That Time I Was in a Field

I've come to realize that I don't fear animals.

I mean, there was that 24-hour period in my second-last year of high school... My father had successfully convinced me that I was going to die a slow, painful death because a dog (a tiny Shih Tzu) had bitten my finger, breaking the skin and causing some minor bleeding. I remember sitting on my bed when my dad entered the room.

"So you don't know if it had its rabies shot?"
"No, father, why ever would I inquire about such a thing?"
"Ah, well. If it has rabies ... you know, getting hit by a truck might be less painful."

I should have inquired about such a thing.

Anyways, the dog did have its rabies shot (this was discovered after painfully heckling the dog owner's friend for information) and I was left to live life normally.

However, I blame my father for my brief bout of canine phobia.

So, other than that, I don't usually fear animals. I pick up stray cats (cuddle with them too sometimes), pet strange dogs (only after letting them sniff my hand!), and have been known to touch a shark (a nurse shark at the Metro Toronto Zoo, but still).

But yeah, Dan and I went for a drive the other day. The initial plan was to go to Menchie's, but the weather was too perfect and my surrounding area too strangely rural to really resist exploring.

We went north of typical suburbia, speeding past nature conservation areas and the occasional cluster of one million dollar homes. Before we knew it, there was an eerie calmness to the landscape - we were surrounded by fields, with a glorious sunset in the distance partially obscured by a cellphone tower (we hadn't quite escaped civilization yet).

In that trip, I was tempted to do three things. Here they are, and why I did not do them:

1. Visit a strange graveyard. This was right before a steep hill that prevented us from properly pulling over. I would have gone, but I feel like the image of two twenty-somethings entering a graveyard at sunset is the go-to opener for Joss Whedon's next maybe-awful, surprisingly-awesome horror film.
   
2. Jump a strange fence. We were totally going to, and the grassy field filled with snakes and mice and maybe a skeleton or two did look awfully tempting, but in the end it was decided that this was private property. If we were to get shot... Well, in the rural fields north of the suburbs, no one can hear you scream.
   
3. Pet a strange horse. We had pulled over on a side road to look around. Lo and behold, there was a horse farm (a ranch? A dude ranch?) right next to us so I hopped over a sewage stream to get to these two horses that totally approached the fence. Kay, so I reeeeally wanted to pet one. Except, I did not know how to pet a horse. You know, there's an etiquette for any new animal you want to pet. Fun fact: you are supposed to let the horse sniff your hand, and then pat it firmly behind its wither (the base of its "neck"). So I was left to stand there and, like, look at this horse while meekly holding my hand out. I really wanted a friend I guess.

I made Dan take the picture featured below. I still count this as better than the time I ran into two feral cats in one day, but not as good as the time my friend was on something and was approached by a deer in a field in the middle of the night. The deer ran away, and then it was declared that it was his worst trip ever.

Look at my horse. My horse is amazing.