Horse Owners Must Be Crazy

A friend of mine sent me a quote she found on the Internet-
"Surgeon General’s Warning: Horses have been found to be expensive and addictive and have further been shown to impair the use of common sense in humans."
I found the timing of this email to be rather ironic as I opened it while yawning after night three of broodmare checks. It is only my precious American Quarter Horses that I will wake up for and check in the middle of a night of blissful slumber. Okay, that is not entirely true. I have also been known to wake up when my kids or husband are sick during the night or when our cat proceeds to knock something down as he does whatever it is cats do at night besides sleep. The past three nights have found me waking up at 2:00 AM to put on my stinky barn coveralls, wool socks, stocking cap, and gloves, all over my very attractive Pj's of a t-shirt and long johns, grabbing a flashlight as to not disturb the horses by turning on the barn lights, walking to the barn in the negative temperatures of a South Dakota winter, quietly opening the barn door (only to step on a sleeping barn cat that shrieks in terror defeating my sneaking), carefully shining the flashlight on the mares to find them still in blissful slumber able to ignore the shriek from the cat as it climbed my leg like a tree (thank God I had on coveralls), and finally then going in each mare's stall to feel their udder to check for waxing. A form of a horsey grope that only a horse lover and breeder can appreciate because we have carefully monitored our mares through the years and have recorded the length of time we have noticed between when the wax first appears and the mare foals. My kid's baby book may still be unassembled in a box, but meticulous records can be found on a spreadsheet noting the foaling histories of each mare. Horses and addictive behavior? Nah! It is amazing how the uneventful checks that take only about 15 minutes can leave me yawning, but the nights I lose hours of sleep watching a foal be born, watching it try to stand, and then watching it successfully nurse I can rise and face the day with vigor and excitement. I wish to add a line to the fictitious Surgeon General warning, "Horses have also been know to make one feel incredible and alive!" Happy foaling to everyone making those checks to the broodmare barn in the months to come. Watch out for those barn cats!