by Maureen Bordelon

Created on: September 18, 2008

After many years of pasturing my horses, my husband surprised me last year by building a twelve stall horse barn on our property. Roomy stalls, wide barn aisle, with a cedar lined tack room; it is a luxury my horses and I have never known. While truly grateful for my new luxury, I didn't have the heart to tell my sweet husband that I believed the new barn was haunted.

In a new facility, one tends to be very meticulous in its upkeep. I was no different. The stalls were heavily bedded in fresh shavings, the barn aisle raked and swept, and my saddles and tack were cleaned before going into the tack room. Halters were hung just so on the outside of each horse's stall. I didn't mind the work, and the four happy horse faces eagerly awaiting food at night was comforting to me. While there were six stalls open, only four horses were stalled. During one of the evening mealtimes, I noticed one of the halters was disheveled and knotted.

Straightening the halter, I realized that it was too far away from either horse for curious mouths to touch. An odd occurrence, and the incident soon forgotten, I began to turn horses out and clean stalls, leaving only one gelding in the barn.

While cleaning my gelding's stall, I placed the manure fork against one of the walls of the stall, tines firmly down into the bedding, in order to dump the manure cart. Returning from the disposal, I noticed the fork was missing. I looked everywhere and became frustrated. Manure forks do not disappear by themselves. In hopes that the fork had slipped, I began digging inside the gelding's stall. Sure enough, I found the fork well underneath the bedding and righted it. I shook off the incident, blaming the wind and continued on.

Moving on to the next stall, I grabbed the closest fork and began to strip the stall. Instantly, the hairs on back of my neck rose and the air became still. I felt as if someone were watching me and glanced around. Thinking my husband was at the stall door; I peeked out. There wasn't anyone near the barn, yet I had that eerie feeling that a set of eyes were on me. Unsettled, my mucking chore became frenetic as I wanted to distance myself from my haunted barn.

Going from one corner of the stall to the other, the fork full of manure, I soon found why I felt a set of eyes on me. Between the cracks of dividing lumber planks, I could see my three year old gelding's eye, head craned sideways in order for him to follow my movements.

While I laughed at him and told him how silly he was between the slats, I felt what seemed like a baseball bat slamming against the side of the stall. Alarmed at the thought he had suddenly cast himself, I rushed out of the stall to the gelding's home next door. As I stood at the gelding's doorway, I was incredulous. The gelding, in his goofy splendor, shavings intertwined in his forelock and the manure fork clinched between his teeth, pounded away at the divider like Babe Ruth hitting one out of the park. He would strike the divider, and then turn his head sideways to peek between the boards as innocent as could be. Seems I had forgotten about the other manure fork I had righted when cleaning his stall and he took full advantage of telling me so.

Thankfully, my new barn was only haunted by a goofy gelding with a penchant for manure forks and an insatiable curiosity. I know better now than to use more than one manure fork to clean, or leave a bored, three year old zany gelding by himself. However, I've yet to solve the riddle of the halter knots. Every morning at least one of the halters is knotted and hanging by the lead rope. Surely that goofy gelding couldn't reach his nose through the bars? Nah, couldn't happen, but then again, we are talking about Babe Ruth.

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