Horses!

The wonderful thing about living in Houston is that Sam and I have a vast array of outings available to us on any given week. There are plenty of places that want to charge us a small fortune to participate in their pint-sized entertainment (The Children's Museum, Zoo, Wonderwild), but there's also a host of places offering entertainment and/or education at the rock bottom price of FREE. Library storytime, mall playscapes (2 within 20 minutes of us!), countless city parks, etc. Today we found a new one to add to the list, and it might just be our favorite yet:

Welcome to the Houston Police Department's Mounted Patrol Division. That's right - on weekdays you can just walk in to the HPD stables anytime you want and spend as long as you like looking at, petting and feeding the horses. I'd heard speak of this adventure but we just hadn't made it over there yet. When another mom in our playgroup suggested we all meet there, I decided it was finally time.

I'd kinda made up my mind ahead of time that Sam would want to look at the horses from a distance but not get anywhere near them. Boy was I wrong! When we walked in and he looked down the long row of stables with giant hairy head sticking out of them he giggled! I offered him a pet, which he declined. I went another route and pulled out our bag of carrots. I showed him how to hold the end and offer it to the horse. I did it once - I only got to feed ONE horse - because Sam wanted to do the rest. And he had opinions about which horses we would feed, and he didn't want to feed any twice. When he was ready to feed another he would tell me "bite!" Next time I will bring lots and lots more carrots!

We met a horse named Sam! Get this: Sam-the-Horse had an appointment with the chiropractor while we were there - I'm serious! Who knew? Here are the two Sams checking each other out. Sam-the-Horse's human officer was there and we talked for a bit. He seemed very proud of his work, so it was neat to listen to him. We learned that the stables are a relatively new, $8 million facility, one of the finest police facilities in the country (I wonder what facilities are like in Canada, what with their love for Mounties and all). They have room for 50 horses but currently have 38 working.

Tomorrow there will only be 37. I commented on a sign announcing that another horse, Scotch, was scheduled to have his picture taken this afternoon. Another human officer informed me that he is retiring tomorrow - bad shoulders. He went on an on about what a great horse he is, and showed us how he answers questions by shaking his head yes. It was funny how over-exaggerated it looks when a horse shakes his head! I asked where Scotch would go and human officer was rather vague..."I think some type of rehab facility." For a man that clearly loved that horse he seemed to know very little about his future after tomorrow. Something tells me I may not want to know the real answer to that question.

Anywho, there was a little black kitten there too. The little ones had a great time chasing her around and trying to get her out from under the vending machine. I don't think she liked them very much.

At lunch I asked Sam what he was going to tell daddy about the horses we met today. "Bite!" I thought he wanted me to eat, but when he repeated it I realized that he was trying to talk about feeding the horses. I think we shall add this to our regular rotation of outings!