Most of my favorite Scots have 4 legs

My Favorite Clydesdale and fillies behind me

For my better half's birthday this year we went up to Montana for a long weekend break to play with some Clydesdale horses.

I had only ever seen Clydesdales in Budweiser Super Bowl ads before or watched them across a field down the actual Clyde back when I lived in blighty when I landed my Ogar motorglider in a field next to them when I ran out of gas one fine summers day in 1997.

While I waited for some motion potion to pour into the Ogar, I had gone over to their fence and rubbed one and talked to him like he was a person. I even gifted him my Apple I had packed for lunch in the motor-glider.

I had out landed a Grob Single Astir in a field near Parys (South Africa) in 1990 and the cows in the adjacent field there had all wandered over and licked the paint off the wings and also scored rubs from me despite their paint licking crimes.

Animals of all sorts do tend to buzz around me a lot for some reason and I cannot resist either..

That particular Clydesdale (from Clyde) was pretty curious about the craft I had emerged from the sky in after landing it in a calm hurry.

They had not run away like the sheep and cattle had at any rate, but he was the only one that stuck his head over the fence to look at it and me in a pique of hawrsie curiosity.

Clydesdales have funny expressions indeed for horses, it cracks me up when they pull faces.

Almost 30 years have passed since that day, and I never thought much about Clydesdales again as they are a pretty rare horse breed with only about 6000 globally that are known.

Julie was always rabbiting on about how awesome Clydesdales are and we have gone horse riding on normal sized horses in Colorado and Tahiti in the past but them was not ideal for my dimensions and I did not enjoy those experiences a whole bunch due to my 6ft 4 frame and weight for the poor plain jane horses.

I am much lighter now than I used to be at 225 lbs, well down from the 258 I wore for a long time indeed.

I also shod a good few pounds for this Clydesdale adventure and have been trimming down for some 6 months. I will shed even more for my upcoming motorcycle adventure trip in Australia later this year.

When we arrived in a place called Kalispell last Thursday, by air, the first thing we saw driving into the Clydesdale Outpost ranch was a dozen or so Clydesdales split into two groups.

Later we saw there were actually three groups of Clydesdale hawrsies for a total of 23 horses with three foals, the youngest of whom was a mere three weeks sold.

The foals, it had to be said were pretty darn cute.

The stallions and females were in separate camps and had their own fencing keeping them apart from the stallions though there was one stallion with the female group.

The females fencing was a mix of steel and electric fencing, and they had a big barn with feed and grooming while the stallions were kept in groups with just electric fencing and a more rugged barn setup.

These Clydesdales were voracious grass eaters and were very efficient indeed at grass munching, as in huge swathes of grass munching.

My fave Clydesdale again

They also liked me talking to them like I speak to an ordinary person as I had done some 30 years prior.

I asked them where the sweetest grass was at and if the birds were bugging them and what they thought of purple haired freaks who drove Subarus who came to gush all over them from time to time muttering gibberish and mindless tat et al into their sensitive ears.

The mention of said purple haired asylum kids produced loud farts from all the horses I sprung this question on and one even drained her entire bladder while farting in response to my question.

I was fairly astounded, I never seen a horse drop their bladder like that so fast before and funnily enough I myself felt the same way about said purple haired freaks but I dare not have the same heart felt reaction to the very mention of said asylum kids à la hawrsie…

I was also astounded by how tribal they were with each other; they had a serious pecking order within their group that was pretty funny to bear witness to.

One of the females had developed a serious sinus problem and had to have some pretty serious surgery to fix it that required her to be moved to Colorado for a long stretch.

On her return six weeks later, some other fillies had dropped new foals and a new pecking order and leadership hierarchy was in place and she was now at the bottom of the ladder.

A couple of the new mothers had pushed her into the river when she was grazing grass too close to the edge and some unhappy horse feelings were to be had in lieu of said hawrsie bully antics.

I think they had it in their equine heads that she was with them because they were all either expectant mothers or had foaled and could not collectively understand why she was being fussed over just because of her health problems, not her forthcoming motherhood.

The other females all knew she was not expecting.

I think a bit of envy and jealousy toward her came out from the other females as a result of the sympathy and fussing she got from her surgery and the recovery process she was undergoing.

These horses are a lot smarter than I had thought they actually were and are awesome characters on an individual basis.

The herd pecking order thing does make some of them come over as severe holes though.

They really are like a bunch of 10-year-old humans in a school yard, and as we all know that shit can be a tad brutal.

Me on Prine

The one I got to ride was called Prine and he had a lovely temperament.

All horses I ride wanna eat swathes of grass while I am in the saddle and he felt he could just ignore my frantic efforts on the reins.

I had to fight him a good way of our ride, but I did just let him go for it when we were stopped in the tall grass for any length of time, which was frequently.

I was winning the battle towards the end of it all though.

It was more of a gentle plod than a ride, truth be told...

I even managed to dismount him in a seriously dignified way!

We had lots of rubs and hugs over the next 4 days, and Julie was clearly enchanted by the 4-legged Scottish beasties!

2 Happy Fillies!

T'was worth it just to see her smile like that again considering the annus horrorbilis we had just endured and put behind us! Much thanks to the Clydesdale outpost folks in WhiteFish and all the lovely hawrsies!

We will be back, Montana is my idea of heaven (in the summer at any rate)...I would not be surprised if we wuz suddenly living in the Montanas.....