The woman who lives on the property above us used to be a jockey and race horses. Her daughter still rides race horses at the local track.

Even though horses may live until they’re 30, they don’t race for very long, only a few years. So the woman who lives above us rescues “old” race horses, adopts them and has them living on her property. (I do not know how many of these horses are buried up on her 15 acres. Quite a few, I suspect.)

The latest, and probably last of her adoptees, is Jimmy Jack, though we all refer to him as Jimmy Jackass.

When this woman was in the hospital back in 2020, Jimmy started coming down to our property to eat our grass.

I don’t care about that. I actually think it’s kind of cool that there’s a horse around sometimes. As Blaze says, we sometimes have a neighborhood horse.

It’s the “presents” that Jimmy leaves behind which bug me. Presents that I end up shoveling off the grass every day.

Last year, Jimmy didn’t come down much. I wonder if all the construction scared him off.

This year, Jimmy is showing up almost every night. I regularly wake up around midnight and hear a horse clomping by the house, or the bedroom window.

Jimmy has a routine, as far as I can tell. He eats the grass over on the septic field. He beds down in the tall grass on the side of TH1. And he regularly poops over next to the driveway, which actually makes it fairly convenient to dispose of.

Except for the last couple of nights. It feels as though he’s been making a statement.

A few days ago, Blaze cleared out a bunch of the blackberry bramble next to the septic field. He just tossed the remains of the thorn vines wherever.

However, they ended up blocking one of the paths into the septic field. They can be easily stepped around or over. But they are kind of a pain.

So what did Jimmy do? He pooped directly in front of the front door of the main house the first night. Then, the second night, he pooped directly in front of the door to TH1.

Before he pooped in front of the door to TH2, I went ahead and moved the scraps of bramble away from the path so that he had better access again to the septic field.

Jimmy has gone back to pooping next to the driveway.

Coincidence? Possibly. Or possibly not. Horses are smart critters. And Jimmy knows he can come down here and hang out when he wants.

Just leave him a clear path.