{"id":19051,"date":"2022-12-14T00:20:01","date_gmt":"2022-12-14T00:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=19051"},"modified":"2022-12-13T18:59:00","modified_gmt":"2022-12-13T18:59:00","slug":"the-roan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2022\/12\/14\/the-roan\/","title":{"rendered":"THE ROAN"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bryce Angell – The outdoors has always been a large part of my life. My father was an outfitter and guide for 35 years and I was there to shoe and care for the horses and help him do the cooking. We took many great trips into the Yellowstone area. Even now that I\u2019m older, we still ride into the Tetons, Yellowstone and surrounding areas. My poems are mostly of personal experience. I am now retired and enjoying life to the fullest. I plan to do more riding and writing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I shifted into granny, then I hopped back on the hay, and let the tractor pull the wagon on that winter day.<\/p>\n

The horses milled around behind and tried to reach the feed. I kicked the hay bales off each side and gave them what they\u2019d need.<\/p>\n

You could hear the horses chomping down, all lined up in a row. Their nostrils blowing steam while eating hay right off the snow.<\/p>\n

Our horses all looked plenty sound, especially one big roan. I\u2019d seen too many horses in the winter, skin and bone.<\/p>\n

I wondered why the roan had put on so much extra weight. He was no easy keeper. Looking fat was not his trait.<\/p>\n

So, I finished up the feeding and sat down to watch them eat. That\u2019s when the roan did something, to the likes you couldn\u2019t beat.<\/p>\n

The crazy roan let out a snort and scared Dad\u2019s Bay away. Then straddling the alfalfa, urinated on the hay.<\/p>\n

Had I really witnessed why the sly roan was so overweight? He\u2019d learned to get some extra food. Just had to micturate.<\/p>\n

I watched the other horses, guessing what a horse would do, as they passed up all the flavored hay, while the big roan ate that, too.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard of spitting in your drink. I can\u2019t say that will work. But the roan was such a wiseacre, I swear I saw him smirk.<\/p>\n

I had to wonder how the big roan\u2019s brain could figure out. I\u2019d watched him do the dirty deed. He was guilty without doubt.<\/p>\n

But we couldn\u2019t let one greedy horse eat all the horses\u2019 hay. So we penned him in the corral, and there the peeing horse would stay.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The hungry roan was smart enough to steal the hay away. But did he have a clue why he was corralled away that day?<\/p>\n

We fed the roan his hay and straw, kept track of what he ate. We put him on a diet. Soon enough he lost the weight.<\/p>\n

I tried to be observant, feeding horses every day. But from then on I never saw him peeing on the hay.<\/p>\n

So, I\u2019ll give the old roan credit, how he planned his little trick. And I must admit his reasoning was pretty doggone slick.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 <\/span>\u2013 Bryce Angell<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I shifted into granny, then I hopped back on the hay, and let the tractor pull the wagon on that winter day. The horses milled around behind and tried to reach the feed. I kicked the hay bales off each side and gave them what they\u2019d need. You could hear the horses chomping down, all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19051","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-cowboy-poetry","7":"category-commentary"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19051"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19052,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19051\/revisions\/19052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}