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Since the weather got warmer, we have horses right across the street from us. Their owner comes and brings them grain every day. I spoke to him one day and he told me that they are very, very old, and he has to give them grain because if they eat just grass, they loose weight. I haven't wanted Aidan to go over there, or to see us going over there, lest he get the idea to do it on his own. One day, Aidan took an early evening nap. I was washing the windows outside the front of the barn. One of the horses was up near the road and I had the idea to bring her a carrot. She loved the carrot and pushed her big horse head closer and closer to me, hoping for another. Horses are BIG and I was a little intimidated by her, so I kept stepping back. When she realized that I wasn't going to give her another carrot, she stepped away. The back of one of her front hooves had gotten caught on the wire fence. She just kept pulling on it and I could see that she was scared, in pain and bleeding as the wire cut into her foot. This went on for several minutes while I panicked. I tried to get her to come closer to me to relieve the pressure on her foot, but she wouldn't have it. I was too scared of her size to try to manually maneuver her foot. Finally, she got her foot free somehow and limped away. I felt awful. I was sure that such an injury would be the death of a geriatric horse.

I was grateful to see her owner come to feed the horses soon after. I went over and explained what had happened, apologizing. I felt guilty about the carrot and omitted that from the story. He was very nice and said he was sure that she'd be fine and that he'd go and look at her. We ended up talking about all kinds of things for a long time. I asked him if I could bring the horses carrots and he said sure. I also took his phone number in case anything else bizarre like that ever happened again to his horses.

The horse is just fine and before we go to Montauk for nine days, I am goint to bring them all of the carrots in my fridge. I will feed them over the wooden gate though - not the wire fence.