“Uuuhhhhhhh Maaaawwwnnn Dooooouuuggghhh!” My bellow rolls across the field and I watch as the sound finds its mark. Heads lift out of grass. I can’t hear the hooves start to pound, but my ears imagine thunder, as five, seven, nine horses race for the barn. That call is code for grain time. Now I’ll spend forty minutes guarding Peppy Joe’s dinner—at age thirty-one, she only has two teeth left. She takes forever to finish her sloppy, high-calorie grain. And everyone else wants a bite. Babysitting annoys me, but she’s twenty years my senior and they say respect your elders.
Alexa Savard is an entrepreneur who writes in the time between running a tea company and mothering two kids. She lives in Washington state. Instagram: @alexawsavard