Normal Life Field Report #3

Why are horse people clinically crazy?

Location: Corner of the couch, Grand Junction, CO
Date: 7/29/25
Weather: Smokey skies and a strange desert humidity that refuses to break into rain
Vibes of the month: Wow, no thank you

There have not been enough ice cream cones this summer.

I have been very lost all of July. Lost in housework. Lost in tasks. Lost financially. Lost in my career. Lost in my purpose. Lost in my art.

I keep waking up several hours a night with a brain racing so hard and fast, I wonder if it’s going to slosh right through my skull.

Nothing seems to be in alignment with anything else. The days slip away in a sleep-deprived haze. Nothing makes any sense.

There’s too much of everything. Too many texts. Too many requests. Too many emails. Too much travel. Too much feedback. Too many tasks. So many meetings. WHY ARE THERE SO MANY MEETINGS?

Look at this food aggressive MONSTER!

The barn owner did in fact raise her prices. She gave us all six weeks to get out or pay $800/month for subpar care. I learned while I was gone on a work trip in Alaska that Tex had gotten his back leg stuck in a fence and freaked the fuck out. I was told this happened because he’s “incredibly food aggressive” and kicked at another horse during feeding time. I was told they might have to electrify his fence. I also learned his food rations had been cut in half, a single flake of hay in the morning and a single flake at night. He is a 1,200+ pound animal. I was told if he’d kicked someone while trying to get him free, he might have to be put down. I wasn’t consulted on any of this.

After a red-eye flight back from Alaska, I met some friends with a horse trailer in a dirt lot behind the barn and loaded Tex up (I’ll have you know I successfully got him on that trailer in under 15 minutes without escalation after being told he was “impossible to trailer load”).

At the new place, he paced for a little while in his quarantine pen, he yelled to a few of the other horses, and then he saw three big flakes of hay and a full bale netted in a trough and happily went to munching. I stood there while he ate and scratched his chest and belly.

“Clearly food aggressive,” I muttered to myself, pulling hay out of his mouth just to see if he’d do anything. He dipped his head to the ground and picked up another mouthful, then followed me around the pen like a puppy.

Within a week, he was perfectly content in his new home, and I no longer lost sleep wondering if he’d be alive the next time I saw him.