What Did You Say? Mutton, Honey.

Here's one of the perks you get, living in the country.

YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT THE LIVESTOCK FAIRY WILL LEAVE YOU OVERNIGHT!

I glanced out the window this morning around 6:30, kind of drowsy in the La-Z-Boy, and saw the neighbor's horses at the edge of the fence. Or did I? The more I watched, those horses walked along the fence and right through it. Or did they? And when did the neighbor's white horse shrink?

Juno was barking her fool head off way up at the side of the driveway, by the road. The more I watched, it dawned on me that those two Incredible Journey animals were walking right up the gravel road. They were not inside the fence at all. But the neighbor's horses were! They came to the fence to watch the trek. I called Hick out of the bedroom.

"Hey! Some horses are walking up the road. I don't know whose they are."

"Huh. Let's see." Hick went out on the porch, and came quickly back. "It's COLD out there! That wind is COLD! That's Milhouse's horses. I guess they got out."

"Look. They came back. There goes Juno again!"

"I'm not sure that one's a horse."

"Yeah. It looks like a sheep. Or one of those big dogs that herds sheep."

"I'll go out and look so I can see better."

"Take me a picture!"

"I have to put on some pants first. It's COLD out there!" Let the record show that Hick was not covering up his tighty-whities for the love of common decency. But because he was cold.

I went in the bathroom and when I came out, Hick was back in the house. "They came right up to the porch! Neither one is a horse! That's a mule and a sheep! I have no idea where they came from. The only people out here who have sheep are up behind us."

"Well, they have one less sheep now. I don't guess they'll hurt anything. They'll just walk around. No cars will hit them in here. They'll just eat grass."

"They might eat your flowers."

"I don't think horses walk around eating roses."

"It's a mule, not a horse. And a sheep will eat anything."

"You're thinking of a GOAT." I told the man whose goats ate two lilac bushes and most of a rosebush.

"Juno will run them off."

And she did. Last Hick saw, they had gone down the neighbor's driveway, and were laying down in his front yard.

No. We're not keeping them. Good thing we have that new old fence to prevent them from getting on Hick's unfinished brick sidewalk.