A Near Disaster

The boss and I ran over to Sunnycrest to get a plant for my mama today..... I am lucky enough to be an old fogy myself and still have a wonderful mom and dad.

I hope it brightens her days a little.....we took it up this afternoon and Becky hung it for her and got it all watered up and ready to go.

On the way to the greenhouse, we always take a narrow back road that runs past a farm that used to belong to friends of ours. Now it is owned by some Amish.

As we approached I noticed a furor to our right, partly behind some buildings and well down off the road.

"Watch out, Ralph," I said to the boss. "There's a fired up team coming up the hill."

He couldn't have seen them and didn't really have time to look, as there, in the center of our lane on the road proper, were a Border Collie and two little blonde children, past toddler size but not by much. They were right in front of us, and directly in the path of a three-up of half-crazed chestnut light horses hooked to a farm implement, charging towards the road.

The farmer was screaming something at the kids, who totally ignored him, and standing up on the machine, leaning his whole weight on the reins to little avail. The muscles in his arms stood out like cords, but the horses were flinging sweat, throwing their heads fighting the bits, rearing, and hopping, and not really stopping. He finally managed to drag them to a bouncing halt maybe twenty feet from the kids, who still didn't move.

Egads.

The youngsters finally caught on and stepped out of our way, but were still partly in front of the team. We would have waited, but the father gestured impatiently for us to move, so we did.

I don't know what happened next....but I guess things turned out okay. Didn't hear otherwise at least. I swear it took at least a day or two off my life. I literally had a stomach ache as we drove off over the hill.

It was too darned easy to imagine several other outcomes....