Gooseridge Farm

Category Archives: Calamities

“Horse Killing” Dog

Posted on by Posted in Calamities, farm animals, Uncategorized .

Our youngest horse, “Dezzie” (short for Desert Rain), is a now 4yr old mare and ready to be broke out. Since she’s close to full Appaloosa, she will not be fully grown until about 6 years of age. Because of her slow growth, breaking her out (teaching her to ride) can not be done at a younger age, or we’ll risk back and leg disorders down the road.

We’ve had Dezzie since she was two, and she came with zero training other than lead rope walks.

Perfect!

All too often, a horse is trained incorrectly, and it’s hard to teach them the CORRECT way to do something. It took me over a year to teach Moisie to lunge correctly (he’s still working on his trot, no where near close to a canter). It took me 3 attempts to teach Dezzie to lunge at a walk, and we are now trying to trot.

Then I made the heart-stopping choice to climb onto her back. . .

And she could care less!

After the first two rides of only five minutes, I knew this horse would be a breeze to train!

I had even walked her down the road (all by herself) to the neighbor’s rodeo, and she could care less. Sure she was cautious and curious, but she didn’t freak out or lose her cool. And it was her FIRST TIME away from the yard!

 

So, just like before, I worked her through her lunging exercises and was just getting ready to hook-on her reins and turn-on the video camera (wish I’d had it on for lunging too!), when who should wander over, but Mia, our young boxer dog.

I was somewhat surprised, but not really since the other young boxer female had just been out a few minutes ago. I  looked over and saw Erik standing by the dog fence, and decided maybe I should leash her myself so I didn’t have to deal with any surprises while riding Dezzie. She had apparently slipped out of the gate when Erik tried to put the other young girl back in .

Just as I was reaching out to string the lead rope around her neck, the dog suddenly lunged at Dezzie!

Dezzie stood still as a statue not sure what to do, but still very curious about her new entertainment. So she reached out to sniff the dog, who promptly tried to bite her face.

Still on her best behavior, Dezzie shot her head back up and looked at me in surprise. That is, until Mia began trying to bite her stomach and legs. Dezzie kicked impatiently at her, but little by little as Mia became more aggressive, she began to panic and dance about in the small arena with Mia nipping right along after her.

Finally Mia gave up and scooted out of the arena, and I managed to coax her close enough to me to loop her.

Erik had finally walked over by this point and hauled her off a bit too roughly and began berating me for not grabbing her sooner (like I wanted to get in the middle of a dog attack).

Dezzie ended up with only a slight scratch on her nose, and a bit shaken up, but over all ok.

She WAS a bit sketchy on the cats who kept wandering into the arena, but no blow outs.

Bottom line is, you just never know what’s going to happen!

Adventures in Farming “On The Road” – Mom Fail.

Posted on by Posted in Calamities .

To supplement our newly-planted hay fields and ensure both a sellable farm product and food for our own animals, we decided to pick up another 10-acre hay field.

Well, the honest truth is, a buddy of Erik had a 10 acre field that had been leased-out by a farmer. Last year the farmer had planted hay and promptly retied this year, leaving the field uncut.

After quickly looking the field over, we decided it would be an excellent idea to lease the field.

Leasing a field means driving all your hay equipment down . . . and back again.

Luckily, the field was a 10 minute drive by car from the house . . . or a 30 minute drive by tractor! Easily do-able.

 

Now, it’s not at all uncommon for tractors to be driving equipment down the roads around here. In fact, I passed several others going the opposite direction.

Its IS, however, not common to see a GIRL driving a tractor with equipment down the road, and I certainly received some startled looks, and a few paused to pull-out their camera phones.

On one such unfortunate trip, I was running late getting to the field and Erik offered to get Earen from preschool and meet me at the field. He’d brought along lunch, so after he left I sat Earen down in the shade of a bush with his lunch and told him I’d stop at every lap to see if he was done and ready to sit with me.

We don’t have a cab tractor, so Earen has to sit behind me in the seat, which makes it impossible to eat.

It took me maybe 15 minutes to complete the first lap, but as I circled closer I could see something was amiss. Earen appeared to be crying, and he was standing up . . . with his pants down.

I quickly parked the tractor and ran over thinking he must have to pee and didn’t know if he was allowed to pee in the field.

And then with horror, I realized how wrong I was.

(I’m going to do my best to NOT make this too graphic)

He had to go #2, and had already attempted to do so. Unfortunately, he had no idea how to do it correctly and some of it landed down his pants and a good portion sat still attached to his back end.

I stood there crying, feeling bad for the poor little guy and feeling quite helpless since I had no toilet paper or tissues, and Wendy’s had not put any napkins in the bag. I knew very well I’d be laughing about it all later that day, but at the moment, I was stuck.  Even the leaves on the trees were too high to reach. I calmed myself back down and forced myself to calmly evaluate the situation. There had to be SOMETHING.

A grapevine on the back of the bush had a few promising leaves, and looking at the bag I figured tearing off sections might work for toilet paper.

With the help of both, I managed to clean both the little guy up AND his pants, which actually came out pretty darn good.

We then had a discussion on how to properly poop in the weeds.

And, since this IS the start of summer, I think I need to make sure to keep a pack of wet wipes on the tractor.

Just in case.

Dead as a Doornail.

Posted on by Posted in Calamities, farm animals, Triumphs .

Face it. Part of farm life is critter control, and we’ve been very fortunate not to have had too many issues from wildlife.

Last year, Erik decided to buy a .22. Not just any .22, but a wicked-looking, black-ops styled one! He even put a red dot scope on it so his son could point and shoot with very little skill.

Unfortunately, the poor kid is too afraid of being eaten by coyotes to go out rabbit hunting with it, and Erik never bothered showing me how it works. So . . . .

Yesterday morning I walk out just after 9am like I always do to go feed the chickens and pigeons. Since it had been warming up, I’d left the wooden coop doors open, with the chickens shut inside their chicken-wire room just like I’d done for the last 2 years without issue.

Imagine my horror when I walked-up to find my favorite fat chicken a bloody mess! Her entire back-end was gone and she lay in a collapsed heap on the floor of the coop. No doubt she had died from shock and pain as whatever had gotten her had VERY SLOWLY eaten her, bite by bite.

I have a friend (I love her dearly) who has decided to go vegan to protest the in-humane way animals are kept as food. While I understand her decision is completely her own and I hold no ill will against her for it, I DO get a bit burned with ALL of the exaggerated posts and stories she posts online about how horrible farmers are to animals. To make it worse, she’s a news anchor!

As a farmer, my number one goal is the safety and well-being of my animals. While not all farmers hold these same values, NO ANIMAL does. No animal cares about the well-being of it’s prey/dinner. It doesn’t care if it leaves a family orphaned, nor if it causes excruciating pain. Animals are cold and selfish — they do what they need to survive.

 

As I surveyed the crime scene in my coop, I became aware of a fuzzy body tucked-up in the back under my nesting boxes. Raccoon? Possum? Fox? I saw the small, baseball-sized hole it had made in my chicken wire. Now a vegan would have opened the door, and shooed the critter out, telling it to have a nice day.

But I’m a farmer, and I care about my animals. So I ran to the house to get a gun!

Alas, Erik had been on a gun-buying binge lately, and the .22 was not in the rack. After searching I finally found it, and loaded the clip.

IT TOOK ME 10 MINUTES TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO CHAMBER A ROUND.

Finally happy, I run back outside waving my gun in the air, ready to take-on the critter. But I can’t get the red dot scope to work, and the iron sights are blocked by that dump contraption, so I knew I’d have to point and shoot!

I quietly opened the coop door, and ushered the chickens out to safety (they could care less about the possum OR the dead chicken body).

The fluffy critter still slept. I half wondered if maybe the rooster had attacked and killed it. I could faintly see it breathing, so I guess it was too full of fat chicken to be bothered.

I quietly walked-in, took aim, and fired!

Missed!

The fluffy critter still slept!

Pop! Pop! Pop!

Still missed, but at least now I could see tiny bullet holes in the wall of my coop, so I needed to lower my gun.

Pop! Pop!

A shell casing bonked him and he shuddered slightly.

Man, this guy can sleep through anything!

I lowered the gun again and fired-off four more rounds.

This time I could see it was a possum, he raised his head to hiss at me and wreath slightly.

Pop! Pop!

He lay still.

When I scooped fat chicken out with the shovel, she weighed roughly 20 pounds. I was bummed. I’d hoped to cross her to the Light Brahama rooster and make some meat chickens that grew moderately fast. Oh well.

When I drug the possum out (by his tail) he was a good size fellow! Much lighter than the chicken though.

I dumped their bodies off by the woods, side by side.

Erik later showed me how to turn the red dot on.

I figure some target practice is due with the .22 and my hand gun sometime soon!

Held For Ransom

Posted on by Posted in Calamities, Triumphs .

Yesterday I went out like I normally do, to feed the animals. And, like most things, I have a certain routine I follow. Feed the dogs (unless I did it early while writing at 5am), feed the chickens, feed the barn animals, feed the horses, then the cows.

I had just gone down and fed the chickens and pigeons, and since it was a nice day in February, I left the coop open for the chickens to free-range. They slowly began to wander out and peck at the ground as I walked back up to the dog kennel and was met by a strange face!

It looked like a brown and white Brittany spaniel. My dogs seemed to care less about their visitor (odd), and my first thought was “holy crap, this dog might go for the chickens!”. It didn’t have a collar, so I tried to herd it toward the deck where our house dog’s leash line sat. I could loop it around this dog’s neck and keep it contained.

Unfortunately, it spotted the chickens wandering up from their coop and in a second it was chasing them down.

Their first instinct was to run to their coop, but the dog chased them right in and began bouncing from chicken to chicken, grabbing them and ripping out feathers. As soon as the dog ran-off, I ran into the dog shed and grabbed a leash, then sprinted down to the chicken coop.

I locked the door behind me and squeezed through the small door into the outside pen. I then corralled the dog into the corner (after it grabbed 3 more chickens and tore them up), and I clipped the leash around his neck and hauled him back out the door to the barn.

Once in the barn, I locked him in a horse stall and grabbed a wire line and an old collar. I clipped the line to the collar and took off his leash. Because, the stall is NOT dog proof, and I don’t want him running-off again.

I posted an ad on Facebook, plus Craigslist, plus put a sign by our driveway. Erik is certain this is the same dog that ran through last year and killed HALF my chickens and two of my guinea hens. We never saw the killer last year, so I was lucky to catch it this time around.

There is a $100 ransom on his head for property damage. Erik wanted to just shoot it (legally you can if it’s chasing/killing livestock) because he’s certain it will be back for more, but I’m a bigger fan of claiming the lost property. If the dog is not claimed in a few days, he will be posted for sale. Honestly, I think $100 is a great deal for a trained birding dog!

I don’t blame the dog. He’s a dog, and obviously trained to catch birds. But we live in the country, and if someone wants to keep their dog safe, they must keep it contained securely.

Accidents happen. Our dogs had the habit of escaping too. After having our electric fence fail repeatedly, we paid the money to install a physical fence. Now they can run like the wind with no worries!

The few times our dogs got out of the electric fence, one ran to the neighbor’s house across the road. The guy was NOT happy as the dog was chasing down his cat (her favorite thing). I was home (the toddler had let the dog out) and I ran over to try to grab her.

Now, had he shot her in an attempt to save his poor cat (she WOULD have killed it), I would hold no grudge. My dog was trespassing, AND causing damage/harm. It would be my own fault for not keeping the dog door child proof.

Luckily the cat got away, and my dog ran past me and I grabbed her. But after that I made double sure everything was toddler proof, and then 2 years later we finally installed the solid fence!

 

So, the dog is still sitting in my barn. Strange no one has come looking for it! I’ll also put an ad up at Tractor Supply. If no one has claimed it by Saturday, I’ll post it for sale on Craigslist.

Memoir Monday: Horse From Hell

Posted on by Posted in Calamities, Memoir Monday .

“Sailor” was my first horse. Erik picked him out despite my protests that I wanted to wait on getting a horse.

I loved Sailor to death, and cried for weeks when I finally sold him. He was an awesome friend, but we got-off on the wrong foot, and would never be able to handle him correctly from there on out. We’d been told he was 6 years old, greenbroke, only to spend an entire year trying to TEACH him how to ride effectively and find out he was a 23 yr old ex-rodeo horse.

And so, here is an excerpt from my book on why I have a hard time convincing myself to get on ANY horse. Despite these events, I still would get on Sailor bare back with halter.

 

November 29th, 2013

 

We had spent Thanksgiving the day before at Erik’s sister’s house. She had a huge feast with family and friends scattered all about the house. All of us pigged out – it was nice to have a good solid dinner for once! Earen of course was still too little to eat the meal, so I had brought along my homemade pureed carrots and banana. His family insisted he could eat mashed potatoes — although the small lump that he was given caused explosive diarrhea the next day due to the added butter and milk!

Erik had Friday off (a rare event for him since his work never let him take any of his vacation days they allowed him each year). The only days he was ever allowed to have off were the ones when the shop itself was closed for, so Erik was taking the opportunity to research tractors on his phone. Without looking up he said, “We should take the horses out today.”

I had been washing the breakfast dishes with my tiny bits of water and my bowl. I stopped and spun around to look at him. He had NEVER suggested we do something like that. “Really?”

Erik glanced up from his phone. “Yeah, why not? Are you scared of Sailor or something?”

“No, you just never asked me before. I’ve rode him around here a bit on my own. I’m not scared of him.”

“I never asked because we’ve got so much crap to get done around here. But now, we’ve gotten everything done outside and winter will be here soon. Today is nice and sunny so I’d like to get out and ride Ace. Not like the kids ever ride him.”

I was ecstatic! I’d finally be able to REALLY ride Sailor!

It was about noontime, and Earen was getting ready to wake-up from his morning nap, so I made Nuriel a bottle to give him when he woke up. She groaned, but took the bottle from me. I left her my cell phone so that she could call Erik if she had any questions.

IT TOOK US HALF AN HOUR TO GET THE HORSES READY.

Most likely one reason why I never bothered much with a saddle or bridle was that it cut into my work time with Sailor. We were both new to this, especially Erik who had very little experience with horses as a kid, so I ended up getting BOTH horses ready. I decided to do Ace first since Erik could ride him around a bit while I got Sailor ready. We used the back gate of his aluminum trailer to tie the horses to. Not the best or safest spot, but it was all we had.

Ace did great getting brushed and saddled, but would NOT take the bit. After struggling for 10 minutes with Erik getting frustrated waiting for me, I picked a handful of grass and held it behind the bit. Ace eagerly stuffed both bit and grass into his mouth, chewing happily while I seated the rest of his bridle and buckled it.

Next it was Sailor’s turn. He saddled fine, and even took the bit fine when I put his bridle on. But he seemed to be not liking the bit. He kept grinding and chewing on it, despite my several attempts to adjust it. Ace had always been ridden in a simple snaffle, so that’s what Sailor had now. The guy who had showed Sailor when I went to look at him, recommended a hackamore and a curb bit . . . a pretty harsh combo. I had no clue what a hackamore was, but we had bought a bucket of bits at a horse stable the summer prior so I could try various ones out. I decided on a loose ring snaffle, but it took me forever to get it onto the bridle and then we couldn’t figure out how to attach the reins since it was one big circle on each side (unlike a leverage bit which has separate holes for the reins and bridle).

It was quite likely I had done something incorrectly. Either saddle misplaced or wrong bit/installation. From the start, Sailor was not happy. He didn’t want to go on a ride, much less into the back hayfield. But being the dominant horse, he absolutely did not want Ace leading, so he out-walked Ace and went down the road path toward the back hayfield. And then he just stopped.  Ace walked past him, Erik swung his body around as Ace walked by and stuck his tongue out at me.

I patiently nudged Sailor with my feet. Lightly, harder, harder, then kicking. He just pinned his ears back at me. I knew a stick would work to lightly tap him on the shoulder, but there were none nearby and it was a bit swampy where Sailor was standing, so dismounting meant soaking my cowboy boots (leftover from my mom). Erik finished the walk to the hayfield, then turned Ace around to look at us.

“Give him a good kick and let’s go!” Erik shouted. Ace stood patiently.

“Don’t you think I have?” I proceeded to kick him a few more times. Sailor turned his head to glare at me.

Erik walked Ace back to us then clipped his lead rope onto Sailors halter and held the other end of the rope to lead him while Ace walked ahead of Sailor. Sailor realized he had been outsmarted, AND that Ace was now the leader, so he decided to pick it up and out-walked Ace yet again. Now he was leading Erik.

“Suzanne! Slow him down!”

“I can’t! He’s not listening, and he just wants to be the leader. Just toss me your rope – I think he’s going to walk now.”

So Erik did, and I looped it around my saddle horn, and we continued walking around to the right of the hayfield. We had planned to try-out some of the trails in the woods. It was a beautiful day for the end of November. Sunny and fairly mild. I hoped for sake of living in the camper that it stayed this way – at least until our double-wide arrived!

It was my first real ride on Sailor. Little walks around the yard didn’t count. This was lovely! Sailor paused to dive for grass, letting Ace and Erik walk on ahead. I struggled to pull his head up, but now Erik was a hundred or so feet ahead of me. Sailor didn’t like that. Erik decided to start trotting Ace . . .

“Hon! Don’t trot, you’re too far ahead! You’re making Sailor nervous!”

Erik paid me no attention, and away he trotted. Horses tend to copy whatever the horse in front of them does, especially if their rider is less than skilled! I knew Sailor would begin trotting, so when he did I instantly pulled-back on the reins to slow him. Not that I didn’t want to trot, I just was exercising my choice in the matter. If we were going to trot it would be my idea, not his. I was going to cue him into a trot after he stopped . . . . but that was a bad idea . . . Sailor didn’t stop.

He ran.

He broke-out into a full out gallop and blasted past Erik who yelled at us to quit showing off. The ball cap hat I had been wearing flipped right-off my head. The more I pulled-back on the reins, the faster he went. He looped around the whole back of the hay field and was circling back toward the road to go home. This would mean going down a hill with a 45 degree angle . . . at top speed. I could hear the air whooshing past my ears like a train rushing down the tracks.

“I’m going to die.”

My feet had slipped out of the stirrups, and I locked my butt and legs down deep in my saddle, reins in one hand and the other hand clinging to the saddle horn. I tried to calm myself and think logically about what I was supposed to do in a situation like this. I’d read stories of people who practiced emergency dismounts. However, that seemed like a good way to break my legs jumping off or getting trampled. But I had also read about something else. A “one-rein turn”.

The hill was approaching quickly and I’d be down it (and probably maimed) in only a few seconds! I slid my right hand down and slowly pulled the right rein toward my thigh. Sailor’s route began to arc, but he was still running. I pulled the reign in more until his arc became tighter, and tighter and finally slowed to him touching his nose to my leg. I released the rein and he stood panting. He had this look of shock on his face and suddenly looked like a lost and scared child. My legs had turned to pudding and Erik came trotting up as I poured myself out of the saddle, spilling into a puddle on the ground. Erik walked up and dropped my hat in my face.

“You lost your hat. What the hell were you doing?! Did you mean to do that?!”

“NO! ARE YOU KIDDING!?” I said loudly, too shaken to even yell.

“Shit, Sailor was hauling-ass across this field! That horse is FAST! I can’t believe you didn’t fall-off! You didn’t have your feet in the stirrups, how’d you stay on?”

I lay there, staring up at the blue sky, watching wisps of clouds float past and birds dart by. “I don’t know. I just sat down into the saddle and locked my legs into it. It’s a great saddle though, I probably would not have managed with any other saddle!”

Erik hopped down and pulled me to my feet. “You gonna walk him home or ride him?”

I stroked Sailor’s light golden neck and he nuzzled me. “I think I’ll walk him down the hill, then get back on and ride the rest of the way home.”

Sailor did fine the rest of the way home. He walked quietly and calmly like nothing had ever happened.

 

But the incident shook me to my core. It would affect me mentally with riding horses for years to come.

 

Sailor with bling from new owner

“F” is for . . . .

Posted on by Posted in Calamities .

Coming fresh off my latest hide tanning fail, Saturday morning I was trying to scrap my optimism about life back up and push forward (but feeling pretty bummed out and mopey).

My house was trashed due to my lack of attention for the last 2 days, so I got to work on that. Then I decided I’d better get out and clean the dogs.

The dogs have 3 kennel boxes inside our 12×12 shed barn, and each has a kennel yard with a door to the NEW fully-fenced doggy play yard. Since they like to fight, the males are kept strictly separated.

I had a plan. I needed to scoop out the old hay bedding from their boxes and add fresh hay. Boxes are roughly 3×5 feet. Gator, male, would be first. I let him into the play yard and got to work scooping poop and then old hay. I added new hay, then put Gator back in. The last two sets of dogs can all be out together. I let everyone out, then got to work on the next dog bedding area. I was nearly done scooping out the old hay, when our male Finley came running in!

**)*Y*(&%&^R$$^%$&^^*( ?????   Not good. Loose dogs = dead cats, animals, neighbors’ property destructed, etc. How the heck did he get out?!

As I grabbed him running back outside, the two smaller girls, Vanta and Mia realized they could squeeze out between the door and the fence! Now I had two MORE dogs lose!

Trying to stay calm, I put Finley back into his kennel, then was wondering how I’d catch the other two, when they both ran into the kennel room! I quickly shut the door, then divided the dogs off to their individual kennel boxes.

I still have NO IDEA how Finley got out. He’s too big to squeeze out like the girls . . .

So my day of cleaning the dogs was a fail, and I had to add fresh hay on top of the dirty, old hay. I cannot clean while they are inside.

Feeling even more mopey and sad, I fed all the animals then went inside to make dinner. Erik had been hounding me to make him mac n cheese with crab. We’d had it at an italian restaurant and both loved it.

I’d bought the $10 can of crab meat at Meijer 2 weeks ago and it’d been sitting on the counter patiently waiting. I made the macaroni (Annie’s white cheddar with shells), then opened the crab. Ugh! It smell awful! But, not having had canned crab meat in 10 years, I figured it was just one of those things. So I dumped it in and stirred.

The smell seemed to get worse. SO bad, I wondered if Erik would even eat it! I decided to take a big bite just to make sure.

UGH! Not good! It didn’t taste rotten, just really, really off and bad! So I looked the can over to see if it was expired. Then I found it. In tiny print on the back.

“Perishable. Keep refrigerated.”

But it was in a can, like tuna! It never once occurred to me to keep it in the fridge! Heck, I don’t even remember if it was in the fridge at Meijer! Maybe it was, I got it at the seafood section!

So I dumped ALLL of dinner into the trash. I made Erik and the kids a new box with hotdogs.

I’m hoping this week will go better for me.

Don’t Play with The Cows.

Posted on by Posted in Calamities, farm animals, Triumphs .

This winter, we were happy to see we finally got some new neighbors. However, the other day, I happened to come in from working outside, made some coffee and had just sat down at the table to drink it, when I saw a cow. The slider in front of our dining room looks out at the driveway and the cow pasture. Erik and I always joked that the cows appeared to always be out since the wires on their fence were hard to see from a distance.

So I sat watching her for a minute, totally convinced I was mistaken. The cow just LOOKED like she was out . . . until I saw her cross the driveway!

I burst out the door yelling at Erik to help me (he was transfixed with his RC car that he was putting together, and only momentarily looked up to watch the chase through the windows).

I could see the other cow was still in their pasture. The brown and white cow, “Ginger” is very attached to her half-sister “Cookie”. She doesn’t roam too far from her. As long as Cookie stayed in the pasture, I could easily convince Ginger to join her, so I left the gate open hoping she’d run back in.

I carefully walked-up to Ginger, gently waving my arms at her to get he to walk. She scampered along the fence line until she came to the corner, but even at a scamper she was well out-pacing me. If I ran, she’d run too, so I scampered along as fast as I could behind her. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get to the corner fast enough and she turned and ran the opposite way along the fence, following Cookie.

Now I booked it, trying to catch up to her and shoo her back the opposite direction. She came to the next corner but Cookie turned and ran back toward the gate. Now I ran as fast as I could. Ginger was following Cookie along the fence back toward the gate, and soon Cookie would be at the gate and out too!

Instead of continuing out the open gate, Cookie paused at a pile of hay inside the pasture, and I took the opportunity to finish rounding Ginger back toward the gate. She willingly obliged, and ran right into the pasture.

I quickly closed the gate behind her and latched it with the chain.

But how the heck did the gate get opened?

I found out a few hours later . . .

I was back inside, at the table again, and noticed a brightly colored jacket crawling under the gate and the cows running across the pasture. Then the jacket stood up, and I realized who it was.

The neighbors had a 4 year old daughter, and our cow pasture sat right next to their house. Their daughter was in the pasture with the cows!

Once again I booked it outside, but she saw me running and quickly squeezed out and ran back to her house.

I talked to her parents (who had warned her several times previously not to go in there), and they told her once again to stay out.

At least I now know how the gate flew open on my cow pasture. . .

 

I now throw the chain around the gate latch several times.

A Quick Escape

Posted on by Posted in Calamities .

It never fails that when I am MOST pressed for time, that’s when calamity befalls me. Yesterday was no exception.

 

No matter how hard I try, I always seem to be running behind. Yesterday was church day, and I’ve learned that it’s best to feed the animals FIRST before taking a shower — or you’re freshly styled hair will be completely wind-blown!

 

I had exactly 40 minutes to get all the animals fed before jumping into the shower for 10 minutes, getting ready and leaving for church. But temps were down into the early teens, and water tanks would need to be busted open. Nevertheless, I made my rounds to all the animals, coming once again to the horse pasture. Since the last incident, I have been VERY careful about going into the pasture with the side by side.

I put their grain out, then made the quick decision to cut the ties on the first hay bale before entering. This would allow me to throw hay off quickly once I got into the pasture, and might save me from being mobbed again.

Unfortunately, as soon as I drove in, hay began falling off the bale, landing right near the gate. I stopped to ick it up and put it back into the side by side, but apparently more fell off. By the time I’d made my rounds tossing all the hay out at the fence corners, the horses were standing in a tight group eating the fallen hay . . . right near the gate!

I knew I didn’t have time to wait for them to move, so I tried ushering them off down the path. They refused to go anywhere.

I shrugged my shoulders and opened the gate, keeping a close eye on them. No one was paying me any attention. Good. I quickly jumped back into the side by side and went zooming out the gate . . .

. . . only to have the little mare Dezzie and Tango the gelding follow me out before I could jump out to shut the gate!

The naughty duo romped about behind the barn, playing in all the fresh snow. What many people don’t realize, is that horses are like kids — they love to play in fresh snow, and make designs with their footprints.

Since the snow was at least 12 inches deep, and I was struggling to walk through it, I ran to the barn and grabbed my snow shoes and a lead rope, and set-out.

There’s no way you can catch a large, four-legged animal in deep snow. They are too fast and nimble. As I came up on the two, they scampered further away. I was cursing up a storm. Now I wouldn’t have time for a shower. If I couldn’t get a shower then we weren’t going to church!

I tried calling the horses, but they again went running-off. So I simply stood and waited. I knew they were hungry, and their pasture was full of fresh hay. After they got tired of romping and stood still, I slowly walked-up to them and threw the lead rope around Tango’s neck, then walked them back to the pasture gate. Dezzie ran off again while Tango was sentenced back to his pasture.

I caught Dezzie while she was busy munching on a pile of hay she could just manage to reach under the fence.

Both horses were returned safely, and I managed to have just enough time to grab a quick shower before church!

Horses Should NEVER Drive a car.

Posted on by Posted in Calamities .

It was 4pm on December 13, 2016. I had been out all afternoon in the frigid 20 degree weather, and was busy prepping the animals for our first night of below 20 degree weather. I had been patting myself on the back for completing all needed tasks early AND getting all the animals fed well before dusk. Heck, I’d even taken our horse Ace out for a brief romp through the snow (he had no idea what to make of everything being covered in a white blanket).

I had two more items to tick off my list: Feeding and blanketing the horses, and feeding the cows. We’d run out of cow food, and, not wanting the cows to be too cold that night, I decided to bucket up some of the leftover deer corn to feed them. Like I always do, I put the cow food in the side by side (Honda Pioneer 4 UTV) along with the horse food and hay.

I drove up to the horse pasture and set out their dishes of grain, then drove in. I had just finished installing a perimeter track inside the pasture to keep them off the main turf, and I drove along my usual way, counter clockwise following their track. The track is approximately 12 feet wide, but widens out to roughly 20 feet at the corners. The corners are where I place the hay piles. I stopped at the first corner, threw-on the emergency brake, and jumped out to throw some hay and ready the blankets.

Horse blankets are like dog jackets . . . just horse-size.

The horses wandered over and I threw the first blanket on the young mare, Dezzie (short for Desert Rain). I managed to get her to hold still while blanketing her, and moved on to do Tango, our black and white paint. He was excited to see I’d brought blankets and eagerly stood waiting.

Unfortunately, the horses found my cow corn and were fighting for dibs on it. I smacked them in the chest to back them up, but it was like holding crack out in front of a crack addict . . . they could NOT control themselves!

After fighting them to stay out, I got clever and tossed the bucket beyond the inner fence. There was a small bit of corn left on the seat of the side by side, but I figured they’d just eat it and move off.

I was wrong. I had JUST managed to get the blanket on Tango when  . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .  the side by side zoomed away!

 

Now don’t ask me HOW, because horses cannot talk, nor would they confess how they’d done it anyhow! It caught my inner fenceline, paused, then broke-free and blasted across the pasture on its’ own, with me furiously running trying to catch it in the 10 inches of snow.

I was screaming like a banshee out front (yet none of the neighbors were kind enough to come out and help . . . I KNOW they were watching out their windows), and all I can think is “I hope it just stops and does NOT hit the fence!”.

I have to admit. Hitting the electric fence has ALWAYS been on my mind. What would happen??

I found out first hand that evening.

The rope from the inner fence had caught one of the tires and suddenly the side by side turned and headed right for the main hot cote line fence.

SMASH!

It blasted right into it and smashed a post, a round 6″ treated post.

The top cable popped off.

By now it was dark. Still no one came to my screams.

Luckily, Erik was out running errands and could not see my mess. He would be VERY upset.

But how was I going to fix all this myself? And before Erik got home? The horses could come over at any minute, see the opening and decide to take-off!

Sobbing and feeling like a complete failure, I went back to the horses and finished putting their blankets on. I couldn’t punish them — I don’t know who caused it since they ALL had been after corn, and besides, I needed them calm and in ONE spot so they didn’t see the broken fencing before I could repair it!

Frozen and fingers numb, I stumbled through the blinding winds back to the side by side, and set to work unwinding the rope fencing from the tire. The horses had pried the seat off (maybe they hit something down there that sent it flying across the pasture?) so I put it back on, then went down the inner fence line re-stringing up the inner fencing for the track. My palomino, Moisie, saw the line down and took the opportunity to run in and begin rolling in the fresh snow field. I ignored him until I got to the last post where the gate was, and left the gate open for him to get back into the track. It wasn’t a big deal if they were all loose inside the main pasture anyway.

Lastly, I set the broken post back up. Fortunately, the bottom two strands were still attached to the post. I wrapped the broken top line around a nearby post to help keep it somewhat taunt. The line had detached from the corner post way down the fence. Shouldn’t be too hard to fix . .  It looked sorta like normal . . . It might be enough to get me by until the next morning when I’d HAVE to get everything fully completed and the corner re-attached.

When Erik finally came home that night, and I managed to crawl into the house (and after feeding the cows what was left of their food), Erik knew something was wrong. I looked ill. Over and over again he asked if I was ok. I was not. I was ready to be done. I was done with calamities, and broken things, and never seeming to get ahead in life.

I was ready to walk-off into the woods and collapse in a snow bank, to be buried forever.

But I didn’t. I made dinner. I tidied-up the kitchen. I got the three year old ready for bed. And I DIDN’T breath a word of what had happened.

I finished fixing it the next day. With plenty of screaming and crying because time was running out FAST — Erik would be home for lunch and see the mangled fence! Winter kicked-up a blizzard just for me, and snow and wind pelted my face, reducing my vision down to thin slits.

With temps in the teens, I was dripping sweat under all of my clothes, walking briskly back and forth down the fence line, working the cables back into place, and struggling to re-wrap them around the corner post.

It’s now done. Mostly. When we get a thaw I’ll have to somehow fix that broken post. Erik WILL find out eventually. Hopefully by that time I’ll have a publisher for my camper memoir and that will take the sting down a bit . . . maybe.