Why the long face?

Man, have I struggled today. Despite sleeping like the dead last night and managing to wrangle a fairly easy day for myself, I've been working hard to keep my eyelids open the entire day.

Late this afternoon, an old country guy turned up in a huge horse truck. He probably wasn't that old, but country guys sometimes look a lot older than they are. What the sun does to paint after beating on it for a few years, it also does to the skin of farmers, and it can make a strong man of forty look around sixty. This guy also spoke in the particular nonsensical dialect that I've heard quite a bit since moving out to the country. If you'd like to try it, attempt to steer clear of consonants, and speak in a fairly high voice. Be sure to ask lots of questions, especially when you're fairly sure the person you're speaking to is unfamiliar with your dialect and is picking up maybe three out of every ten words. Laugh a lot too, but not when the other person tells a joke. When that happens, look hard at them like you're gauging their tongue's suitability as a paint brush.

I didn't catch this guy's name, but I worked out he was here to collect a horse. The owners of the resort had told me that someone would be coming for a horse, but that he would know the horse and know where she was and that I probably wouldn't even know that he'd been here. Unfortunately, that guy sent this guy, and this guy had no idea what horse he was collecting. After a fluke phone call when I actually reached the right person to give me instructions, I joined him in his cab and off we went.

Truck drivers are such talented people. They can maneuver a leviathon through the eye of a needle if they have to. I've seen truck drivers perform such incredible feats with their vehicles that you would swear they were illusionists messing with your mind. This guy wasn't one of those drivers. As we lurched up to the old, narrow wooden bridge that crosses Tobin's Creek, he glared at it with little appreciation and muttered something about how we needed to build a wider bridge. Or he might have been talking about fishing, Christ knows really. We edged onto the bound logs and as it creaked beneath us he asked me to check his left side to make sure we weren't going to go over. I couldn't even see the back tyre under the horse carriage, but told him we were fine anyway. Ultimately, I thought he'd have to be really bad to not make it.

We made it and finally came upon the horse paddock. I'd been told there were two horses there, one that looked like she had a draught horse background with a large white stripe on her forehead, and a smaller one with a smaller white stripe. It was the latter who we were there to collect. I was also warned that she would probably be very skittish and not at all happy to come with us. We'd brought a big bucket of hay along in a clear and obvious offering of bribery.

The hay was unnecessary at first, for this skittish mare came right up to me as soon as she saw me. I don't know what it is with me and animals, but sometimes we just click. I'm really not a horse person - the one time I remember riding in Melbourne with my friend Kate I lagged so far behind the horse started trying to hitch a ride home. But this one walked right up next to me and followed me through to the cattle rounds (or whatever the real farm people call them), allowing me to close the gate behind her. We gave her some hay, and with very little effort, my illegible friend coaxed her into the ramp area and into the truck. (Perhaps he was speaking horse to me.)

I'm not quite sure why she was being collected, but my understanding is that she was being taken away to become a mummy. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It's a habit of mine to anthropomorphise, and I had an image of her being thrust into the mean streets of Armidale, or Tamworth, dressed up in a frilly saddle and made to pimp herself to any young colt passing by. Or even worse, she would be locked in a small and seedy horse hotel as rippling studs lined up to have their wicked way with her.

To make things harder, her draught horse companion knew what was happening and was very unhappy about it. She ran back and forth along the fence as we led her in, neighing loudly and snorting in a way that sounded like frantic warnings. "Don't go with them honey! I know they're promising a good life and luxuries - hay every day, carrots whenever you want them - but they're lying! They'll steal your soul!" She chased the truck all the way to the gate near the bridge, and when I got out to open it for the truck she ran up to me, not in a threatening manner but pleading, sensing that I was really on her side. When she realised there was nothing I could do she stared sadly at me with her round, brown, disbelieving eyes, and walked to one side with her head low. As the truck shuddered off away from the closed gate, she threw her head back and literally howled at the sky. Have you ever heard a horse howl? Along with the tortured cries of a baby and the records of Australian Idol contestants, it's something I never want to hear again.