Horses are not always easy to meet in an ‘up close and personal’ sense. I mean, yeah, you can go to someplace where you can pay to meet horses, but I am talking about you average horse who isn’t  conditioned to meeting new humans over and over. Horses have real personalities. They have to decide they like you before they will walk over to the fence and let you pet them.

I was driving down the California coastal Highway One, after leaving Santa Cruz at four in the morning so I could get pictures of the sunrise from the cliffs for you, and I was looking out for other things to take pictures of that you might like. I spotted this little church.

While I was taking pictures of the church, I spotted some horses. I don’t know about you, but I try to meet every horse I have a chance to meet. I love horses.

For those of you who care, the small church, a winery and dock, and the horse ranch, are all part of land once owned by newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst. That is Hearst Castle way up there on the hill. I have been there. You should see it.

Anyway, the four horses were all busy eating.

And, as proved by the first photo, I still got two out of four of them to come over and say hello to me. If a horse leaves his breakfast to say hello, even though you don’t have an apple or some carrots to tempt them to the fence, you are a ‘horse person’.

I love being a horse person. And a dog person. And a cat person. And a baby person.

And I love that crazy zoom lens.

Now get out there and meet some mammals!