You are sweet, but you lack courage

"You are sweet, but you lack courage." I hear it often, or sometimes its more positive variant: "Fen, PLEASE try to be brave."

I went with FarmWife to the Cowboy Campsite the other day. I got in the trailer nicely, I got out of the trailer nicely, and I stood nicely to be groomed and tacked. That should count for something, but what FarmWife seems to remember the most about the day was my spooky behavior.

Here are a few excerpts from our rather one-sided conversation:

"It's horse poop, Fen. It won't kill you to touch it."

"Jiminy crickets! It's just a stump!"

"It's a shadow. Deal."

"Get a grip on yourself! It's only a bush!"

"I. Am. Losing. My. Patience."

The worst thing that happened to me during the day, besides nearly being eaten alive by the killer horse turd, the monstrous stump, the villainous shadow and the sinister bush, was a very resounding thwack upon my shoulder with the bight of FarmWife's reins. "How dare she strike me, her darling Fenway Bartholomule?," I asked. "I'm going to start carrying a dressage whip if you don't get your fat ass over that bridge," she told me. My ass (which is voluptuous, by the way, and not fat) got over the bridge, but not without some haggling.

The second half of our ride went better, with me plodding dutifully forward—lower lip quivering, and tears nearly welling up in my saucer-sized eyes, but forward into sure death. We survived, and at the end of our ride I dutifully negotiated part of an obstacle course—the bridge and the fringy-rope thingy, both of which FarmWife thought I could handle. My brain didn't quite fry, and FarmWife was praiseful of my efforts.

Ears, tremblingly, to you,

FenBar