I thought I had a pretty good idea about who might have left a bag of apples sitting beside the back door over at the new house early yesterday morning. I thought it just might be the folks who said they were going to get some apples for the horse. If you grew up in southern Kentucky during the 1950’s, there is an important distinction between “apples for the horse” and “horse apples.” Let it suffice to say at this point that if you are not familiar with the distinction, I would not want to put you in charge of making apple jelly for the fall festival.

I didn’t take time to cook these apples but I did immediately take one of them down to the horse pen. Normally, whenever I first approach Ole Horsey, I snatch up several tufts of grass. He stays green hungry regardless of how much hay he has available and would gladly graze himself deathly sick given the opportunity. So, he seemed a bit miffed that I didn’t offer him a handful of fresh blades when I walked up to the corral panel. He got over the insult pretty quickly.

After taking a very quick sniff, he eagerly parted his nimble lips and bit onto the apple. My idea was for him to bite through about half of the apple and I’d let him chew on that a while before giving him the rest of it. The horse’s plan appeared to be to take the apple all at once, along with any bone and flesh fragments that might come with it.

Now, I can pretty much hold my own in a tug-of-war with tiny trailers and small children. Not so well against a seven-year-old Arabian gelding. Observing the close proximity of my fingers to a rather impressive set of equestrian teeth, I decided to retain as much un-fragmented bone and flesh as possible. I let go.

I’ve already lost too much of me in this world fighting over horse apples.

H. Arnett
9/9/10