She's Gone Again!

See that little black thing in the center of the picture?  That's Sara.  Notice, she's NOT in her pen at the barn! 

That's because when we took the horses down to the pasture before church this morning, we opened the gate between her little pen and their big corral to let her enjoy the extra room.  Then we took them out the other gate . . . and forgot to close it!  We took the horses down to the back pasture and walked up the road to the front of the property to get the newspaper, then headed back up the driveway, each of us glancing at a section of the paper as we walked.  Suddenly I stopped and said, "Oh, no!"  There was Sara in the front yard enjoying all that grass! 

She quickly made it clear that she did not intend to be caught, and Hero got into the act, too--but not helping!  Zephyr didn't help, but at least she didn't interfere!  Sara didn't intend to follow a bucket, either--not with 29 acres to explore!  And over the next 40 minutes she did explore many of them!  Finally, after putting Hero in the house and the horses back in the corral (thus eliminating several stimuli making Sara run), we managed with Kara's help to lure her into the back pasture with some feed, whereupon we promptly shut the gate.  That's not where we wanted her, but it sure was better than having her run loose! 

Jenny and Jean-Marc got up in time to catch the end of our little drama, coming out just as we headed back to the house.  We told them we really planned that little rodeo for their benefit.  Jean-Marc said that since they missed it, they expect us to repeat it tomorrow.  In your dreams, Jean-Marc!