Matching Manes

Ransom and I both got our hair cut this week. I’d always worn my hair long, and this new summer chop to just below the shoulders was the shortest I’d ever gone. My long, brown ponytail was one of the reasons strangers sometimes commented that I “looked like a horse person.”

The scraggly ends of Ransom’s appaloosa mane were also looking unkempt. Cutting a horse’s mane is an unspoken taboo in the horse world, since the straight-cut look is stark and unnatural. The method of choice is to “pull” the mane by wrapping long hairs around a comb and ripping them out. I doubted Ransom would have any mane left if I pulled it.

A fellow boarder had a solution – a comb-like razor that trimmed the ends without leaving a scissored look. In less than two minutes she tidied up his thin fringe. The manes were tamed.