always look horses, gift or otherwise, in the mouth

Have you ever promised yourself that you would limit your actions? For example, "I'm only going to eat one piece of pie," or "I'm only going to pick a fight with one skinhead," and the next thing you know you're surrounded by empty pie tins and the entire Aryan Nation (Edmonton Chapter). That's sort of what our chicken adventure has turned into.

It doesn't help that the woman we buy our chickens from - our dealer, if you will - is a junkie herself. She just can't help it, she wants the whole world to experience the joy of poultry. You go to buy five chicks, you leave with seven and an order for turkeys.

I can think of far worse things that a person can overdo than acquiring poultry: I don't think that the seven new bantam chicks in our office are going to lead us into a life of crime.

Horse trading, on the other hand, might be a good gateway, if you will, to the criminal underbelly of agriculture.

Whilst returning from our chicken acquisitions we decided to drop in at the auction mart where we knew there was a horse sale taking place. I like horse sales: I understand horse people, their mistrust of other human beings; their strangely warped hats and manure crusted clothes - it's an atmosphere I'm comfortable in. But some of the claims made by horse traders would make a carny blush.

"This here is a gen-u-wine pure-bred thoroughbred mare! Papered and all! Let's start the bidding at five hunnerd!" When said beastie is trotted into the ring you behold a dirt encrusted little nag with a stringy mane and a touch of founder. The ancestry is more along the lines of zebra/shetland pony cross. It would cost at least five hundred to convince someone to take her off your hands.

But people bid - it's like a sickness. Horses trot into the ring, hands jump into the air, prices rise steadily and someone becomes the lucky new owner of thier very own hayburner.

Afterwards you hear everyone trying to justify it to themselves: "I figure I'll feed her up and make a good horse outta her" or " He's just gotta grow a little bit and then he'll clean up real good."

Which is why every other farmstead in Alberta has an unbreakable, unrideable, fleabitten equine living behind the barn.

"But Stu," you say, "how can you speak so harshly about those who just want to have a horse around the place? Don't you want the same thing?"

Too true, dear reader. Too true.

There's one thing has kept me honest so far - our stock trailer isn't road worthy and I don't relish the thought of paying a hefty fine when caught with my illegal rig.

But yes, I too sit there, my eyes glazed over, my hands twitching, trying my damndest not to bid for everything that comes into view; wondering if the auctioneer mistook that involuntary twitch as a bid (important lesson learned - do not take a talkative Italian with you to the auction market: it's liable to end in financial ruin).

It's true that I want to have a couple horses around the farm yard: Preferably rideable ones though - horses you can saddle up any day and not have to worry about filing a flight plan before hand.

Experience has taught me this - a few years ago my family bought a nice little mare at auction. "Broke an' all" they said, "this here's a real nice horse." And she was - a nice little palomino mare, friendly and clean.

When it came time to throw a saddle on her, though, her Jekyll and Hyde personality came out. Our nice little mare turned into a ball of tightly wound rubber bands, a ball of rubber bands that exploded when I hopped astride.

They say when you get bucked off you should just get back on again. Although generally good advice, a guy just sometimes has to admit he's beat. After a couple dozen trips through the air we decided to give the original owners a call.

Turns out she had been broke and ridden (about six years before) but had spent the past few years on pasture with her foals.

I had to go back to college the next week: me being the only one with the guts to climb up on her meant that, next horse sale, our nice little mare returned to the auction.

Who knows, perhaps some poor sod became the proud owner of a "former Kentucky derby winner" that day.