Waking up to foggy mornings always makes me feel like jumping in the car, and that is exactly what I did today at silly o’clock.
Everything looks different in the fog. Familiar sights change. It’s easy to get disoriented or even lost. So I am told. I grew up in Yorkshire, England, so my first memory of sunlight was around the age of seven. We hardy hill folk rarely get lost in fog. We do fall in ditches, break ankles, end up waist deep in hidden marshes and that kind of thing. I recall vividly returning home one late evening wearing only one of the two shoes I left the house in that morning. Still dripping mud and an hour late for supper. “Where’s your shoe?” mother asked. “I lost it”. We ate. That was the end of the conversation. I was, I think, eight. Ah, a different world. But I digress.
Three horses
This morning I came across a foggy field with three horses in it. I thought nothing until I drew closer. The nearest horse seemed to stand unnaturally still, which caught my eye. I looked at the scene and saw the line of the wire fence. The horse seemed from here to have one pair of legs on each side. I’ve seen that before, when a horse or cow tries to walk or jump over the fence and gets caught. It doesn’t end well. I pulled over and got out of the car, scanning around for the nearest house I could wake up, either to alert the owners or to borrow something with which to cut the horse free.
As I got closer the fog cleared and I saw the horse was in fact simply standing in the open gateway. I had been unable to see that from the road. This was a huge relief to me, as I’m sure it would have been to the horse if it had actually been stood uncomfortably there for however long, wearing a steel wire thong. I breathed a sigh of relief. Well, I thought, I’m here now. Might as well get the camera from the car. So I did.
Perspective
This is one of a dozen images of the three horses taken this morning. Not the best of them, but the only one that shows that horse standing where the gate was. From my original vantage point I could not see the open gate or even the fence, just the line of the posts. I’m glad I checked. I couldn’t ignore it. Anyway, it all worked out well. No horses were harmed, and I got some great shots.
Prints and products for all images by request.
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