The foal is a true black with just a touch of white on his right leg.
“Wow, his coloring is stunning.”
“He’s also already bigger than most foals. I think that’s why he was such a difficult birth.”
I’m hoping I don’t endure that.
“How old is he?”
“Four months.” He pats Mystic’s neck. “Soon they’ll wean him and Mystic will get a break, won’t you, girl?”
It seems so unbelievable to me that they get separated. “Why do they wean the horses?”
“Well, it’s not great for the mother to be the constant food source. We want the foal to learn on their own. It’s not so different than humans. They just do it much faster than us.”
So it seems Mystic doesn’t have it all figured out, either, but she’s doing whatever she can for her baby.
I smile. “Can I pet her?”
He smiles and grabs my hand. “Let her sniff your palm and talk to her softly. Let her know your intentions.”
“Hi, Mystic, you’re beautiful and your baby is too,” I tell her. After a few seconds, she touches her nose to my hand.
“She likes you too. Pet the side of her neck.”
I do as he says, talking to her and telling her what a good horse she is. After a few minutes, she backs away, raising and lowering her head as though she’s waving.
“See you soon,” Everett tells her.
We walk back to the barn area, and Everett shows me the cow that was struggling when we got here. She looks much better now, so I guess whatever he did was a good thing.
When we finally get to the car, it’s already past lunch. “Do you want anything to eat?” he asks as my stomach rumbles.
“I can eat something when we get back.”
“Let me at least buy you lunch after making you spend the day on the farm.”
I shake my head. “It’s fine. I need to do laundry and get some papers graded.”
“Oh, what was the paper on?”
“Romeo and Juliet’s decisions that could’ve changed the outcome.”
He laughs and then pulls out onto the main road. “I’m sure they loved that.”
“I’d like to think I make it fun.”
“I’m sure you do.”
I lean against the door, looking over at him. “You know, I never imagined you’d be a veterinarian. I guess I really never saw you as anything other than a baseball player.”
“Yeah, I had that one career aspiration, and that was it. But when I was in college, I got a cat.”
My voice goes up three octaves. “You got a cat?”
He nods slowly. “Hazel said I needed to learn how to take care of something, because she was tired of always having to take care of me. When I told you I was a fucking mess in college, I’m not even exaggerating. It was my senior year, and I was untouchable in terms of my pitching abilities. I had all these teams coming to watch me, and my scouting reports were impressive.”
“And your humility?”
