Things have been pretty routine around the farm for the last few days with a couple of exceptions, and they both happened on the same day. Every horse person has heard the joke that “horses are born looking for a way to kill themselves.” Why do they have to prove this statement right so often?
Thomas decided to take on a gate a couple of mornings ago. Everything was normal, the big boys were scattered around in the vicinity of the gates to their pasture waiting for us to arrive with breakfast. Thomas was the only one actually near the gates. We missed what happened but somehow he managed to get one of his hind legs through two of the boards on the gate (between the top two boards no less). It was the ensuing struggle with the accompanying loud noises that got everyone’s attention.
Thomas finally freed his leg and walked away while the rest of the boys just stood wherever they were watching the whole thing. We all rushed down there to assess the damage absolutely dreading what we would find, both with Thomas and the gate. Amazingly the gate sustained only minor damage, one broken board which Jason had replaced in about five minutes. Even more amazing was the fact that aside from a couple of minor scrapes Thomas’ leg was perfectly fine as well.
I have no idea how Thomas managed to get a hind leg between the top two boards on the gate (the gates in many of the pastures are 4-board wood just like the fencing but mounted on a steel gate frame). It would be a lot easier to explain if he had gotten a leg between the bottom two boards. No one was near him, it appeared that one minute he was standing there quietly and the next minute he was in a fight with the gate. I think I could have cried when I realized Thomas was quite alright, it felt like a miracle since I was expecting a mangled leg of some sort.
Our only other disturbance was a loss of water pressure that same afternoon. Jason went to turn on the water to fill a trough while I was feeding horses, and he asked me if someone had left a handle up on one of the faucets since there was no water pressure. (Of course the underlying question was really something like “hey, there’s no water pressure so where did you leave the water on??) We proceed to check all of the water spigots and the water had not been left on anywhere. Uh oh, not good. Jason proceeds to the well house to have a look at the well, and yet again we skated off easily. A clamp had come loose and a hose was no longer connected properly. Jason had this remedied in about 10 minutes and all was working properly again. Between the (thankfully) anti-climactic end to the gate drama and the easy fix to our water pressure problem we were both practically giddy by the end of the day. Two crisis situations handled in a combined time of about 15 minutes!
Winston, Faune and Sebastian
Traveller
Elfin
Chance and Leo
Grand
Cuff Links – look at that adorable little pony face!
Alex and B-Rad
Lucky, Snappy, Lightening, Spike and O’Reilly
Lily, Missy, Harmony and MyLight
Hemi
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