It’s finally warming up here in New England. After last year, riding in the snow (and potential ice) lost its appear for me, so I waited for it to melt. But now that it’s warm enough to ride, the horses are experiencing spring fever in the worst way.

There’s a lot of snorting, spooking and otherwise carrying on. The first time I took Freedom out, everything was fine . . . until he spotted a herd of deer across the pond. Study that photo. You can barely see those deer, but Freedom had no problem. And the sent him into a literal tailspin.

He refused to take more than a few steps forward. This is the horse who has deer that live in his pasture with him.

Of course the deer weren’t nearly as scary as the true nemisis of horses. Wild turkeys. Over the weekend I was riding with a friend (who was on Freedom) and we came across a whole flock of them when we turned a corner. Freedom has always been afraid of turkeys, but I expected better of Zelda. Nope. She took one look at those bobbing heads and decided it must be one big, nasty, horse eating monster. We got the two horses past them only because my companion is young enough and limber enough to be able to mount from the ground.

I just hope that the horses remember their manners soon.