The Mysterious Blanket Caper

Someone or something was out to cause trouble on this horse farm.

- Georgia Lee Strentz

During the dead of winter, after a long day, I pulled into the driveway of my Virginia farm in my old pickup. Something looked different, not quite right.

The front field was filled with my five aging horses munching on alfalfa. But as I looked closer, it seemed that all of their winter blankets, which took so much time to attach, were riding on their bellies, not their shoulders. I could see their teeth clacking from the cold. In the next field, the boarders’ horses stood grazing, all looking warm as toast with their blankets on their backs.

Our family of four lived on a farm outside of Fredericksburg, Virginia. We were all involved in the horse operation. Our daughter, Stacey, showed her thoroughbred, and our son, Steve, was active in Pony Club and 4-H. We also bred Arabians and ran a horse boarding barn.