Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Of horses and other farm animals

Last Thursday night I took the boys to play at Rockwood Park. If you know the area at all, or have seen my facebook pictures of the park, you will know that the playpark is adjacent to Rockwood Stables.
As soon as we got to the park, Jeremy raced up the hill to look at the horses (he loves animals). The horses are double fenced in so I have no worry about him getting close to them.
We looked at the horses until Elijah got bored and declared it was time to play, and play they did. About 1/2 hour after we got there, my friend Luan arrived with her kids, even better for playing, and time for yet another look at the horses. So we meandered over again, this time at a different part of the fence. Pretty much as soon as I realised that this part of the fence was not doubled in, Jeremy had reached his hand in to pet the horse. The horse decided that Jeremy's hand was or contained food and bit down just as I tried to pull his arm out.
I admit, I panicked...well, screamed my bloody head off at this horse to drop my son's hand while trying to get it away, while Jeremy is screaming and crying.
The other children were so incenced at this horse. Zoe was calling it a bad horse, go away. Elijah was telling it that it shouldn't eat his baby, and Zach was just repeating bad horse, bad horse and pointing at it. Fortunately for me, Luan was there and offered to take Elijah while I took Jeremy to Emergency to get looked at. Also very fortunately, Jeremy's hand was okay (not broken or anything terrible) and now after antibiotics not infected either. Apparently if you are going to get bitten by an animal it is always preferable to get bitten by an herbivore (according to the doctor).
Well, this Sunday Luan (and her husband) and I took the kids to New Brunswick Open Farm Day. This, I figured (aside from being a great opportunity for city kids) would be the test of how much did this horse affect Jeremy. No need to worry, as soon as Jeremy saw the horses, he wanted to pet them again, no fear there. The other kids however...I don't think they are scared really, just more cautious, which is a good thing. (You never know around animals). Elijah did tell the story to the lady showing us the horse and declined the opportunity to feed it an apple.
They did end up having a great time at the farm. We got to go right into the cow's field and feed and pet a couple of the cows, which was cool. Elijah was most displeased with me that I forgot to bring his boots as we had to be extra careful where we stepped. He told one cow as we passed, 'now, don't you poop cow, you just ring your bell like a good cow' :o) I think Jeremy would have pet every animal if I had let him...good thing that the chicken's cage was out of his reach as I'm sure he would have gotten his hand pecked!

2 comments:

Jilly said...

What is it about second born children? They have no fear at all.

I'm glad Jeremy is safe, and not traumatized. I just hope you've recovered as well.

Anonymous said...

Gramma is thankful that Jeremy didn't get his hand amputated....from the fiesty bite of the horse.

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