Horse Cents

For nearly 30 years of my adult life Chicago has been my defacto "hometown". Now that I'm back in the States, I living with my oldest son's family. He works in Chicago, but his house is in a rural area at the end of the metra train line. I've never known how to refer to the area. It is a suburb of Chicago? If I call it a suburb will it insult the locals? What do they call it? Is this "down-state"? What the heck do you call this fringe area between mega city and cornfields?

Yesterday something happened that pushed me over to the "rural/down state" designation forever.

At 11:45 we looked out our windows to discover our property was full of horses. No fewer than a dozen horses from Peacock Ridge stable whose property meets ours at the back, had made a real "spring break" and were celebrating with lunch on the lawn. While we city folks were trying to decide what the name of the stable was, where the heck were the phone books when you needed them and is this a situation to call the police; the cowgirls arrived in jeeps and began herding them back.

We've had a stray pony in the yard before, but never a whole herd of horses.

Next time this happens I'm jumping on ebay and having a horse auction: For sale: 12 horses for a "real steal": Immediate pick up. Cash only. Where is/as is- no questions asked basis.