Horse from Hades

I’ve written about Po, my friend Mandi’s horse, that Michael has been riding.  Po, we discovered a few weeks ago, has cancer.  He is going blind and he can’t be ridden anymore.  After he got back from North Carolina, Michael went up to spend some time with Po.He spent a long time grooming Po and talked to him.  He hugged him and gave him treats.  And Michael said his good-byes.

During that same visit, Michael watched as Mandi worked with another horse, P.J..  P.J. isn’t what he is called though.  He is called Jack (as in Jack A**).

If you have spent any time reading my posts, you know that I’m a dog person.  I don’t really care much for other animals and horses scare me.

Mandi went on vacation this week.  She is on a Disney cruise to Alaska and only has some phone access.  Before she left, I told her to let me know if she needed me to take care of anything.  Po is doing better as his treatment seems to be helping, so Mandi said that Michael could go up to visit if he wanted while she was gone.  Mandi’s friend was going to take care of feeding the horses (they have 3) and the barn cats.  She was also going to take care of the litter boxes and feed the indoor cats. Mandi dropped off the animal plan along with phone numbers in case her friend had a problem and needed help.  No big deal, or so I thought.

Mandi called two days into her cruise.  Her friend just found out she is pregnant.  She can’t do the litter boxes.  Would I mind?  Of course not.  I am really NOT a cat person, but I could manage emptying the litter boxes.  Right?

Saturday morning Mandi’s friend called me.  She forgot that she had a wedding to go to Saturday evening and could I take care of the evening feeding of the horses?  Sure, no problem.   Right?  Wrong.

First, the horses were to be fed between 4-8pm.  At 3:30pm it started raining.  Hard.  With thunder and lightning.  And flash flood warnings.  Wonderful.  Michael didn’t want to go with me because of the rain.  David, my hero, came instead.  David had only met the horses once.  He knows less than I do.  But he came with me.

The rain was letting up as we arrived at Mandi’s.  But it had rained hard and there were puddles.  As we climbed the fence to get to the horses, I stepped in a mud puddle.  David and I got to the barn and we realized all was not as it should be.

One of the horses was not in the fenced in area outside of his stall.  As we looked, we noticed that two sections of fence were down.  The picture below is the closest example of the type of fence I could find.

© Copyright Alan Murray-Rust and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons License.

The fence posts and rails were round and the rails fitted into holes in the posts.  Jack got out because of the sections that were down.  Thankfully, he wasn’t lost.  But he wasn’t where he was supposed to be.

Figuring I would have to bribe him, I got some peppermints.  But I didn’t have any pockets.  So, I stuck them in my bra.

David went back to the car to get my phone (and fell in a mud puddle climbing over the fence).  I went around to see if I could figure out what to do.  As I walked around, I realized that the horse wasn’t where I last saw him.  He had come around to the other side of the barn..  David and I managed to get him into the barn, using the wet (remember it is raining) peppermints I stashed in my bra. We closed the door.  Jack shares a stall with another horse.  That horse did not seem to be inclined to jump the broken fence.  Thank goodness!

While Jack was in the barn, David and I went around to see if I could fix the fence.  So, picture this:  it is raining and muddy.  I have to lift the rail and try to fit it back into the “socket” in the post.  The rails are wet and covered in horse poop.  Yuck!  There were 3 that I HAD to get back up.  I didn’t worry about the bottom rails because I didn’t figure that the horse could go under.  Afterwards, I was covered in…horse sh**.    It was on my hands and all over my clothes.  But I got the important rails back in.

No, it was harder.  To get Jack into his stall, we had to make sure that the other horse didn’t get out.  That meant me standing by the stall door and ordering the horse back.  In the meantime, we were trying to get Jack to go into the stall using the peppermints.  David and I didn’t want to go into the stall with the other horse and Jack wouldn’t cooperate.  Then I startled him.  He swung around and knocked into David.  And finally, he headed towards his stall.

He was moving quickly.  I was trying to make sure that the other horse didn’t get out and was standing by the door.  Behind me was a wall, so I couldn’t move back.  And sure enough, my foot got stepped on.  Yes, Jack stepped on my foot.

Now, I’ve had dogs step on my foot before and that hurts.  But a horse is quite another thing.  What an experience!  But we got the door to the stall closed with the horse inside.

We still had to feed Po and the barn cats and Po was not happy that we had fed the other horses and then took so long to get his food.  But Po was a piece of cake after dealing with Jack.

As I went to get the food for the cats, I realized that I had a huge bruise forming on the palm of my hand (from the fence).  David took a hit from the horse and his arm hurt.  My foot was hurting and both of us were covered in mud and horse sh**.  Can you imagine?  My shoes were covered and my socks were wet.  I took them off before I went into our place.  Then I went straight to the bathroom to shower.  I had alfalfa stuck to my upper arms along with the mud and sh** and I found that I my boob was all sticky from the wet peppermints.

I guess this is what I get for offering to help a friend because “no good deed goes unpunished.”  However, can you please tell me how in the world stuff like this happens to me?  I can’t figure out why I am so lucky!

After my shower and dinner (thank goodness it was in the crock pot and all Chris had to do was make spaghetti), I called my mom.  I told her I was having a bad day.  As I started telling her what happened, she started laughing.  She then apologized for laughing at me.  But really, it is funny.  Only I would have the bad luck of having to catch and feed a horse after a torrential downpour, fix a fence that was covered in dirt and horse sh** , and have the horse step on my foot.

And I don’t even like horses!