Animal Joy

My father would call it "yet another episode of anthropomorphic theater," but I must say I have seen the joy that hides in the hearts of animals.  Spring is the perfect time to witness the proof, of course. 

As the days have grown longer and the sun warmer, everything seems to be happier.  The birds flit in and out of the fences, singing merrily to the sky, the eagles swoop and dive - not for food but for the joy of warmer air fluttering their feathers.  Even the bugs and the bees seem to be reveling in the sun and the new found warmth.

There is a particularly cantankerous group of "old men" at the farm, retired herdsires with good lineage but more years under their hides than others.  Because their pasture is in seed their world is limited to the barn and a small sandy yard between it and the next barn over.  That's not to say they have no entertainment.  Once a day they get to stand lined up along the gate - like the dirty old men they are - and ogle at the females as they traipse by on their way to their food.  But they certainly lack constant access to grass that the other groups enjoy on a daily basis.

Today, as we do every weekend when we clean and feed, I shuffled the younger males into the barn and let the old men out into their pasture to graze.  The sun was mostly hidden today, but the breeze brought the scent of fresh grass to their noses and those old boys took off like a shot.  From the time they entered the breezeway until they felt grass under their feet, maybe twenty-five feet at most, they shed years of age.  They hit the grass at a full tilt and began tossing their heads and pronking, dancing about with their lustrous locks swinging back and forth - just like crias do when the sun is beginning to set and the time to dance arrives.

Anyone who witnessed their romp - the dancing, the leaping - would have a hard time arguing with me.  It was animal joy and a wonderful thing to see after a long winter of snow and muck.