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"Maybe I will live through this night."? Okay, now I see the signs!

As Tim had said he would wake me up early in the morning, so he did. I didn't say anything about what had happened during the night. I had no clue who was walking around out there in the big empty hall, with the squeaky floorboards in the empty part of the house. 

I went out to the kitchen, tired and still in shock, had some porridge and then we were on our way down to the horses. Down by the stables there were 5 horses that had been broken in and Tim was going to get 10 more from up the hills. These 10 horses were between the age of 2-5 and they had never been handled before. Ever. They had never had a halter on, been led, been brushed or anything. They were basically wild horses. 

However, Tim went up with his motorbike and got down ten more horses. They were obviously very stressed by the run down from the mountain and after been walking more and less in freedom they had no clue why they were stuck in a small paddock, at least they had each other... Until Tim wanted me to separate them. So I did, one at the time. They were all going to be worked with so I had to open the gate to the round yard that was attached to the paddock with the ten horses. And because the horses didn't trust humans there were no way they would let me come near them. So to be able to separate them I had to cut them off with a whip while they were running and finally shut the gate when I had the one horse in the round yard that I or Tim had chosen to work with.

Tim started working with a horse and sort of tried to teach me the basics of how a "cowboy" breaks in horses. Even if this wasn't really my method of breaking in, I sure knew about it. I had studied one of the greatest horse breakers of our time- Monty Roberts. Some methods that he is using on his horses I've practiced on my own horses with good results. So when Tim left me with one of the horses to work with while he was watching, I started doing exercises for the horse to come up to me, and follow me. I wanted the horse to understand that I was the leader and that he could trust me. Tim sat quiet the whole time, he didn't say a word until I was done. He looked at me and said that he was impressed, that I had a lot of patient to wait out the horse and to really make it trust me before I moved on to the next step. That was such a good feeling to hear that. I needed it after that horrible night and horrible day of just driving for hours. And I also knew that Tim really meant it. He wasn't the type that gave you relentless amount of compliments, you got one if you deserved one.

Little did I know about what was heading my way. 

Tim finished of another horse so I took her to the wash bay. The horse was a chestnut mare and about 2 years old. Chestnut horses are known for being a bit edgy, they sort of have their feelings on the outside of their body, and then off course, she was a mare. Which would mean that she already had her feelings on the outside of her body. Conclusion- This young lady was extremely sensitive. The washing went well, it was the scraping off afterwards that made her absolutely explode. 

She came after me. She was going to kill me. BAM! She struck me! It went quick. She threw her body up against mine in an attempt to jam me up against the wall. Her eyes were black, she was furious! Somehow I succeeded to throw myself out of the wash bay. She tried to kick me once again on my way out but missed. 

The young mare stood there, angry, frightened and probably a bit surprised over what had happened. I could barely hold my tears back and I was so lucky that she hadn’t had any shoes on. She could have broken both my legs, or if I’d been really unlucky she could have struck me higher up, crushing my inner organs. Thank God she didn't! With 2h away from the main road and probably 2 more hours of driving after that, to get to the nearest hospital I would have bleed to death. In all the chaos, tears falling slowly, the dizziness of what just had happened, I only had one thought. - I need to get out of here. 

You know that stop sign I was talking about(?), it's flashing bright red now. 

Signs, they are everywhere and you can choose to see them or not. Just remember that sometimes it won’t give you a choice. I had mine struck me horribly.

I had been so certain that I would make it, but because of the circumstances I wouldn't, and I hated that feeling. Always has and always will. But at this stage, it didn't matter. I am not at all a quitter, if I decide to do something I do it with my whole heart or not at all. But this was not okay, it was not okay to be left alone with 15 (wild) horses, 2h away from society, no one to call or nowhere to go if anything would happen. Not even to have cell reception. I was going to be all on my own. Because surely his parents didn't care what was going on down the mountain. I was done. 

All I had to do now was to break the news for Tim, who was leaving the farm in 5 days… 

Tim helped me put the horse away, he was angry and wanted to punish the horse by tying her front legs together and then her back legs to finally stretch her out. I have absolutely no idea how that would look like, and I did not want to know either! It sounded horrible. I told him he couldn't punish her now, it had passed to much time in between her striking me to him turning up. She wouldn't have known what or why she was punished for and that it wouldn't help her in trusting humans.

Tim took me up the mountain to show me where I could go with the horses when I was going out for a ride. We turned up in front of a massive open landscape. All you could see was horses, cows and kangaroos, it was so beautiful. I knew it was his land but I didn't know whose horses it was. So I asked him.

Hold your breath.

They were his. I asked again how many they were. His answer made me drop my jaw. 

"Ahh, I think it's about 200... Maybe a bit more. Don't really know." 

(WHAT?!) 

"So I will be caring for at least 215 horses??" 

"Nah, you don't have to care about these ones."

"But what if something happens? I need to check on them! What if one of them would get stuck?"

"Well, you could just check on them once a week or so…" 

"What? But all sort of things could have happened by then!?"

Yes, you read right. 215 horses, more or less. Welcome to insanity on earth.

We went down the mountain again and the eager to get out of there grew stronger. I had to break it to him.

But how? I didn't want to get on his bad side so that he wouldn’t help me get back to the city. No way that anyone could or would ever find me out there, telephones and GPS’s was not an option. Ordinary cars would break down going over creeks and hills.

No, I had to think about this. I had to be really smooth. I had to be smart.