'm a complete maniac for raspberries.) I can put in agave nectar. I can put in strawberries and bananas and make smoothies. I can put in all KINDS of stuff - and as I have some congenital abnormality which makes me absolutely incapable of following a recipe as written, God only knows what might end up in there. But it'll probably be yummy.

Actually, Alaska is a good place for someone with my particular mental defects. That thing about not following recipes - it's really true. Ask anyone. I can do it once, if I force myself, or if I've never eaten anything like the recipe in question and I'm not sure how it's supposed to taste.... but the second time (and often the first) I'll be standing there thinking: Hmm, I bet a little bit of nutmeg would taste really good in this... [OOOH! Kefir with nutmeg and apricots! - Ooops. Sorry about that.] At any rate, it's quite annoying to people who have certain expectations about their food, like that you will not make their grandmother's famous chocolate cream pie with crushed pecans for the crust, nor shave chocolate and nutmeg over the top of it. But up here, there are LOTS of people who screw around with the recipe - or just make up their own. There are whole Alaskan cookbooks like that. One time I invented something called "moose baked in wine and apples" (which also included birch syrup and pine nuts and garlic, and if I ever make it again, will also include Craisins) and nobody up HERE thought I was nuts. I did get a lot of remarks from "certain people" in the lower 48, however, even though I specified -SPECIFIED! - that any meat could be used, if you didn't happen to have a moose handy. I ask you.

I don't know why we like to invent our own up here. Maybe it's because we don't have "normal" stuff that people in the lower 48 take for granted, or we only have it for a short time. Maybe it's because we have a lot of stuff that's normal for us, but is pretty unusual for people Outside, so Betty Crocker had no idea how to tell you to cook it. (First, take one pound of canned beaver, half a cup of dried lowbush cranberries, and 20 to 30 fresh fiddlehead ferns...) Maybe it's because we get snowed in and have to invent something out of whatever is in the pantry, which might be a can of smoked salmon, some pickled green beans, and - and KEFIR. Yeah. That's the ticket. Maybe it's because while our growing season is short, it's violent. Just today Dr. P brought in about 11 enormous squash which are "extras" (as in, they can no longer think of new things to do with squash, or else have run out of freezer space). I expect that sooner or later he'll be bringing in some "extra" cabbages, most of which will weigh in excess of 20# (that is, if the moose didn't eat them again this year). In years where I feel like gardening, I can grow enough sweet basil to make pesto literally by the pound, and still have enough to chop up into salads, layer on sandwiches or fresh sliced tomatoes, dry for later use, and freeze in olive oil for future use in soups and sauces. And that's not counting the live plants I gave away, or sprigs I bring to work and pass around.

Right now I'm having lurking thoughts about making stuffed yellow squash tomorrow for dinner - since I DO have a pound and a half of moose burger in the freezer, and thanks to Dr. P I have a yellow squash big enough that I could probably use it to stun a 300# hog, if I were to tap it smartly over the head with it. I have some home-grown rosemary and thyme and sweet basil, and I might even have dried apricots and Craisins, and some pine nuts and Parmesan cheese.... and I DEFINITELY have some kefir.

Arrow Escapes

Well, the horse stories could go on forever - and I will doubtless trot out (as it were) the rest of them for you at some juncture - but I thought today maybe a little change of pace, in case the less horse-obsessed amongst us were getting bored.

It's moose-hunting season up here now. And beautiful weather for being out today, although my nurse M says her best hunting is usually on the wet and gloomy days. Fortunately for her that's what we had during bow season, which comes before the regular season. M bagged her moose on the last day of the bow season, filling her freezer against the winter to come. I have to say I admire the willingness to hunt an animal as large as a moose with just a bow, and respect the skill it takes to bring one down in that way. It seems fairer to me, in some way; the bow hunter has not such an enormous advantage over the prey as a gun provides. You don't have the range you can get with a rifle, so it's a little more of a level footing, at least in my imagination, and requires more skill of the hunter. M is a careful hunter, never taking a shot unless she's pretty sure she HAS a shot, not risking merely wounding an animal that will then wander around for days, suffering. She's been known to proxy-hunt as well - going out to hunt for someone otherwise eligible to hunt but who is too old or infirm to hunt for themselves; a generous thing to do, given the amount of work it is and that the meat goes to the person for whom she is hunting, not to herself. But not everyone is so meticulous in their ethics.

Not long after bow season was over, Fish and Game had to go trap a trumpeter swan that someone had shot with an arrow. Swans are a non-huntable bird in Alaska, so that in and of itself was wrong, and the kind of thing that completely infuriates me - and completely infuriates all responsible hunters, as well. Luckily for the swan, whoever shot it - and F&G thinks it was done deliberately - used a target arrow, not a hunting arrow. Target points are little bullet-shaped tips, a short cylindrical metal shape that is crowned by a conical point. Hunting tips, by contrast, come in a variety of shapes, depending on what you're hunting, but a lot of them are shaped more or less like the arrowheads made by Native hunters (which shape most of us would recognize.) Some people, in fact, still knap their own flint arrowheads and hunt with them. At any rate, a target arrow does much less harm than a hunting arrow would do, but it still enrages me that anyone would shoot a defenseless bird just to be shooting something - shoot it in a way that will cause it pain and harm, but not kill it outright. Wild swans up here are often semi-habituated; as they migrate, they travel from lake to lake, often spending a few days at their "usual" stops. Beautiful as they are, it's not uncommon for people to go down to the shore to watch them, and sometimes feed them. As a result, swans are often inclined to paddle peacefully over for a little gander at their admirers, and possibly a handout or two. After all, it's a long flight south, and a few extra calories aren't going to go amiss. But that means it would be extremely easy for some cruel, small-minded moron to shoot one of them with an arrow.

As it happens, Fish and Game managed to net the swan and examine it. This is not as easy as it sounds; apart from being strong and fairly fast swimmers, swans are strong and fairly sizey birds. They can beat you about the head with their powerful wings, and are not averse to biting if the need arises. Habituated though they might be, they aren't really interested in being caught. When you add to this the presence of a highly annoyed mate trying to goose you as you splash around in your waders with a net, you really have to give the F&G boys some credit. Eventually they did manage to corral the injured swan, however, and have a look at it. One of its wings was pinioned to its body by the arrow, but the arrow didn't penetrate deeply into the body wall. They were able to repair the injuries (with the assistance of the good offices of Wild Bird Rescue) and return the swan to its mate - and since the trumpeter swan mates for life, this is an important consideration. Well, all's well that ends well, in that case at least (although I would DEARLY love to see the shooter get what ought to be coming to them for their cruelty and their violation of the law.)

It's not the only time I've seen a non-huntable animal with an arrow injury, though.

Many years back, after I first came to Alaska, I was on call one day when some people paged me. They had found a dog that had been shot; it wasn't their dog, but they didn't want to see it suffering, so could they bring it in? Well, this is a sort of tricky situation; the clinic I work for is a small business, and they expect to collect fees, so that they can feed their families and stay open to help other animals. These people don't own this dog, and naturally enough don't really want to pay the emergency fees on an animal they don't own. And while it's true that even if I were independently wealthy I'd probably be willing to do this work for free, in fact it's not unreasonable for me to expect to be paid for going in to work on a weekend - or any other time, come to that. In those days Animal Control had no real facilities for handling this kind of thing, so... what to do?

Well, sometimes, you just have to go with your gut, so I told the callers to come on in. I just figured we'd work it out as we went along.

I had assumed, on hearing that the dog had been shot, that it had been a gunshot wound, by far the more common event up here. But no; when I reached the clinic, the good Samaritans were waiting anxiously by their car. I walked over to them and they said, "We were afraid to move him too much, since it's still in him."

Eh? That's not the usual thing people say with a gunshot dog. I look through the open door into the back seat, where they have ensconced the dog. He is laying across the entire length of the back bench seat, a long, rangy grey husky-mix sort of dog. The Samaritans, obviously being the planning type, have blanketed the seat for comfort and against messes, and have already muzzled the dog with a blue nylon muzzle ("We don't know anything about this dog and we thought he might want to bite," they explained.)

Well, I might want to bite, too. Protruding from his back, just to the right of his spine and just aft of his ribs, is the end of the arrow. It is embedded so deep that the fletchings are snugged up against his fur. In fact, if not for them, I believe the arrow would have gone all the way through the dog.

Yikes. I can't believe the dog arrived alive.

"Let's get him inside and see what we've got," I say. "Let me go get a stretcher."

We manage to slide the dog onto the stretcher and carry him into the hospital with a minimum of jostling. I have a look at the dog. He looks a bit disreputable, a little thin and unkempt, as if he has been on his own for a while. He is regarding me somewhat warily over his muzzle, but the muzzle is loose enough that he can breathe unimpeded. After a minute, when I've not done anything too alarming, he opens his jaw slightly to pant, and I can see that his color is excellent. He looks alert and oriented, as well - all of which is a bit of a shock, considering that I can feel the point of the arrow protruding between the ribs on the left side of his chest, tenting his furry hide but not penetrating through it. This means that the arrow has passed from his right upper lumbar area - just over the right kidney - across his midline through his diaphragm, and through his chest at a slightly downward angle. The tip is palpable about mid-thorax, maybe 4 inches above the point of the heart, but level with it. Somehow the arrow, while it most assuredly passed by them both, has not torn either the aorta or the vena cava, the two enormous vessels that travel down the body's midline: a laceration to either one would have caused the dog to bleed out in a matter of minutes. I can't rule out a nick in one or the other; sometimes the presence of the foreign body will plug the wound temporarily - until it is removed, and then the hole opens up and bleeds ferociously. I know that the arrow has passed by the stomach, the liver, the gall bladder and the esophagus, not to mention quite a stretch of lung tissue, but I have no idea what damage was done to which organ - although it's obvious that the diaphragm must have a hole in it, since the arrow goes through it. And, quite incidentally, the dog is also missing a small bit off the tip of one ear, and two toes on one of his hind feet. He's had an eventful life, this dog. But clearly the arrow is by far the biggest of these events, and the most life-threatening. I can imagine the path of the arrow through his body, and all the potential harm it might have done going in - or could do, coming out again.

Hm. This could be quite a disaster in the making.

I look at the good Samaritans.

"Ideally this would be something where I sedate him and Xray to see what we have, and then decide on a course of treatment, although in a situation like this the anesthesia itself might destabilize him and kill him," I tell them. "But that all incurs some significant expenses, and I'm not sure whether you intended to take responsibility for that...?" I ask, as delicately as possible. They look at each other, one of those marital glances that seems to carry within it an entire conversation.

"He's not our dog," the husband finally says. "We wanted to help him, and we'll pay the emergency fee, but beyond that..."

Well, okay. This is certainly reasonable enough. This is not their job. They've already done more than many people would, by carefully catching up the dog, muzzling him to prevent him from injuring them - or me, I might add with some gratitude - and volunteering to pay an emergency fee for an animal they do not own and have no responsibility to beyond that of common human decency.

Okay, the ball is back in my court. I can euthanize him, or I can try to treat. Euthanasia is tempting, given the frightening nature of the arrow path; but the dog is laying sternal, looking quiet but alert, breathing easily (and isn't THAT rather astonishing, under the circumstances), rotating his ears to catch our conversation. I call my boss to ask for guidance. He says I can do whatever I decide is best, but to try not to spend too much of the clinic's money, since we're not getting paid for it. I look at the dog. He looks at me. There is undeniable awareness in his clear golden eyes. Somehow I feel like I have to try something, at least.... and clearly I can't just leave him there with an arrow running through his body.

"Well," I say to the Samaritans. "Our choices are to put him down or to give it a try. I'm inclined to give it a try, but I have to warn you: I have no idea what kind of tip is on this arrow. I can feel the point of it just under the skin, but it's mainly embedded in the muscle of his chest wall between the ribs -so even though I think it's a target point, I might be wrong: it might be a hunting point, and if so, pulling it out will likely kill him on the spot. Even with a target point it's a risky endeavor: if it doesn't kill him outright from exsanguination, there are all sorts of possible consequences: he could get a pneumothorax and die from that, or it may have lacerated his esophagus, which would certainly kill him unless very extensive surgery is done. It might have nicked a loop of bowel or perforated his stomach, either of which could lead to peritonitis. That would kill him too, unless we do some major surgery. It could have lacerated his kidney, which would be another complete disaster, and I don't see how it can have missed hitting his liver. And of course there are infection risks along the entire arrow path; even if it somehow missed all his organs, it certainly wasn't sterile, and it's bound to have carried all kinds of bacteria in with it. He could get a massive infection in his chest or his abdomen as a result, which would naturally be a very serious problem."

They look at each other.

"None of the long-term consequences are your problem, of course, since he's not your dog," I add. "But usually when people bring in dogs like this, even if they don't decide to keep them, they want to find out how they did in the long run. I'm just letting you know he's got a lot of potential hazard to this. If you'd rather I put him down and not take the risks, it's okay to tell me so."

"Would it be... would it be okay to just pull out the arrow and see what happens?" asks the wife, tentatively.

"Yes," I say. "You don't have to stay," I add, knowing that the dog might crash on the spot and that that might be deeply distressing for these kindhearted people.

"No. We'll stay," says the husband, resolutely. He flexes his hand slightly, ready to step in. "What do you want me to do?"

"Just steady him and keep him from jumping off the table," I say. Carefully, I clip as best I can around the fletching of the arrow; if the dog doesn't die from the extraction of it, I'll need to suture that area, and I'd rather do it without hair on it. I gently prep around the shaft of the arrow and set a purse-string suture around it; if I'm quick, I can pull this tight as soon as the arrow is out, cinching the skin down to prevent air from entering the arrow path to minimize the chance of sucking air into the wound, and maybe encouraging a pneumothorax. I have no idea if this would in fact happen, but it's at least something I can try to prevent.

During all this the dog lies stoically, flicking an ear back at me, but barely twitching when I set my sutures.

I grasp the ends of my purse-string suture with mt left hand, bracing the heel of it against the dog's back. I grip the arrow's fletchings firmly in my right.

"Ready?" I ask them. The husband, hugging the dog around the neck, his mouth set, looks at me and gives me a nod.

I start to pull back on the arrow - pull back hard, because it doesn't want to move. But after a second it starts to shift. I feel a stuttering, grating vibration in the shaft as the point releases itself from the rib against which it was set, and then the arrow pulls out smooth and fast. I snatch my purse-string tight, tossing the arrow on the floor, and quickly tie down my suture.

I look up. Neither the dog nor the good Samaritan clinging to his neck has moved during the few seconds it took to pull the arrow. Slowly, the man straitens up, backing away from the dog as he might from a live hand grenade. All eyes are on the dog. Inside his blue muzzle, he opens his mouth and pants gently.

I watch him for a minute, two minutes. He doesn't appear to be bleeding out. I inject a large wad of antibiotics and enlist the help of the good Samaritans to lift him off the table.

"Let's get this muzzle off of him," I say, unclasping it and handing it back to its owners. The dog sniffs with interest at the nearest trash can.

"Well, okay," I tell the couple. "Let me take care of him through the weekend, see what he does." I ensconce the dog in a cage with a blanket and some water, which he drinks a little of. We handle some paperwork and I promise to call Monday with an update.

Monday the dog is seeming pretty chipper with his little hotel stay. He likes the room service, and has happily eaten everything offered, with no ill effects. He has no fever, no cough, no penumothorax, no abdominal effusions, no belly pain, no apparent ill effects whatsoever from being impaled by the arrow. The good Samaritans stop in and want to visit him.

"Sure," I say, leading them back to his run. "I've been calling him Archer," I add, since we had to call him something, and "That Dog That Got Shot With The Arrow" is a bit cumbersome. "He has no microchip or other ID, so Animal Control is going to come over and get him later today or tomorrow. I gave them a description, but they have no reports that he's gone missing from anyone," I add. He's not that hard to identify, after all, with his missing parts; I'm fairly certain if someone was looking for him it would easy for Animal Control to match him up with my description.

Leaving them to commune with the dog for a while, I go take an appointment. I go back to check on them. The wife is sitting on the floor in the front of the run, cuddling the newly-christened Archer. He's generally friendly enough in a slightly aloof, independandt sort of way, but seems happy enough to be getting his ears scratched by Mrs. Samaritan.

"We've decided we want to adopt him," Mr. Samaritan informs me.

"Oh," I say. "I'll call Animal Control and see if I can clear it with them." Animal Control takes information from me and the Samaritans, treating it as they would had someone called to report a stray, but been willing to house the stray (rather than take it to the shelter) while Animal Control seeks the owner. The Samaritans pay Archer's bill and take him home.

I never saw any of them again - Archer OR the Samaritans - so I can only hope it all ended well. I do know that no one ever showed up at Animal Control looking for Archer - and I also know that whoever shot him was never caught. I've seen many a strange thing in Veterinary medicine from that day to this, but there haven't been a lot of things stranger than having a full recovery from an injury like that solely on the strength of a single suture and a wad of antibiotics.

Since they weren't gunshot wounds, I suppose you can't really say that either that trumpeter swan or Archer dodged the bullet... in either case, it was more of an arrow escape.

Timber Wolves

Perhaps you'll indulge me for another horse story.

Before I was a barn manager, I rode at the same barn I later managed, under the same exceptional coach who was later my boss. She had some excellent school horses - and some less excellent - but nearly every one of them had a story.

One of the great pleasures of that barn was that every so often K would organize a long trail ride for the intermediate and advanced riders. These would last for 3 to 4 hours, often include a snack, and would cover areas of the preserve normally not seen by anyone except, occasionally, the park ranger (or other equestrians, typically those who owned the horses they boarded at that barn and had the time to go exploring.)

On one such ride I was mounted on Sam, a horse I'd never ridden before. Sam had a long, deep, puckered scar on the left side of his neck; though the overlying skin was fully haired and the scar was clearly a long-ago injury, the resulting trench in his otherwise-smoothly muscled neck was almost an inch deep. It was at the juncture of neck and shoulder, deepest at the front and growing more shallow as it proceeded toward the rear.

"Wow, that's quite a scar," I said to Kate. "What happened to him?

"Oh, Sam is an old timber wolf," she said. "He got it over a jump."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "What do you mean by 'a timber wolf''?" I asked.

"I mean he was a cross-country jump racer. Not steeplechase; those fences are usually a brush of birch twigs or something like that over a frame. I mean he did the big cross-country courses like for three-day eventing. Some of those jumps are solid, and he ran himself into one one time and lacerated himself pretty good."

"I'll say," I said. "Doesn't seem to bother him, though," I added, as Sam had not even twitched while I brushed him up.

K laughed. "That was probably twenty years ago. I think he's over it by now."

"Twenty years ago?" I said. "How old IS this horse?"

"Thirty-five," she said.

"Thirty-five?" I asked her askance, wondering if he was going to drop dead underneath me on a three-hour ride in the heat of activity and the humidity of an Eastern spring. K smiled, correctly divining that I was wondering why Sam wasn't retired, out whiling away lazy days in the pasture with K's retired eventer.

"He's already been retired twice, once in his late 20's and once at 33, but he just can't take to it. He runs the fence screaming all day long, every time he sees someone else going out. He just can't stand it. He quits eating and starts picking on the other horses until you put him back to work."

Okay, then. At least I know if Sam drops dead under me, he'll die happy.

As it happens, Sam does not drop dead under me. He's a fun ride, with a big reaching stride and a willing attitude; he seems even more eager for the trail than I am. At about 16 hands and with a big scopey shoulder, he has a nice long suspension between strides, and while he might not be absolutely the smoothest horse I've ever been on, he's got a comfortable gait. As an added bonus, the long pause between strides as he canters along makes me feel like I'm flying.

In the middle of his fourth decade, Sam has done and seen it all, it seems. He has a level head on him, knows how to collect himself and keep a pace with the other horses without crowding them or rushing them, and is not phased by the small wildlife that might pop out of the bushes at inopportune moments: the swift red flash of fox darting along a hedge, the startling whirl of wings as a pheasant takes to the air. If I allow him to flank up next to another horse I can feel him wanting to race a little, but if I check him even the slightest bit he relaxes, laying in alongside, as if he's actually IN a race and being asked to lay back, lay back just a little now, saving himself for a stretch run.

Sam is also wise to the ways of balance, a horse that you can ride downhill at a canter without him rushing or pulling you forward of your balance point. He shifts his weight back on his powerful haunches and paces himself down the slope, feeling for his rider's balance and setting himself underneath it. This is a lovely thing; at the time (in my estimation) an intermediate rider, I'd have enjoyed my ride less if I was having to bring a racy horse back to my seat and my center of gravity on the downhill lopes. Sam did not have to be asked; he just handed it over as if knowing that this was what I wanted.

After a lovely long canter through a meadow and some walk-trot-canter through the woods, we made our way down the declivity in which the river ran. We walked a while and cooled our mounts on the approach to the stream. Here we paused, letting our horses drink if they wished. Sam did not wish; he did, however, want a bit of a shower - or perhaps he felt I needed one - because he walked into the shallow edge of the stream til the water was about mid-cannon on him, and then proceeded on to stretching out his right fore and striking repeatedly at the water, splashing himself and me and everyone else within 6 feet of us.

This having garnered either laughter or exasperation from our companions, we continued on - slightly more damply. Me, I had this little smile on my face. Sam was showing me a really good time, and I was pretty happy if I was showing him one back.

There is a closeness sometimes about the woods in the humid east; even though it was relatively cool for an east coast day (due to the season), the humidity still hung that morning in the air, making it seem slightly muffled, wrapped close about us, the forest somehow more intimate than it would have been on a crisp, dry day. It wasn't quite misty, but not far from it, lending the quiet woods a sense of impendingness; a fey sort of morning, where you almost expect to see small wood sprites peeking out from behind the lush bracken ferns. The woods were full of the small quiet sounds that are almost like silence, though it is a silence composed of noise; the voice of the forest, muted and confiding.

After a time we came to the uphill slope that would take us back up out of the river bottom. Unlike our downhill trail, which had had a wide, smooth path, the uphill had a narrow winding one. No wider than one horse could manage abreast, we proceeded up it single file. Two or three horses head of me, out of my direct line of sight, K picked up the pace and we went up the hill at a slow canter. Apart from the hours I rode Happy - because any moment on Happy was an exercise in a kind of Nirvana - this might have been the most fun I ever had on horseback; more fun even than sprinting Georgie Girl down the straightaway, more fun than the most perfect jump course I've ever run, more fun than romantic morning rides with my boyfriend. I don't know why; maybe it was because Sam was in his element, maybe it was because I was in mine, in some way I'd never been before. Maybe it was because it was a perfect balance of thought and thoughtlessness, of physical and mental.

Whatever it was, the uphill ride was a rush. There were a lot of trees down across the trail - some not more than 6 inches in diameter, some over a foot, and all fallen at varying heights and angles from the ground and across the trail. The trees grew close to the trail, and some places the trail veered tight around one and then turned the opposite way to snake around another, equally close. There were places where branches hung low overhead, and others where a knobby boll might want to catch your knee or your stirrup, kicking your foot back and trying to pitch you over the shoulder of your mount. Some places a jump lay between two trees so close together that if you aimed off by six inches you'd unhorse yourself by ramming one leg or the other into a tree. The entire upward trail was a constant adjustment - jump this, duck under that, toe in tight here to keep off that boll, rein sharp to the other side to keep your knee from slamming into that tree, duck your head under that branch while your mount jumps that log, keep your forward seat for three downed trees in a row - and most places you could see no more than a horse length ahead of you, so you had no idea what came next. There was no preparing in advance, no planning: you just had to do the right thing when it came at you, and it came at you NOW.

Ahead of me I could see here and there the flash of color between the trees that was K's shirt, or that of another rider, generally seen off at an angle as the trail zigged and wove up the slope. But still you could not anticipate the trail; you knew only that eventually you would end up in that spot, but not how you might get there nor what hazards might lay across your path.

Sam, old hand that he was, cantered up this obstacle course with his ears pricked forward, taking my leg and my rein almost before I thought of them, as if he could read my mind, as if my thoughts somehow transmitted themselves instantly to his mind. He felt when I needed him to put in an extra stride before that big tree, and when I wanted him to stand back a little and take a longer jump. Despite his broad and well-sprung ribs, he threaded me through the serpentine trail without once knocking my knees or my toes, supple as water, graceful as a deer - and yet possessed of the springing muscular power of a jumper, driving us uphill and over jumps as if I weighed no more than sunlight on his back.

We came to the top of the slope at last, the trees opening out onto a meadow. K, reined around to make sure everyone made it out of the woods safely, gave me a grin as I drew up beside the other horses.

"Liked that, did you?" she asked.

I had no words to say how much. All I could say was, "Yes." But I said it emphatically, could feel my eyes shining and my face flushed with delight and excitement - and it must have been enough, because she laughed a little, a quiet little laugh at the back of her throat, but one that says: I could not have told you this, but now you know how it is.

I don't now recall much about the rest of the ride home - that it was a pretty morning, yes, and that the sun was starting to burn off the haze, sure - but that will stand forever as the Enchanted Forest Ride in my mind. I had many a wonderful ride on many a fine horse in those days, but that one was something special. There were so many delights in it that I cannot for the life of me say was it this thing or that that made it so perfect; but if I had to pick one thing, it would be that uphill ride, dancing over jumps and pirouetting through trees, feeling beneath my leg the powerful, joyous beat of the mighty heart of an old timber wolf.

Cappuchino Love

Author's note: So you know how this works: my brain works like a giant spider web. I remember some story, and tugging on that strand of the web moves all the others that cross it. So thinking about Georgie Girl has reminded me of other stories from that era of my life, and now you'll all have to suffer through them. You poor things.

Sometimes barns are full of love stories - not the play Equus kinds of love stories, but romances full of passion and beauty of a different sort entirely.

At the riding school we had a number of school horses of varying biddability and reliability. There was the elegantly beautiful palomino mare Goldie, who was also a sneaky wee bitch of a Saddlebred; she had the magical ability to escape capture by somehow causing the other horses to run interference for her, getting in the way of her would-be captor while she hied herself off to the most inaccessible part of the pasture. I missed a lesson on Goldie more than once this way, to my secret pleasure; Goldie had a very upright head carriage, which by consequence hollowed her back to the point where she was a very uncomfortable ride. Moreover, she had a mouth like a steel bucket, with no more flexibility or subtlety than that, and was inclined to cheat at everything, either to save herself some effort or just because. You constantly had to watch her on approaching a jump, because she was inclined to run out, dodging to the side to avoid the jump (and sometimes dump her rider at the same time), or occasionally she'd just stop, with much the same results. More than once my instructor - having gone to catch Goldie - would to my secret delight return red-faced and irritable, leading some other school horse, less elegant to look at but more honest of heart, and much more fun to ride.

There was Sailor, a sturdy Morgan gelding, who had the unfortunate (and for his breed, unusual) condition of being nearly strait in the pasterns. This rendered him a rough and choppy ride, but he was as cheerful as the day is long, and willing to go along with whatever you had in mind, and as he was otherwise well-built, he was strong enough to handle adults and honest enough to handle beginners, with the result that he was an oft-used lesson and trail-ride horse. This never seemed to trouble him; he was perfectly willing to have a go at whatever the task was.

You already know about Happy Face, a plain-looking little chestnut Anglo-Arab, the most honest horse I've ever ridden. He didn't like to get his feet wet and would jump over a puddle that was two feet across to avoid it - but he would also jump just about anything else you pointed him at. One time during a lesson I was riding him through a jump course. As the last combination in the series, there were a pair of jumps set up in a wide V, and the course set by my coach had me riding into the mouth of the V, jumping the left hand jump, and then taking a wide turn to the right, looping out enough to angle myself at the right-hand arm of the V from the outside, and then jumping the right hand arm of the V back into the center of it. I lost my left stirrup going over my first jump, so I was fishing for it with my outside foot as I cantered my turn toward the second jump. I couldn't pick it up and I hesitated just a hair - just the slightest indecision over whether I should take the jump with only one stirrup or pull him up. Happy felt my microsecond of indecision and he leaned back form his canter just the slightest bit, waiting for me to tell him go or stop. I felt him hesitate and I hesitated more. That told him all he needed to know. I wasn't ready, and he wouldn't take me into trouble. He broke to a trot and ran out on the jump, the only time he ever did so with me up.

Perched on the fence, my coach's mouth fell open and her eyes went wide with shock. Happy never ran out on jumps. Never. To her this must have looked like an act of gross rebellion, a dishonest move, a developing vice.

"Spank him for that!" she told me.

"I won't," I said. "It was my fault. I lost my stirrup and he could tell I wasn't ready. I hesitated. He could feel my seat come back and he did what my body told him, which was not to take the jump."

"Oh. Well then give him a pat and tell him he's a good horse," said my coach, grinning at me. So I did, reaching down to corral my errant stirrup with my hand. By habit I checked my girth. It was loose - like hanging an inch below his belly loose. Evidently Happy had developed a bad habit after all, that of holding his breath when cinched up so that the girth would be looser when he let his breath out. In Happy's case, I imagine this was a matter of comfort - some inexperienced riders will cinch a horse up too fast, pinching them with the girth, and some horses will hold their breath in self-defense. But had he wanted to, at any time during the jump course Happy could have had me off, sending me and the saddle slipping under his belly with just the slightest swerve on his part. It wasn't in his nature to try that, even though he must have known the girth wasn't even touching him under his chest. If it had been Goldie, I'd have gone under her flailing hooves at her first opportunity. As it was, I put my leg forward on his shoulder, tightened the girth, and went back and repeated the last combination, with both stirrups this time.

There were times, later on, when Happy - getting sour from overuse - would hold his breath and even eventually make biting motions when being cinched up. Once a riding instructor came to me, frustrated, asking if I could get him cinched up. Of course I could. I just went out and rubbed his belly, talking to him kindly, telling him what a good, good horse he was, leaning my forehead against the lovely curve of his neck and letting him feel with his body that I loved him, that I trusted him, that I would not hurt him. I tightened the girth one billet strap and one hole at a time, infinitely slow, rubbing and praising and taking my time like we had all week if we needed it. Happy dropped his head and rounded his neck and let his eye go soft. After a minute or two the tension went out of him and he let his breath out on a sigh. I got him cinched up properly - gently, gently - and then turned to the riding instructor. She was a newer one, capable enough, but one who had not known Happy for years, as I had.

"Thanks," she said.

"You're welcome," I told her, "but this is his last lesson today."

"But I have him scheduled for - "

"Use another horse," I said flatly, steel in my eye. "He's done after this one."

"But it's for beginners," she protested. "Happy's so push-button, how a I going to replace that?"

"Use Coffee. Use Cappuchino. Use Sailor. They won't get anyone into any trouble. But Happy's done for the day," I told her, fixing her hard with my eye so that she saw I meant it. I turned on my heel and marched into the barn office and called the owner of the riding school.

"Happy needs to go on vacation," I told her. "He's sour, and he's trying to bite people for cinching him up."

"Cancel the rest of his lessons for the week," she said without hesitation. "I'll trailer him out to the pasture Friday." That was what I loved about K. Had she been there coaching and not out on maternity leave, she'd have seen the problem developing and stopped it. But the minute it came to her attention, the horse came first, and the instructors - who all loved to use Happy, for his excellence as a school horse - would just have had to lump it.

K was an amazing coach. I remember the first time she told me to do a series of three bounces - jumps positioned so that there were no strides in between, so that the horse bounced over one, then two then three without any intervening strides. This was hard enough for me at the time - I had a tendency to get behind the horse on the first bounce, not ready for the second jump and even less ready for the third - but she told me to do it without either stirrups or reins, my arms held to the sides like airplane wings. I looked at the combination doubtfully.

"I don't think I can do that," I told her.

"Yes, you can. Now let's go," she told me in a confident voice, but one that brooked no demur. I trusted K, so I figured that if she said I could do it, she was right - and she was. It was scary, but I bounced three 2.5 foot jumps without stirrups and with my arms held out like wings, only my seat and my balance and the calf of my leg keeping me with the horse. Stirrups? We don't need no stinking stirrups.

It wasn't only riders K was good at judging. One time, when I was working in the barn, a dapper little man came wandering in. He had a sort of round, doughy, pallid face surmounted by an absolute Afro of frizzy middling brown hair. His face was saved from absolute ordinariness by deep, warm brown eyes and an undeniable sweetness of expression.

"Hello," he said to K. "Are you the riding school owner?"

"I am," she said. "What can I do for you?"

"Well, I'm an engineer and I've just retired," the man said, raising my eyebrows. He looked no more than 40, so he must have done well with his investments. "I've been taking lessons for a few years and now that I'm retired, I'd like to buy a horse - just for hacking in the woods, you know, nothing fancy. I'm not interested in horse shows or that kind of thing." K chatted with him for about 5 minutes, discussing his level of expertise and so on. I was listening with only half an ear, price-labelling hoof picks and sweat scrapers behind the counter. After a bit K looked at me.

"Go saddle Cappuchino up, will you?" she asked me.

"Sure," I said, trying not to goggle. Cappy was a draft-horse cross of indeterminate parentage, a likable horse but not exactly a live wire. She was broad and stocky and slightly sway-backed, with huge dinner-plate hooves, her fetlocks liberally decorated with long, cart-horse feathers. She was a palomino, but unlike the lovely but bitchy Goldie - whose coat was a sleek, rich, glistening gold - Cappy's was light and fine and cottony, a sort of pale yellow duck down. Her mane, though abundant, was similarly cottony, perched along her crest like a strip of fiber batting from the innards of a stuffed animal. When wet, as if bathed or sweaty, Cappy's coat became invisible, revealing that under its thin down she was pink-skinned with many large brown freckles scattered irregularly and unflatteringly over her hide. She had a large coarse cart-horse head, with a floppy, protuberant lower lip that tended to flap rhythmically with her gait.

She was undeniably a kind, honest horse, and on the trail was a pleasure to ride: she was square as a box, and no matter what tilt or pitch she was on it was impossible to feel unbalanced on her at any speed. On the trail she would occasionally pretend to be wild and excitable, with large, slow spooking jumps to the side (which, as far as spooking, shying horses went, were laughably charming and easily sat). Still, even on the trail she tended to be a laggard, trailing slowly behind the other horses and having to be asked constantly to keep up. In the arena, she invariably proceeded around with her eyes half shut, dragging her toes with the minimum of effort, barely heaving herself in slow-motion over jumps, dangling her feet and rubbing the top of nearly ever jump with her toes. The fronts of her hooves in fact had a slightly flattened spot on them from all her toe-dragging. She had a tendency to be hard-mouthed and was inclined to lean her head forward of the bit and let the rider do the work of holding her head up for her, as if it were just too much effort for her to manage on her own. It was true you could put a one-year-old child on her back and be assured she would bring him to no harm - partly because she would barely move unless cajoled incessantly - but she didn't seem to me to be the ideal choice for a gentleman looking for a hacking companion, unless he wanted to proceed at nothing faster than a toe-dragging walk. She was, for one thing, 22 years old at the time, and while that might mean she had another decade or more of good use in her, it also meant she wasn't likely to be the liveliest thing on four hooves. And while she was easy-going and willing enough, she was undeniably into maximum energy conservation, in the form of proceeding at the slowest possible pace, regardless of gait.

Still, I went out and caught her up, brushed her down and picked out her feet and tacked her up. The dapper gentleman came out to meet her, stroking her and letting her smell his hands, and then he mounted her up and rode her up to the arena. Bemused as I was by this unlikely choice, I had to watch, so I followed them up.

The arena was set up for a jump course, nothing over two feet, and of course there was plenty of room around and between jumps to ride. The fellow walked Cappy around the arena for a circuit, getting the feel of her mouth, of her gait. Cappy was looking odd... something strange was going on with her. After a moment I realised that she had her head not just up, but on the bit, her head perfectly perpendicular to the ground, neck beautifully arched. Her eye was bright and open, instead of half-closed, and - wonder of wonders - her lower lip was tucked into a normal position, instead of hanging so low you could see the pink lining of it as it flopped loosely. She was picking up her feet, stepping along briskly, a light in her eye.

The rider asked her for a trot, which she picked up smartly, then a canter. All of a sudden Cappuchino had a big, scopey, reaching stride, well-collected but driving with power. He pointed her at a jump and she popped it smartly, tucking her big feet neat and high under her chest, landing on a turn, already seeking the next jump her rider wanted. She sailed sweetly over that one too, turning on a dime, taking a flying lead change in the center of the arena to turn for the next jump. A flying lead change? CAPPY?

I gave K a narrow look. She just smiled.

The man criss-crossed her across the arena, making a giant figure eight of it, and Cappy took another flying lead change, as smooth and lovely as any dressage prospect, turning tightly for another jump, a light of joy in her eye. He brought her back to a trot and her big heavy feet reached out ahead of her in a beautifully extended trot, floating - those big, heavy cart-horse feet floating over the ground, seeming barely to touch it, snapping up smartly and reaching forward with grace and elegance and undeniable beauty.

The rider pulled Cappy to a walk and rode up to where K and I stood at the fence. I managed to remember at the last minute to clamp shut my hanging jaw and tried to look as if this was just what I had expected.

"I'll take her," he said. "How much?"

"Thirty-five hundred," K said, which was a fair expense in that time, especially for a 22-year-old mare... but Cappy was a valuable school horse, and would have to be replaced. Given that she was strong enough to carry a 250# man without strain, and gentle enough to take a 2-year-old around safely, she wasn't going to be the easiest prospect to replace.

"Will you take a check?" asked the dapper little man, without hesitation.

We returned to the barn, where I unsaddled Cappy and brushed her out for the last time. Her head was up, her gaze following the man into the barn, and she stood watching until he came back out, giving him a low nicker when he reappeared. We untied her and walked her around to where he had his vehicle, with a horse trailer already hitched up. He'd come prepared. I watched Cappy load up willingly, and then watched her go down the road in her new trailer - a good horse, and I'd miss her - but there was not the slightest heaviness in my heart. She met that man and she knew - knew right that minute, somehow, that he was The One for her. And all the grace and power and joy in her big heart, mostly sleeping all those years as a school horse, awakened at once and said: Take me. I am for you.

I went back into the office, smiling dreamily, thinking about Cappy's life to come. She would be spoiled and cosseted, loved for every inch of her being, brushed and polished and daily taken on the communion of a ride with another soul with whom she was in complete accord. With a life like that - who's to say she might not have decided to hang around for another ten years, another fifteen? I hoped fervently that it would be a long time, a long lovely life, a reward for the many years of her faithful service as a school horse, a repayment for the countless people she helped teach to ride.

I looked at K, an expression of utter bemusement on my face. "How did you know?" I asked her quietly. "How could you possibly have known that she was the one for him?"

K smiled and shrugged. "I just knew," she said, simply.

"Well. That was remarkable," I said with wonder. "Cappy didn't go three strides with him up before she knew she was in love. I never saw anything like that in my life."

"It's a good ending for her," K agreed. "She deserved it."

Things like this don't always happen in life. But it's nice to know that they DO happen sometimes; a little touchstone for when things seem grim. A little reminder of grace. So when I get discouraged, I try to remember things like this: like Cappuchino in love.

Hey There, Georgie Girl

Back in the day - not quite THAT far back in the day - after my stint in racing barns, I managed a hack barn. The owner of the riding school - my old riding coach (and here I must point out that by "old" I do NOT mean "elderly", I mean "former") was extremely pregnant and I arrived on the scene in need of a job at just the right time. Presto, I am now a barn manager. Well. That was easy.

It was a 15-stall barn, which I mucked out by myself (usually, although sometimes we had volunteer help). I fed up in the mornings, turned horses out and brought others in, bucked hay, scrubbed buckets, swept and spiffed the shed rows, and raked the saddling enclosure into pretty geometric patterns that would last anywhere up to 20, maybe 30 minutes.... until the first set of boarders, students, or the ubiquitous barn kids would show up on the scene. And sometimes, if I was lucky (and I was generally lucky this way at least 2 or 3 times a week) I'd get to use the tractor to mow some of the pastures.

The barn kids were all girls, all horse-crazy, and mostly either owned or leased a horse at the barn. Conveniently for their parents, they were generally dropped off in the morning (in the summer and on weekends) or after school (during the school year) and could be left until dinner time at the barn, where they would ride, chase each other shrieking and squealing through the orchard, brush horses (and often go catch and groom and tack up horses needed for lessons), pet the barn cats, congregate in the hay loft to giggle at God-knows-what antics of boys at school, and make themselves variously helpful, endearing or annoying according to their personality and mood. They varied in age and seriousness about the whole horse thing, but by and large they were decent riders and reasonable horsewomen (by which I mean they had some sense around horses and could in the main by relied upon not to fall into the horse troughs and drown themselves, nor get run over, nor let horses out accidentally, nor fall out of the hay loft and crack open their skulls, nor get bucked off, nor crash their mounts through a jump, nor any other foolish or dangerous thing that a teenager at a barn might decide to do.) Some of them were quite exceptional horsewomen despite their young ages, better (at half my then-age) than I will be by the time I die. They were typically good-hearted kids, and got in far less trouble at the barn than many of their peers might have done at the mall.

One of the perks of the job was that I could ride as much as I wanted - unless a given school horse was needed for more than three lessons on a given day, I had my pick. I tried always to pick horses that had less work; there were a few "push button" horses there that got way more than their share because they were honest and could be counted on to keep their students out of trouble and do as they were asked, without any sly moves or barn vices. My favorite amongst these was Happy Face - although that was a complete misnomer, because a more solemn and lugubrious face on a horse you'd be hard-pressed to find. He was, however, a good, true, honest little horse, and I for many years desperately wished I could afford to buy him. However, as a college student commuting seasonally between the Rocky Mountain west and the east coast, that was not a realistic option. I loved riding Happy - but because he got so much work, I would sometimes reserve his time for an hour and take him out and halter-graze him in the orchard, just to guarantee he had a break and a little leisure time, a little time to just be. I don't think I rode him once that whole season - but we had our little orchard trysts, and I think it brought him some peace. It certainly did me.... and I felt better about "buying" him an hour off than I would have about riding him for that hour, even out in the woods where he loved to go.

However, I DID ride a fair bit during my stint as barn manager. There was this one little quarter horse mare, Georgie Girl, who I took out usually at least twice a week. She was a sturdy, compact, pretty little bay mare, a bit more than a beginner could usually handle, so she didn't get as much work as some of the other horses. She had been half-leased by one of the barn kids for a while (a half-lease is one in which the horse is used on a light school lesson schedule, but the leaser has otherwise fairly free use of the horse.) For whatever reason - temperament, home difficulties, fears or anxieties of her own - the girl leasing Georgie was a bit on the dramatic side. She seemed always to be falling off, and the other kids said she sometimes didn't fall off but just said she had, and other times did it on purpose, though as I was never witness to these events - being otherwise occupied - I must in all fairness say I don't know if that was true. What was, however, perfectly clear was that the teen in question was slowly instilling in Georgie some vices. About 6 weeks into the lease, I discovered that George had started balking on the trail and turning for home, while the other girls with whom they rode continued on along the trail without incident. One of the best riders there - and earnest, elfin girl, beautiful and tiny and delicate to look at but a tremendous little rider, fearless and steady and very skilled - said that the girl had started by pulling Georgie up and pretending that she wouldn't go on, or pretending to fall off, or otherwise making some excuse to go back to the barn. This quickly progressed to Georgie stopping on her own at the usual spot and turning for the barn without any guidance at all, and eventually to actively resisting any feeble attempt to ask her to go on with the rest of the horses. This was a significant problem in A) a horse that might be taken out for trail riding by a member of the public and be expected to continue on as asked, and B) a horse that had previously had no vices whatsoever. Whatever else she might be, little Georgie Girl was smart as a whip and, like many mares, quick to press any advantage.

Seeing once too often that Georgie and her rider were coming home alone only 15 minutes after starting out, and hearing once too often that she "wouldn't go", I started to wonder what was up. Having also heard the rumors from the other girls at the barn - whispered furtively, as if they feared speaking ill of another barn kid, but at the same time knew something wasn't right and an adult should be told - I decided to take Georgie out for a little test drive one morning and see what was what.

For the most part I rode early in the morning, before it got too hot. I'd come in before 5 a.m. and feed, muck out about half the barn (which allowed the horses time to digest their breakfast), ride, cool and brush out my mount, and then finish the barn and whatever else needed doing. Having decided to check out the balking story, I quickly discovered Georgie's developing vice was more than a rumor. Having ridden her many times prior to the lease and never once having her balk on me, I was really expecting more that the rider was just a little too tentative with George and wasn't asking her to move along with adequate authority. To test my theory I took her hacking along the trail where she'd been balking. As usual, I rode early and alone (since I'd begin riding anywhere between 6:15 and 7:00, depending on barn chores.) It started as a lovely, peaceful ride in the woods, everything just as it ought to be, when suddenly George stopped in the trail. She showed no sign of alarm, no spooking or shying or tension or lameness. She just stopped. I asked her to go on and she did, so I thought perhaps my theory was correct and she just needed a slightly stronger or more confident rider.... until the next day, when I rode her again. She stopped in exactly the same spot, and this time when I asked her to go on, she didn't. I gave her a little more leg, with the same result. So I put my heel into her (which, as I was wearing leather cross-trainers, wasn't really much of an inducement) - but I did it firmly enough to indicate that I meant business, and she walked on.

The next day I rode her again, she stopped again at the same spot. This time I put my heel into her firmly the first time, to indicate that we were not going to be playing THIS little game every dang day in creation. George ignored me. I set her my heel again, as sharp and brisk as you can make it be in tennis shoes. Georgie flicked an ear, but otherwise ignored me completely.

"George. Walk on," I told her, and gave her my heel again. This time Georgie moved, all right, but she moved backwards up the trail, shuffling up the slight slope and backing into the surrounding trees, intent on making a three-point turn and heading home again. She backed me under a low branch - probably not by design, but just as an accidental consequence of the spot she'd chosen to make her turn.

All righty, then. That's enough of THAT little game, I thought, leaning flat on her neck to avoid the branch taking out my kidneys. Transferring both reins to my right hand, I reached back with my left and broke a twig off the branch. It was about 11 inches long, had about 9 leaves on it, and was about as bendy as a half-cooked piece of spaghetti. I stripped off all but three leaves (quickly, as George was fighting my rein and trying to turn her head toward home), and I took the twig into my left hand, laying it along her shoulder as I would a crop, had I been carrying one. It wasn't much of a weapon - after all, with three leaves on the end to break the speed and the extreme bendability of the twig, I couldn't have done more than tickle her with it, even had I been in deadly earnest - but laying it along her shoulder was a reminder that such things as riding crops did exist, and that if she earned herself a spanking, she was by-God going to get one before I was going to let her turn around and bolt for the barn. I gave her one anemic little tap along her left shoulder with my featherweight improvised crop.

"George. Walk on," I told her, in my best do-it-or-feel-my-wrath voice, giving her a little bit of leg at the same time.

Instant response: Her ears went flat back on her head, her eyes narrowed, and she pinched her lips and nostrils in an ill-tempered, snake-lipped, Oh-all-right grimace - and she went trotting out onto the trail in a stiff little pissed-off short-stepping gait, turning sharply left away from the barn, just where I'd asked her to go. She jolted down the trail for about 50 yards, stiff and choppy, neck rigid with irritation and completely unlike her usual smooth, fluid trot. I let her have her little tantrum - she was, after all, going where I'd asked her to, and doing it without me having to get off and lead her past her sticking point - and after that short stretch her eye softened again and her neck relaxed and she generally unclenched herself and started to enjoy her morning ride again - because Georgie really DID like to go off onto the trails, which was one of the reasons I so often chose her for my early morning jaunts and not one of the other less-used school horses.

We never had that conversation again - the next time I rode her she hesitated at that spot, but I legged her on and she picked up her stride again without argument, and she never even hesitated there again. I discussed this little episode with the school owner and the decision was made that Georgie was going to be "too busy" henceforth to be leased by the girl who'd allowed - or possibly encouraged - the vice to occur.

Thereafter, George was a delight in every way to ride. Steady of temperament, she was smart and level-headed and willing, and seemed quite cheerful to go on her solo morning rides with me. And I did offer her one thing that was almost irresistible to her: she loved to sprint.

Strictly speaking, we weren't supposed to go faster than a walk in the confines of the reserve wherein the riding school existed. This was because there were others using the park, and while it was ideal for lots of lovely long three-abreast canters and gallops - having a veritable maze of wide, well-groomed grassy trails edged by tall lush hedges - the idea was that we, ahorse, might run over and mangle walkers and runners on foot. There was a certain justification for this, although there were several places where you could have a long, strait, uninterrupted stretch, with perfect visibility and no place someone could suddenly pop out in your path - unless they were bushwhacking through 8 feet of Bre'er Rabbit brier hedges expressly in order to fall directly under your horse's pounding hooves. However, it's difficult to make and enforce different rules for one stretch of path than for another, so the ranger decided that walking was our top speed, and that was that.

Now, I'll have to ask you to keep this next part strictly between you and I.

Where the ranger's house was, there was a long, wide, perfectly level straightaway that went for about half a mile. To the right there was an impenetrable hedge. To the left there was an open, rolling, short-grass meadow, frequently mowed and dotted here and there with the occasional small tree. In short, it would be impossible to miss seeing any traffic larger than a squirrel, and hence impossible for there to be a collision of any kind unless you completely lost control of your faculties or your horse and went careening about like a drunken starlet. Moreover, as I generally reached this area somewhat before seven in the morning, there was never - not even once - another soul around. The ranger's house was nearly always dark and quiet at that time, he not yet having even bestirred himself for his first cup of coffee. I always rode sedately past his house, my mount's hooves thumping quietly on the thick turfy sod, her tail swishing quietly behind us.

And then.

As soon as I judged that the noise would not reach anyone stirring in the house, I turned Georgie's nose west and let her fly.

The first time I did this, she (not knowing what was in store) stepped off willingly from my heel into a pretty little canter. But I took the hand-gallop position: my upper body leaned over her neck, fists braced against the curving muscles of her neck, my weight balanced forward and carried mainly in the stirrups - and I told her "GO, baby." And go she did, letting her canter open in a matter or strides to a sweet, thundering gallop, flying down that straightaway like she was running for the roses. She was all bunching muscle and flex and speed and power - and me... I was laughing into the wind, feeling our speed push my breath back down my throat, letting her flying mane sting my face and whip tears from the corners of my eyes, feeling my heart thunder in time with the beat of her hooves.

It doesn't take long for a quarter horse to gallop half a mile - but let me tell you, it lasts forever. That's a rush that'll be with you til you die.

We did this every morning I could get away with it - whenever the ranger's house was dark and quiet, whenever I got through the barn early enough to saddle Georgie up and blow the dust out of her lungs and the cobwebs out of my brain. After the first time Georgie - a quick study if ever there was one - was ready for the gallop. After that first time all I had to do was lean forward and lighten my hand on the reins and she would sink onto her muscular haunches and launch herself like she was breaking from the gate, racing herself and all her ancestors to the end of the stretch, my hair lifting like a flag on the wind and my laughter left behind so quickly that even I barely heard it before we outran it.

The straightaway ended in a wide cul-de-sac bounded by high hedges. Here there was a scattering of trees, broadly spaced but constituting obstacles, so I always started to pull her up before we got there, taking back my balanced seat, letting my weight settle back into the saddle and my hands come off her neck, taking up my feel of the reins again. Typically George would have dropped back to her smooth sedate canter by then, breaking to a trot and then a walk before I'd let her go through the gap in the hedge that would take me back to the barn. I could not, after all, see what was on the other side of a twelve-foot hedge, so I took care never to go through that gap at anything other than a walk, just on the off chance that a deer or a fox or a stray morning jogger might be on the other side.

As the summer went on, George was more and more in love with her morning sprint, stronger and faster with practice, and she knew the drill. I let her sprint a little closer to the cul-de-sac, and a little closer yet, knowing she understood what we would be doing and that she wouldn't fight my rein when I pulled her up. One morning, though, we had a little confusion about which side of a tree we were going to pass on, me thinking left and her thinking right. We took three weaving strides strait at it, and at the last minute I gave her her head, rather than crash strait into its branches. My fault, that time; I'd pulled her up about 4 strides too close to the tree, and that was enough to confuse her as to our trajectory, at our speed. The result of this all being that, breaking to a trot, we still weren't slow enough in my judgement to go through the hedge gap, so I legged her past it, to her obvious confusion. After all, she KNEW that was where the path was, and I was pointing her where there was no path. But she broke to a walk as we passed the gap, obedient to my leg and rein, and I relaxed my cues the second she took her walk.

In that instant, Georgie demonstrated what it is that is bred into the Quarter Horse and executed, for the first time in her life and unasked, a perfect roll-back into the hedge gap: sitting back hard on her haunches and lifting both front feet off the turf, she pivoted around her flexed hocks to execute about a 120-degree turn in a single fluid movement, so smoothly that I - all unexpecting - had no more trouble sticking that than had she made a sedate walking circle back to the gap. Rising smoothly off her haunches, Georgie continued calmly through the hedge gap, walking on as if she - who had been trained to go English all her life - had spent the last five years as a working cow pony on a ranch in Montana.

Well. What do you know. Little Georgie has a few more tricks up her sleeve yet, lest we get complacent.

I miss those days sometimes, my solitary morning rides in the cathedral of the forest, the live and colorful tapestry of horses out in the pastures in the early mornings, the happy nickers and shrill excited whinnies as I arrived with my weelbarrow full of grain to distribute scoop by scoop. I miss the smell of a clean barn, all fresh straw and hay and the sweet, warm scent of horse. I miss filling the watering can with hot water and just that little touch of Pine Sol, and the ponderous sway of the can back and forth across the aisles as I sprinkled them down against the dust: my own private preisthood, the watering can my cencer as I proceeded down the aisles of the house of my own kind of worship; the sweet feed and the gratitude with which it was both given and recieved a simple sort of communion. There is something about being with horses that tends to connect me to the divine, in some way; maybe it is not so for everyone, but for me, they are a link between the physical and the metaphysical. Something about them is a metaphor for life, for me - both the life of the mundane physical, and the life of the soul. And if I ever get stuck - grinding along in the same rut, and finding no way out - a sure cure is to go for a ride. I never fail to gain some new perspective that way - whether it is because being up on horseback provides a literal change of perspective, and so triggers a metaphorical one, or whether it is due to some special magic of horses themselves, I don't know. But I don't have to know why it works: it is enough THAT it works.

And here's the other thing about horses, both actually and metaphorically: Once they get into your being, even if you never ride one again so long as you live, they are just like those early morning gallops: Always there, til the day you die, all the rush, all the warmth, all the sweet smells and sleek power and surging joy and kind, generous, liquid-eyed strength ready to be called to your service... always there. Waiting.

Asses and Alligators

Author's note: this is a story from several years ago. I will preface this by saying that the Rottweilers herein represented are not what I would consider representative of a well-bred member of their breed. Rotties were originally working dogs, and well-bred, good-tempered and physically sound examples can certainly be found - but in my neck of the woods, there has in the past been, and to some degree still is, an unfortunate abundance of questionably-bred orthopedic disasters of foul and unstable temperament. These animals are NOT what the breed is intended to be, although fortunately their numbers are declining in favor of more judiciously-bred animals that are truer to the breed's intended characteristics.


So Friday morning I started the day out with the biggest ass of month. Always a good way to begin, I find... everyone else seems so reasonable by contrast.

First thing that morning, in comes a man who, I will faithfully report, is rather good-looking, in a media-pretty sort of way; he is, however, not nearly as good-looking as he appears to believe he is, based on his superior demeanor. But perhaps I'm being unfair; maybe he just wants the rest of us to admire how well-tanned he's managed to get the underside of his nose, and is demonstrating this by keeping it pointed up in the air at all times. At any rate, apart from his unnaturally-even tanning-bed tan, he is very buff, which he shows off by wearing sweatshirts with the sleeves torn off - which I will say makes him look like he's pretending to be a high school jock, in defiance of his actual age. This makes me think "pretty-boy", by which I mean a (thankfully uncommon) member of the male gender who believes he is God's gift to everything in the known Universe. Such people tend to walk as if they expect the air to part before them in deference to their magnificence. This is a class of men I tend to dislike, so I automatically try to compensate by being extra pleasant and cutting a big margin for some benefit of the doubt.

This client is dragging - quite literally - his puppy in on a leash. The dog is petrified; on entering the clinic he immediately sits down on his haunches, frozen in terror, and has locked all legs, absolutely rigid with panic. Rather than coax, encourage or support the dog in any way so that he can learn to move forward and cope with his fears, he guy just pulls on the leash and skids the dog along the floor. This in itself isn't the worst thing I can think of - but it does mean two things: One, that the puppy - a 40# Rottweiler mix - has not been taught to walk on a leash. And Two, that the owner has little concern for the dog's state of mind. This is a 16 week old pup, so he should both trust the owner and know how to walk on a leash by now... and if he doesn't, dragging him around by the leash is not the way to teach him either thing.

The guy hoiks him onto the table for his last set of puppy shots. The pup cowers on the table, head ducked and limbs trembling, clearly afraid of me but just as clearly uncertain of the owner, from whom he appears to be unsure of his welcome. I try to reassure the puppy, petting and talking nice, as I mention (quite mildly) to the man that he might consider puppy classes for this dog; he's clearly afraid, and puppy classes will increase his confidence and make the rest of his life much easier and less frightening for him.

"Nope," says the owner decisively. "This dog just stays home. I'm not doing any classes with him. I did that with my last dog and he died."

My eyebrows go up sharply. "He died in puppy class?" I ask in some astonishment. Having been through three puppy classes with two different instructors, I cannot imagine any scenario where a dog might die in puppy class. Puppies are generally not physically or psychologically capable of killing each other, even if an instructor or owner would allow it, and because of the nature of the class - i.e., it's likely to be full of PUPPIES - the rooms are, quite naturally, puppy-proofed.

"No, he didn't die in puppy class, but I put $1400 of training into him and then he was out tied in my yard and some kids came into the yard and shot him," he says.

"I'm awfully sorry to hear that," I say, "but that didn't have anything to do with the classes. I'm not suggesting training that extensive in this case - just a basic class to help his confidence and give him the basics."

"Thanks for you interest, but this dog is just going to stay home," the owner repeats, dismissively. I look at the puppy, who is now leaning toward me, not the owner, for comfort.

"This is a nice puppy, but he's scared," I try again, thinking that concern for the dog's well-being may sway the owner. "Because of his breed, he may be at risk for fear-biting. If he does that he could be destroyed. Puppy classes might help us avoid that."

"If he bites anyone, I'll kill him myself," the owner says. "We're not doing any training. People pay too much attention to their dogs anyway."

Say WHAT?

I feel my eyes go slitty and hard. I hesitate for a moment, ire surging - what the hell else do we HAVE dogs for, if not to either use them for work or have them as companions - or both? In either scenario, you have to PAY ATTENTION TO THEM. Completely apart from which - but possibly more importantly - dogs are social animals. They REQUIRE interaction, and in the absence of other dogs they must get this from their owners. How cruel is it to deliberately choose to get an animal that requires attention, and then refuse to give it? This dog could have had another home, where someone might love him and bother to teach him some basic skills - but this man bought him, thus eliminating all the other options for the puppy, and then refuses to provide him the care he deserves. I suddenly wonder if the dog's lack of confidence is more due to his treatment at home than his inborn temperament.

This all flashes through my head in an instant. I give the owner a narrow look, but he is busy brushing imaginary lint off of his leather bomber jacket, now draped over his arm - although if this man is a pilot I'll eat my mouse pad. He's a narcissistic prettyboy, one of my least favorite kinds of people. I open my mouth to ask him why he even has this dog - and then I stop. There is no point. The man has no room in his world for anything but himself and his mirror, and any accoutrements that might up his image. I vaccinate the dog - all I can really do to help him is to prevent any miserable painful viral diseases from getting on board, and I am way too near to stabbing this jerk with a trochar (perhaps THAT would puncture his self-importance, but he might go flying around the room like a deflating balloon, and I really don't want to have to clean up after THAT). I try not to entertain any unflattering speculations about any - erm - personal deficiencies his preening might be compensating for, vaccinate the dog (with an apologetic head rub - I did try, little one) and get this GOMER out of my clinic.

Well, I admit I went back to the treatment area and vented a bit. I called him a gomer so many times that I finally had to explain to the bewildered nurses that it's a medical abbreviation of sorts - it stands for Get Out of My Emergency Room. They thought that was sort of funny, and it did restore my good humor to a degree. I had several good clients after that, including a favorite cat-owner, so about 10:00 I was in a pretty good mood. Which was when JB came back and told me there was someone outside wanting 4 vaccines, to be given in the car. There are two Rotts and two Rott mixes. And two of the four were "Caution" dogs, which means that at some time (perhaps many times) they have indicated a willingness to bite, and may or may not have been successful in this attempt.

Oh joy.

JB tells me the owner assures her that she will hold the dogs. Dr. P's eyebrows are practically airborne with skepticism. Fortunately the owner has brought her husband as well, so we have backup. Based on the jaundiced expression with which Dr. P greets this assertion, I gather he is not especially optimistic regarding the success of this plan.

While I am drawing up vaccine, Dr. P (who is prepping for a surgery and thus exempt from Caution Dog duty) says, "Tell them we have a sniper stationed on the roof of the clinic. If any of the dogs bite, the sniper will shoot... the owner."

I snerk a bit about that, gather my vaccines, and mentally gird up my loins for another round in the Vet-vs.-Vicious-Dog Smackdown Championships.

Outside I find that the owners have brought two vehicles with 2 dogs each in them. This is a dang good idea, since all four dogs are enormous. We start with the Rotts, both large, robust and seriously overweight bitches. They get the first one out, who begins growling at me the minute her feet hit the pavement. The two owners manage to twist and shove until I am presented with a large expanse of black hide as my target. I get the vaccine in, they wrestle the dog back into the car, and it's on to round two. The second bitch is wagging her tail happily as the owners squeeze her into position, but the minute I approach, needle drawn and at the ready, she gives a twist of astonishing agility (in view of her impressive girth) and lunges, snapping, at my face. I - no fool - have positioned myself so that a quick skip back is right in my repertoire, and I dodge neatly out of the way while the owners smack the dog and yell at her. She shows every evidence of contrition until I make my second pass, when she lunges upward in their restraining grip like a breaching whale, whipping her head from side to side and gnashing her teeth like a shark in a feeding frenzy. Spit is flying from her jaws and her formidable teeth are snicking shut with loud, sinister clicks.

"Maybe we should get a muzzle; you're going to get bitten," I tell the owners, backing off.

"No we won't; just do it," grunts the husband, corralling the dog again and hauling her head into his grip. His wife holds the collar in a death grip. I make a third pass and the bitch gives a mighty heave and twist, fast and lethal as a hunting alligator, and there is a sudden flurry and scuffle.

"What the fuck is WRONG with you?!?" the owner yells, clouting the dog across the head (now I know he's mad - he's just said "fuck" in front of a doctor). Suddenly there is human blood on the scene, and guess what? It isn't mine. Well, I did warn them, and they refused the muzzle, so my liability is covered. It only took 2 seconds, but the bitch's razoring teeth have nicked both owners. Now the man is mad. He sits on the SUV's tailgate, hauls the dog's front end into his lap, and gets a headlock on her. The wife grabs the rolls of fat in what is normally the scruff, and I make a quick squat-and-stab move, getting the vaccine on board and popping up like a Jack-in-the-box to get out of the way as the dog makes another nearly-successful gator-lunge at me - this time avoiding further bloodshed, fortunately. Ironically, this dog does NOT have a caution on her chart. And this is the very worst kind of Rottweiler, the kind that wags happily and smiles at you, but will lunge at you in deadly earnest at the slightest provocation - without even the warning of a lifted lip or a growl, and will keep at it over and over, despite the owner's correction. There's something creepily reptilian about this, despite the fact that the dog physically resembles a small, fat and extremely ill-tempered black bear.

After that the other two dogs - one of which was another caution dog - are sweetness and light. Both are males, both are trim, both are mixes, and both are vaccinated in a matter of seconds.

I go inside with A Look on my face.

"Uh oh... what happened?" asks JB.

"Well, two people got bitten, but neither of them was me," I tell her. "You might want to put a caution on Maggie's chart," I add. "She's the one who did the biting."

I stroll on back to Treatment to dispose of my syringes. "How'd it go?" asks Dr. P (now scrubbed in and about to enter surgery).

"Could've used that sniper," I reply. Dr. P (who has himself been bitten without provocation by at least one Rottie) bursts out laughing. But since I am not covered in blood, he goes off chuckling into surgery.

Y'know, when I went to vet school, they didn't say anything about wanting us to have skills that would make us eligible for guest spots on "The Crocodile Hunter". But maybe they should have.

The Amazing Dr. B

Back in the day, I groomed racehorses for a living. This was an excellent job in many ways, not least of which being that I got paid decent money to be in fabulous shape. But I also learned my way around a wheelbarrow and developed a useful deftness at setting wraps on the highly valuable legs of my charges. I got so I could pitch manure accurately from the back of a stall into a wheelbarrow parked in the stall door, balance 7 bales of hay on a barrow and hop it over the sill of a barn door without dumping bales all over the shed row, pick out all four feet speedily and well without having to move from the left side of the horse, and any number of other useful things, such as how not to accidentally flip a rearing horse, how to carry two full five-gallon buckets of water rapidly down the barn aisle without spilling any, and (less usefully) how to comb pretty patterns into your horse's rump hair so she looks spiffy going to the post.

One of the useful things about being pretty handy with a pitchfork was that, during vet school, I made extra money mucking out the horse barns at the hospital. This was a different proposition in some ways than racehorse grooming - for one thing, there were a lot more stalls, and for another, there was no grooming involved. Moreover, mucking out happened in the afternoon and evening, rather than before the crack of dawn, and usually the horses were still in the stalls, rather than out breezing at the track. The pace was slower in that sense - I didn't have to get the stall mucked, the buckets hung, the next horse brushed and tacked, and the next stall started by the time the first horse came back from the track, steaming and blowing and needing a fast bath and a good cool-down. On the other hand, there were a lot more stalls to get through. Moreover, instead of pitching the stalls out into a wheelbarrow stationed in the doorway to the stall, the straw and manure had to be pitched over the top of the wall into a dumpster that was wheeled down the shed rows as we moved from stall to stall. It took a little while to develop speed and accuracy with this technique, but before long I found the rhythm of it.

This job lasted only during my junior year; in senior year there was really no time for that, as I often had rotations in the evening, or at night, or extremely early in the morning. However, I learned a little about the rhythm of medicine in the barn; we worked, of necessity, around senior vet students and clinicians doing treatments and taking in late cases. I, at least, got a sense of the clinicians; which ones were even-tempered, which were more fiery, which ones were so deeply intimidating that they scared the living crap out of the students.

Even though I tracked small animal - meaning I took the majority of my senior-year rotations in small animal medicine and surgery - I did do some equine rotations. This was always fun; equine ambulatory was like an all-day field trip, going from farm to farm, taking X-rays, stitching things up, drawing blood, treating colics, checking on delicate foals. I also did an equine anesthesia rotation (scary and exciting, but sometimes very sad), and an equine medicine rotation. This was run by Dr. B.

Dr. B amazed me at the very start of junior year. I was walking down the hall one day, minding my own business, and he happened to be ambling toward me down the hall. Dr. B looks like an old farm boy: Tall, loose-limbed but sturdy, grey hair buzzed down in a short crew cut, and possessed of twinkly grey eyes surrounded by lines earned through laughing and squinting into the sun, set in a square, good-natured face. All his visible skin was burned to a deep ruddy bronze, from the back of his neck to his broad, capable hands. He was of indeterminate age, but I assumed he was somewhere in his 50's at the time, and he looked - and was - entirely amiable. But on that day, his customary pleasant schoolboy grin was replaced for a moment with a frown of concentration. Seeing me (for the first time in my memory) from the end of the hall, he narrowed his eyes for a moment and then called me by name, startling me to a standstill.

"Did I get that right?" he asked.

"Well, yes," I said, wondering how. He merely smiled at me and continued on his way. It turns out that Dr. B took the trouble, every year, of memorising the faces and names of every member of each incoming junior class. He did this by means of our vet school student directory, which had microscopic thumbnail photos - in black and white - and our names and contact information, in case someone at the school (another student or a faculty member) should need to reach us. How he managed this without actually going blind from staring at the small, grainy pictures, I'm not exactly sure. Moreover, the pictures were taken on the first day of orientation Freshman year, and not changed throughout vet school to reflect different hairstyles, the acquisition of glasses or contact lenses, addition or subtraction of facial hair, or any other changes. In my own case, this gave me pause; a friend of mine pointed out - with more glee than strictly necessary, I assure you - that, me having worn a dark blue tank top that day, and having my long dark hair hanging over my shoulders covering up the shoulder straps of said tank top, it appeared in my photo that I might in fact be naked.

Oh, goody. JUST the impression I was hoping to make. Not.

At any rate, when I went on barn rotations in senior year, Dr. B turned out not to just be amazing at remembering faces and names. He was a good clinician, and a good teacher. He put students on the spot, sure; but he did it without criticizing or scaring them, and used the pressure to encourage learning and diligence. His manner around horses was always calm, direct and matter-of fact; I never saw him lose his temper with even the most fractious horse. This is a knack that not everyone has, and it's one I admired. He was also a cut-to-the-chase sort of person, making decisions and directing treatment with a minimum of fuss, and disinclined to take three steps where one step would do the job properly. To which end I one day saw him scoop up and carry, preacher's curl-style, a foal that had to weigh a hundred and fifty pounds or more. The foal's mobility was a problem, and rather than go twiddle about with a gurney - which foals are disinclined to view trustfully - he just scooped the horse up and carried him, without any evident strain, to a stall. No muss, no fuss. This was startling enough in its own right, but for some reason he'd removed both his clinic jacket and his shirt, doubtless due to inundation with some unsavory secretion. Dr. B had what we used to call a farmer's tan - one that ended at the limits of what would be covered by a T-shirt. That was no surprise, but it turned out that Dr. B's natural skin color was as fair and white as milk, a startling contrast to his otherwise red-brown hue. He looked like he'd been painted. While I was distracted by the blinding whiteness thus exposed, two (female) students behind me, likewise arrested, stopped and stared.

"Whoa, check out the arms on Dr. B," one of them said with marked approbation.

"Oh, yeah," said the other, and they giggled like schoolgirls with a crush on the football captain. I couldn't help thinking that it was a good thing Dr. B was out of earshot; he struck me as the type to be embarrassed by that kind of thing, and he was such a good-natured sort that you'd hate to see that happen, even if it was meant in a complimentary way. On the other hand, there was no faulting their observations. Dr. B was in shocking good form for a man half his age. Or his presumed age, since he had one of those kind of weather-beaten faces that seems always to be the same age, no matter what his actual years.

The other students regained their decorum completely by the time Dr. B returned (with a fresh clinic coat on), and we turned to our next case. This turned out to be a horse that needed to be hospitalised in the vet school's barn.

"Okay, we need to set up a stall," Dr. B told us, "which means you'll have to go get some straw - "

"I'll get it," I volunteered, well-acquainted as I was with the inner workings of the barn. Dr. B looked at me in surprise. "I know where the straw and the wheelbarrows are," I added by way of explanation.

"How do you know that?" he asked me.

"I used to muck out in the afternoons," I said.

"Oh, right," Dr. B said, his expression clearing. Then he frowned. "Now that you mention it, I remember seeing you at it. I wonder why I didn't recognize you from that?"

"Probably because I haven't got shit all over me," I said without thinking.

The entire rotation goggled at me. Dr. B's eyes popped open wide for a second. Suddenly he started laughing, but I couldn't help but notice that he was suddenly turning a dark beet red. Kind of like I am now, remembering it.

"Er... sorry," I added, abashed. Dr. B kept laughing for a long time as he walked back to the treatment area, but in a way that made me think I'd really rather embarrassed him. Not enough to keep him from finding it funny, mind you, but enough to make him lose his composure completely. I felt rather bad about that - it was impossible not to respect Dr. B for his skills and intelligence, nor to like him for his air of being an innocent, good-hearted farm boy, earnest and diligent and kind. He never tried to make anyone feel stupid, and if you were unprepared, you were more inclined to feel that you'd disappointed someone you wanted to please than you were to feel judged or scolded. It was a useful knack for a teacher to have, and probably made nearly every student work three times harder so as not to disappoint him. I would never in a million years have intentionally distressed Dr. B - so I can only hope that he's forgotten that incident entirely.

Wish I had.