1.2 Decorated Hay Bales - Anya and Razz

“Ah yes please bring them over there, we’re nearly done with the hay ride area.” Anya was directing the volunteers as they carried decorations from the trailer to their final destination. The finishing touches for the entire route were nearly done. Marcus had wanted to run their first ever hayride with a horse drawn cart. They had to borrow one from the neighbors but it meant the two drafts his family owned finally got to return to work.

However it was Anya’s job to make sure all the decor was in place across the property. She patted Razz’s neck, the stallion flicked his ears back before he returned his attention to the goings on around him. All over volunteers and staff alike were moving various objects about. Most of which included hay and Razz had already snatched a bite from something that was supposed to be a decoration.

Anya clucked softly, urging him to move on as they proceeded down the dirt path. They still had the entire route to check and confirm everything was being set up correctly. Along with his idea to host a hay ride, Marcus had wanted to take it a step further and decided to host a contest with the decorations. Various people were invited to dress up the multitude of hay bales surrounding the entire track the wagon would go on. From boarders to neighbors anyone who had expressed interest was invited to pick up some tools and whatever they had on hand to create a variety of ridiculous designs. Anya smiled as they passed one such example.

Razz was less impressed and shied away from it for a moment before she let him take it in and allowed him to slowly step up to it. He sniffed at the display and she had to pull him off it before he tried to take a bite out of it. This particular one had several store bought skeletons sitting on smaller square bales around a round bale cut in half. Atop it sat several pumpkins in various states of carved. It was a cute scene in her opinion, a family of skeletons celebrating in their own way.

Other setups were far simpler, another featured some dried corn stalks and several types of gourds. The bales were nicely stacked and felt like a perfect background display for fall. Some leaf garland was also draped over it to further accent it. Razz paid these ones no mind, they looked far more like what was scattered around the farm for their autumn festival. Admittedly it was rather interesting to see how the horses reacted to the various decorations. She had been careful to keep anything too “spooky” away from the main traffic just to be safe. Most of the animals expected to be attending were fairly prepared for strange things and had been around for previous festivals and costume contests. However they did have some new boarders this year so who knew how well their horses would be with the various sights and sounds.

As they rounded another corner in the winding path she felt Razz tense up and stop. She let him huff out a few breaths as he looked at the new threat before them. Said threat was an oversized cow made of mostly various square bales but had a mix of burlap sacks and what she thought might be a black garbage bag repurposed for eyes and a nose. The stallion had seen cows before but nothing this big. She figured that and the various plants moving around it probably was the source of his fear.

Gently she petted his neck and soothed him, letting him slowly approach and sniff it. Once again he attempted to nibble it and she had to scold him as she pulled his head away and directed him back to the remainder of the path. The rest of the decorations caused little to no issue for Razz as he began to grow accustomed to the sight of food in bizarre shapes. Almost every display was complete and those that weren’t were nearly there. As they returned to the main stable grounds Anya spotted a lovely little windmill made out of three separate round bales. It was an impressive sight as the vanes had to have been hand crafted to match the size and look of the handcrafted structure.

Finally Anya dismounted as they approached the barn and let Razz get a drink after their brief ride. She ruffled the stallion’s mane and smiled at him. He still had a bit of work to do on learning to relax around unfamiliar sights but she was glad he had come with her for their little inspection. It was a good training opportunity and despite the spooking, she could tell he had enjoyed stretching his legs a bit. “Good boy Razz, you can take a break for a bit while I wrap up the rest.”