A Little Excitement

The Hay Field  (last month)

Early this morning I got a wake – up call from my daughter yelling to me to get dressed quick (I believe the direct quote was "Hey, put some pants on!  We have a horse emergency!")  Seems a few of the horses were, for some mysterious reason, loose in the hay field behind our house.  She was just getting up to see if they had come up for breakfast and looked out the window to see three majestic horses galloping across the hay field behind the house, tails up and heading for the road.  Not a minute later our neighbor down the road called to tell us her daughter had spotted them running towards their farm. 

My daughter threw on a coat, her boots and a baseball cap and ran out the door, grabbed a bucket of grain and some lead ropes and headed out across the field towards them.  I got in the car and backed to the end of the driveway.  If they spooked I would try to block the road and keep them from continuing on to the much busier road that intersects ours.  Luckily, the horses only crossed the quiet back road to our neighbor's where they were greeted with a tub of feed from her at the end of her driveway.  She stood with them until my daughter arrived, which was very kind, especially considering she was already dressed for church and the three big, crazy dingbats were all swarming around her fighting over the grain.  Our neighbors are the best! 

My daughter, only having two hands for leading, had only grabbed two lead ropes, so she threw them over Nate and Blue and Donnie followed behind.  Donnie is a Nervous Nellie and a follower.  It was still a little on the dark side so cars coming up the road had their lights on which spooked Nate a tad but he was controllable.  What I like about our neighborhood is that all the cars slowed down and some stopped to ask if she needed help with the horses.  If the drivers weren’t savvy as they were passing the horses it could have gotten ugly.  So a disaster was averted because of good neighbors and sensible drivers as my daughter led Moe, Larry and Curly home from their morning adventure.

Another neighbor who helps us out around the farm took his truck around the fence line without being asked and found their escape route.  He knows the horses well and told us that it was definitely Blue who led the pack.  Seems “he who knows how to open gates” (that’s his Native American name) fiddled with the gate up on the hill by the dressage arena until he opened the latch and pushed it open. Then led Nate and Donnie through the twisting trails onto the hay/corn field behind us. While our neighbor was up there he tied the gate shut.  He and his son were out hunting deer this morning so it was not hard to follow the trail through the frost to the gate. 

Of course, this set the rest of the herd galloping up to the barn to tattle on the Three Stooges.  We promptly locked them all in the catch pen.  Mellon got his medicine and I was able to catch Dusty for a ride.  They have been staying out all week because the inside of the barn was being varnished.  I was hoping they would come up this morning so I wouldn’t have to trek out to the back field to catch her.  So I guess one good thing came out of the morning romp.  Then again, I could do without the drama and could use the exercise walking around trying to cajole Dusty to come with me.  Never a dull moment around here.  

Until next time

Quote for Today

How do you catch a loose horse? Make a noise like a carrot.     - British Cavalry joke