Not the state. The horse. People in my family understand this reference.

Utah was a pretty big pony, almost horse size at 14 hands. Heidi, a Welsh Shetland cross, nearly kilt herself bearing that big boy. He had a few issues… Apparently the genetics were not as sound as the breeders liked. One of those things was an epiglottis that sometimes failed to understand its job in keeping food out, so the horse could sometimes end up with unexpected coughing fits.

He was a good horse though, a bit stubborn now and again, but large enough that my sizable grandfather could ride him without fearing injury if he were to break out into a trot (the horse, not my grandfather, he never broke out into a trot). This was important to Grandpa, because Heidi was really too small for Gramps, and had a habit of giving him a tiredly accusing look if he were to try to ride her. The grandkids got a lot of mileage out of Heidi though, so Grandpa had a reason for keeping her, and Topsy, another mare about the same size as Heidi, but not quite so round.

One day my grandpa fed Utah a treat, and he managed to choke (the horse, not the grandfather…), and it was bad enough that he actually went down (again, the horse… Gramps stayed upright for the moment).

“You ever seen a horse turn blue?” Grandpa asked when he told me this story. He waits, for me to register this and laugh. “His lips did anyway.”

There was Utah, DOWN. There was Grandpa, coming close to a panic. He was a respectable millright mechanic, and a noted record blood donor. You just don’t assassinate your favorite horse with a bucket of oats.

Not knowing what else to do, he did what the vet had told him to do if Utah ever did this… he sat down on Utah’s ribs. He’s a big guy (Grandpa, not the horse), and he said he heard ribs crack (the horse’s ribs, not Grandpa’s).  Poor Utah.

Whatever, poor Utah got the hint, went “Uuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!” (and maybe a few more exclamation points, Grandpa tells this pretty emphatically), and staggered to his feet.

He then coughed (the horse, not Grandpa), and landed a great big gob of horse snot RIGHT ON GRANDPA’S BOOT. Right on the curve of the front of the boot, where it instantly bonded with the laces.

Grandpa was NOT HAPPY… he was holding back his gorge, trying to get to the hose to swill down his boot, trying and failing to stop thinking about that big gross gob on his boot, his stomach trying to heave every time he thought about it, finally managing to hose it off without throwing up. He didn’t even want to THINK about how much of that had seeped into the boot and onto his socks. (At this point, Grandpa wants us to know it was a BIG glob of snot. A VERY BIG ONE. Even for a horse.)

Utah is fine with all of this, he can breathe again, in spite of the two broken ribs (Grandpa counted, said it was obvious), the snot does not bother him one bit anymore, and other than not being able to be ridden for several months, Utah is acting pretty normal.

Grandpa keeps the story pretty much to himself…  mostly because he can’t tell it without a surge of nausea at the remembered image of that great plop of slimy mucus.

Now Robin wasn’t a horse. Robin was a little bird, whose wings had been broken so many times by someone who thought that was fun, that she was plumb scared to fly. She hadn’t forgotten how to run though, and still had some pluck left, though it was all wrapped up in a little ball of watchful scared.

Really, Robin was a little girl, whose life had been pretty rough up to that point, and my grandparents adopted her and her brother Tony. They were some kind of messed up, but then, so were Gram and Gramps sometimes, and at this time, she’d been with them long enough to be sure of her place there, but not long enough to learn to know how to laugh or to really remember what tears were for, let alone that she had a right to them (She did eventually learn that.).

Robin and Tony had started out living with Grandma and Grandpa’s youngest daughter, along with a houseful of kids, and she’d just picked up calling the parents Mama and Daddy along with all those other kids in the house. So Robin also picked up the Grandma and Grandpa right along with the Mama and Daddy. She’d just been adopted by Grandma and Grandpa, but hadn’t yet got used to calling them by the names of Mom and Dad, as she would eventually, and the whole idea of having nieces and nephews her age was still just a novelty, and not really real.

Next morning (after the Great Snot Plop), Grandma comes out into the entryway of their house, and there is Robin, hunched down over Grandpa’s boot.

“What are you doing, Robin?” asked Grandma.

“There’s something on Grandpa’s boot.” she said. She didn’t look up. I guess Grandpa didn’t do as good a job hosing that boot down as he thought!

Grandma looked. Grandma puzzled for a minute. “Did you do that, Robin?”

“There’s something ON it.” Robin insisted. “I thought I’d clean it off but I don’t know how.”

“Robin, did you put that there?” asked Grandma.

“No. It was just THERE.” she’s still looking at that boot.

By now, Grandma is pretty sure she’s figured out the nature of the something on the boot.

Robin shakes her head, and says, “That’s too big to come out of MY nose.” she’s still examining it, then she looks up at Grandma and says, “You better ask Tony if he did it!”.

Grandma laughed, and thinks the better of asking if HIS nose is big enough. Robin looks up at her. “It’s ok to laugh, Robin.”

“That’s too gross to laugh about.” Robin said, shaking her head.

Grandma patted her on the head and went back inside.

Robin didn’t laugh, but she smiled.

Grandma gave Robin a scrub brush, and Robin cleaned the boot. At least, that’s what she SAID she did. Grandpa never did comment on the wet inside of his boot, or the amount of SOMETHING that he wiped out of the inside of it.

Later that day, Grandpa thanked Robin for cleaning that boot, and Robin asked about the mess.

“Utah did that.” Grandpa said.

“Well, HIS nose is big enough!” Robin was satisfied that the world now made sense.

And that is the story of Horse Snot in Utah… and OUT of Utah.

 

For books, and more stories by Laura Wheeler, look for her name on Amazon, for Kindle, and in our bookstore at http://firelightheritagefarm.com