Erica, my daughter has been sick this week so hasn't been doing chores with me in the morning. She did go to work last night and was better this morning, still not well, but I told her to get dressed to go to the barn with me this morning so she could help out. Plus I wanted her to get up and start moving around so she isn't sleeping all day and then she can't sleep at night. Boy, am I glad I took her along!
Midnight, my horse, is supposed to be somewhat confined because of his hip injury, so I have had him in the pen. There is no shelter in the pen and the fence between the upper and lower pastures is down in one spot because Cass knocked it down last Spring trying to get up into the pasture. In order to keep Minight off the hill, which is what we were trying to do, we would have to either fix the fence between pastures or block off the lane and it was supposed to rain last night, today and tonight. My husband called a friend last night to come help him and they blocked off the lane. I thought they did a pretty decent job considering they had no daylight to work in, limited materials and limted time. Well, I guess it was blocked enough that Cass got really upset because she couldn't get into the pasture.
This morning Erica and I drive up to the barn and we don't see horses. I figured they knocked down the new barricade and got up into the pasture. That would have been better than what we found, actually. We get out of the car and the barricade is still in place, the gate to the upper pasture is still intact, but the gate by the barn where we go in and out of the pasture all the time was off it's hinges. It was still chained on the right side but it was off it's hinges and there was Cass hair on the hinge. No trace of the horses. Now, on the plus side, Kasha and Chester were in the barn so there were only 2 loose instead of 4. On the downside, this means that Midnight is off RUNNING around with an injured hip! Not good. So I figured I might as well go ahead and feed Kasha and Erica took a look around the property to see if she could see anyone. Nope. They were gone. Of course, my mind is racing. How long have they been gone? What direction did they go? Should I call the police to have them watching or see if anyone had called them in? Are they on the road dead somewhere, hit by a car? We have 2 major highways nearby that are travelled heavily and by semis. I started getting stuff together to try to catch them in case we find them, halters and lead ropes and a couple of carrots. Erica said maybe they went to Diana's, which is down the road about 1 1/2 miles or so. Cass likes going there. So that was our first stop and as we were driving we were formulating a plan. If they aren't there we'll start knocking on neighbors doors with horses in case ours went to visit theirs, I would call the police, etc. We get to Diana's and there they were. Standing in a hay pile between two of her fences with her horses on either side (in their fences) eating away, just as happy as could be. Didn't see any blood pouring out, they were standing, figured those were good signs.
As soon as they saw us get out of the car, they took off. Diana's place is right on a major road where the cars go fast and there are semis going through. The very last thing we want to do is chase them out onto a road. So, I told Erica to stop and don't chase. We have to somehow get them to come to us. Tried carrots. HA! NO WAY!! They weren't going to fall for the old carrot trick! So they are RUNNING around the property, in the cornfield next door (o.k. that's safer than the road). I tried calling to them but not moving toward them. That didn't work. They looked at me and laughed, like you've got to be kidding, right? I told Erica I was going to go get their grain buckets and some grain. She said Diana had grain buckets and grain so she got them out and we started shaking the buckets with grain. They laughed at us some more. We tried putting a bucket on the fence and backing away. Midnight came up to the fence, got zapped and took off. (There is a hotwire inside the wood fence). O.k., well that didn't work. However, I picked up the bucket and held it and Cass, being the little Miss Piggy that she is, came over and started eating the grain. I started petting her and Erica sneaked up with a lead rope and got her.
Big sigh of relief here because Midnight had been following Cass around all morning. We still couldn't get near him and I told her not to try. We got a halter on Cass and I told Erica to lead her to the roundpen. Thank God she had a roundpen (it was a recent addition this summer) and Erica walked Cass in and Midnight followed right behind! Erica shut the gate and we had them enclosed. Still hadn't caught Midnight to halter him and he wasn't about to let us near him.
So, now we have them in an enclosed area so they are safe. We chained her gate shut (don't trust Cass anymore) and, after some discussion, decided to go home and go to the bathroom, get ourselves some lunch, we were getting hungry, get their grain buckets and come back and feed them. My thinking was some time and their food would help to calm them down. Now we still had to figure out how to get them home because we don't have a trailer. It's between 1 1/2 and 2 miles home. Erica isn't feeling that great still. They were both so excited I wasn't at all sure that leading them home, even toether, would be real safe and no matter how we led them, we would have to walk back to get the car. I was pretty sure leading them one at a time wasn't a good idea. I had thought Erica could lead while I drive along and give her a ride back for the second one but I was afraid they would be too worked up and upset about being seperated. Erica came up with the idea of riding Cass (can't ride Midnight) and ponying Midnight.
We went home, got our lunch, (pizza) cut it and took it along with us, stopped by the barn and picked up tack and grain buckets and headed on over to Diana's. We tied Cass and put Midnight's bucket on the fence. He was really not very interested at first. We sat in the car and ate our pizza. Midnight finally went over and started eating his grain. Cass was looking much more calm and mellow now and still tied. Midnight stopped eating so we figured we might as well go ahead and tack up Cass. Erica went out with her brush to brush Cass (they were both full of stickers and burrs) and I went out with a carrot to see if I could catch Midnight. Well, he finally came over to the carrot and I managed to throw the rope around his neck. Erica came over and helped me get his halter on him and we tied him. She tacked up and rode Cass around the property a little bit to see how she was going to behave and when she was ready, I brought Midnight out to her. I told her to try the ponying a litlte on the property before we headed out onto the road and I moved the car and got it ready while she was doing that. Then we headed out. I drove in front of them with my hazards on and watched in the mirror. She was doing great. A car came up behind us and was very considerate. They were going real slow behind the horses and Erica got the horses over and off the road pretty much so the car could get around. The road is hard on Midnight's joints so I told her to go to the other side (wrong side) and let him walk in the grass where possible. We did that most of the way home. I was half off the road (going wrong direction) with my hazards on and that worked pretty well. We did have one car coming toward us that went around us slowly. We started running out of good shoulder and were near home so went back over to our side of the road. I think we had one more car pass us. Once we got in the driveway, I went on ahead to get the barn door open. I got the door open and was waiting for her to come up and was just going to go up and get Midnight when the rope somehow got wrapped around Cass's tail. She started getting really upset. I couldn't get Midnight from either side, he kept moving and things were escalting fast. Erica let go of the rope but it was still wrapped around Cass's tail and she's getting more and more upset. Erica got off of Cass and held her while I managed to get hold of Midnight's Halter and unhook him from the rope rather than trying to untangle the rope. I led Midnight into the barn while Erica took charge of Cass and quited her down. She had to be firm with her. I got Midnight safely locked in his stall and came back out. Erica was standing with Cass and she's upset with me saying well, are you going to get the rope off her?! I said it's off. It had fallen off on it's own, so I told her just walk out, she's fine.
Put Midnight's grain in his stall and he did start eating again. Now this is important because his 2 grams of bute are in his grain. He needs to eat it. Went back out and helped Erica get Cass back out into the pasture. We chained the hinge side of the gate so that they can't do that again until my husband can figure out a more permanant fix and get it fixed. Midnight quit eating again and wanted back out. He had his head hung over the stall so I snuck up with the bute and shot 2 grams in his mouth. Now he's had his bute for the morning. Gave him a peppermint afterward and put him out in the pasture with everybody else.
They are still locked down from the upper pasture and, hopefully, they will be where they belong when I go back to feed tonight. Taking my husband along tonight so he can see what we did with the gate and see how he wants to fix it.
So that was our excitement for the morning and for a good long time as far as I'm concerned. Horses seem to be no worse for the wear except that Midnight did manage to scrape his face. Nothing serious, just scraped the hair and a little hide off. I was amazed at how well he walked home after all the running around he had been doing. He has a history of coming up lame in the front legs because of arthritis and had recently been pretty gimpy on the one knee. Guess his new supplement is doing him some good! That's good to know. Bute probably helped him feel better which may be good or bad. If he hadn't felt so good he may not have run off.
Blogged with Flock
