I lost my eyeglasses.  And then I found them.  But the story behind my lost and found eyeglasses is a bit more complex than that, and I think you will find it as mysterious as I did.

On Friday afternoon, September 13, Danny and I left our farm for a vacation with my two sisters and their husbands.  We call it our Sister Trip, and I wrote about it in an earlier blog.  Anyway, that Friday morning was a busy one for me.  Even though my nephew cares for our farm and animals while we are away, there are still some things that I do in preparation for a long absence.

Flies were still a bit of an issue near the barn at that time, so I typically sprayed my horses’ legs to give them some relief.  I always remove my eyeglasses when I do that, because the spray is oily and difficult to remove from my lenses. 

So, what do I do with my glasses while I spray?  Well, it depends.  Sometimes, if I am wearing a pair of pants with a large enough pocket, I will slip them in there.  If the horses are near the feeder, I will set the glasses on the tray of the feeder.  Or sometimes, I will set them on top of our stack of hay bales near where I store the spray.  Or, in anticipation of spraying later, I sometimes leave them in my tack room.

Bottom line is, they could be almost anywhere.  The problem, if you want to call it that, is that my eyesight is really not that bad.  In fact, from a distance of about one foot to twelve feet, I see the same with or without them.  So, I often don’t even realize that I don’t have them on unless I am looking far into the distance.

That morning I was distracted.  I had a million and one things to get done before we left on vacation and I was trying to multi-task.  So, after my barn chores were completed, which included spraying my horses, I walked our dogs to give them a bit of exercise before we left the farm.  I was checking emails on my phone while I walked.  I do not need my glasses for that. 

I did not realize that my glasses were not on my face until I was returning from my walk with the dogs.  I checked my pocket.  Not there.  They’re at the barn, I thought.  The first place I checked was the feeder tray.  I remember being surprised that they were not there.  I checked the hay bales.  Not there.  The tack room.  Not there.  Okay, now I had to think a bit.  Was I sure I even wore them out of the house that morning?  I walked back to the house and checked my bathroom countertop.  Not there.

By this time, I was feeling a bit frazzled.  We were leaving on vacation in a few hours!  I didn’t have time for this!  Not to mention that I had planned to take that pair of glasses with me.  I had an extra pair, but still…

I returned to the barn.  I began to look in places that I was sure they would not be, but I was starting to feel desperate.  The trash can.  The workbench.  I stuck my hand between the hay bales in case they had fallen in a crack.  Nothing.  Finally, I had to give up my search so that I could shower and finish packing.

As we drove away from the farm, I told Danny about my lost eyeglasses.  Did you check there?  And there?  And there?  He asked.  My answer was always yes.  But then I thought about my walk.  What if I had them in my pocket and they somehow dropped out as I walked?  I called my nephew and he promised to retrace my steps, and look once more around the barn for me.  He texted me later that day.  He had found nothing.

For the next month, I puzzled on my glasses.  You see, I do not lose things.  In fact, I pride myself on my still-razor-sharp memory and attention to details.  I do not lose things!

After supper on Wednesday, October 16, Danny said he wanted to finish weed-eating around our corral fence.  The horses eat the grass inside the corral and I mow on the outside, but there is a thin line of tall grass and weeds that grows directly underneath.  He planned to clean this up before fall.

He came back into the house with a single lens from a pair of eyeglasses.  I held it up to my eye and looked through it.  There was absolutely no doubt that it was a lens from my missing eyeglasses.  Danny said he heard the weedeater string hit something and then he noticed the glare from the lens.

But where was the rest of it?

While Danny continued with his trimming, I searched along the corral fence where he said he found the lens.  I found half of the frame, then the other lens, and finally the other half of the frame.  None of it was salvageable.

But the mystery had been solved.  I knew immediately why my glasses were where they were.  I hadn’t dropped them.  And they hadn’t slipped out of my pocket.

It had to be BJ.  Remember BJ, my hat-stealer?  Well now, I will add glasses-stealer to that moniker.

In the words of the TV detective Monk, “Here’s what happened.”

I took my glasses off to spray the horses and set them on the feeder tray.  Distracted, I forgot about them until my return from my walk.  By that time, it was too late.  My curious BJ had discovered my glasses, picked them up in his mouth and carried them with him as he exited the corral with the other horses on his way to the pasture. 

You know how horses walk single file along a fence?  We have such a horse path right next to our corral fence.  Right next to where the glasses were found.

BJ dropped them on his way out of the corral.  There is absolutely no other way they could have gotten where they were.  Hidden by the tall weeds, they were not discovered until Danny trimmed those weeds.  Whether BJ broke them with his teeth, or whether Danny broke them with his trimmer I’ll never know.  But there is no doubt in my mind how they got there.

The good news is that my lenses were still under warranty so they were replaced at no charge.  And although the original frames were no longer available, I was able to find another pair that fit my new lenses.

You know those crazy insurance commercials on TV describing outlandish situations that actually happened?  I wonder how many lenses our insurance company has needed to replace because of glasses-stealing horses.

Who knew that horses considered eyeglasses such a fashion statement?

(If you want to read a similar story about something our dogs once did, check out the September chapter of my third book, The Return to the Family Farm.)

Next Week: “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore”