Well, guess I really have fallen behind. Things have been so hectic and stressful over the past month and a half that I don't quite know where to start.
My computer died. Thank you, my teenagers. Can you spell password protection? The truck broke down. Was fixed. Working at the Horse Partners Vt barn. Had to pick up a rescue horse in mid-Vermont for a rescue in Connecticut. I housed her at the barn where the mom I adopted used to live before she moved to South Carolina. No more mares at my barn. (Now doing chores and working at three barns for 1 1/2 weeks.) Working on re-homing Elias. Trying to make ethical and emotional decisions about Buddy. Adopted out one of the dogs, Mia. Mia decided she didn't want to leave, so escaped from their house and spent 6 days on the run. We drove over an hour, one way, two nights in a row to walk the woods, roads and back yard, setting up a crate with our dog blankets in it trying to entice her in. Set up a tent and planned on spending the night in it to get her. It worked. She's back home and staying.
Oh, yeah - and I still live with three teenagers. One who left for college last Friday. One who is a Senior in high school this year. And a sophomore who hasn't taken driver's ed yet. And a mostly understanding and supportive husband. I love him, just celebrated 20 years of marriage together, but he is still a full blooded american male. Sigh. You all get the picture.
We came to a decision about Buddy after many conversations with trusted horse people in my life and a long evaluation with the vet and Elias was adopted out on a trail basis. Buddy was gently laid to rest on the farm. Just after, a bald eagle and an immature bald eagle were flying over the pasture (we had never seen these around the farm before.) Elias is in a good place where he will be safe and happy.
So, there are only two ponies at the barn. What a difference a few months make. We went from 4 horses and two ponies to just Smokey and Abner. The pony boys. The fields got a break, I got a break and things were very quiet.
So, I have worked out a deal on a new horse. Had many, many horses offered to me. Still getting emails on a weekly basis of people offering me their horse that they can't keep any more. Sigh. I'm having just as hard a time as everyone else to guarantee that there will be hay in the barn come spring so I can feed my horses. Just like everyone else. Mostly older teens, early 20's. Decided after putting to rest 4 horses in the last 5 years that I wanted a horse that was going to be around for quite a while.
After much searching and much consideration, I found one. I worked with him for a good month at the farm he was at before making a decision to take him. He is a 7 year old 7/8 Lippitt Morgan, 1/8 pinto gelding. I am in the process of purchasing him from the owner/breeder who owned/bred his grandparents. It's a wonderful line. His father is still in breeding condition at 30 and lives next door to his previous barn. (He is owned by the sister & husband of Kate at http://www.horsepartnersvt.blogspot.com/ .
So, my new boy came home. His registered name is Spark of Royalty. I named him Mingo. The name came from a search I did online. He's a pinto morgan. I wanted a unique name for him. Mingo means beloved in a native american language. I don't remember which one right now. And, supposedly, Mingo was Daniel Boone's best friend who helped him in his adventures and is supposedly a good name for a trail horse as it is someone who is good on the trails and surefooted.
So, in the process of trailering to the Horse Partners Program 6 miles from my house, the unthinkable happened. Everything is ok. At the time it wasn't, but he is fine now. It was 8:30 am on Monday morning and we were headed to a week long camp at Kate's. We pulled out of the drive way and went down the road. And got stopped at road construction. Next to the shooting range. Where there was a man and two children shooting a shotgun. Mingo did fine through the first two shots, but at the third shot, all hell broke loose. The truck was shaking, the trailer was rocking. My daughter MJ was with me. We both ran back to the horse trailer that was, literally, rocking on it's wheels. I was expecting bad, but was totally shocked by the picture that awaited me when I opened the side door of the trailer.
Mingo had broken his halter. Thank god it was a breakaway halter. Don't even want to go there. Mingo was over the chest bar, hanging by his back legs, the rest of the body in the fore compartment with his head on the floor. And it seemed there was blood everywhere. The window on the front was broken out. His eyes were almost all white and he was shaking all over.
Now take a deep breath. That is what I did. Went into survival mode. Sucked it up and dealt with what I had to do. My MJ started shaking and said, "Mom, what do we do?" I looked at her and said "Just do what I tell you and we will deal with everything else later." She then looked over her shoulder and yelled at the guy at the range to stop shooting. And then turned to help me.
In talking with the kids at the barn last week, and in trailering to a horse show with Kate, and having packed for trailering and emergencies, I had packed an emergency halter, which came in very handy. After getting my hands on Mingo and soothing him with my voice and hands, somehow, MJ got the halter on Mingo. By this time, other people in the line of cars and trucks had come up to see what they could do to help. I told everyone to stay out of the trailer as I didn't want anyone else to get hurt. I don't know how - in talking with MJ and others, we still don't know how he did it - Mingo managed to calm himself with me there talking to him, working with him, and got him to the point where he was eventually standing in the trailer with his front ankles over the chest bar.
He was breathing heavy, blood running from many wounds on his head and from his leg. He was still scared but in control. I had MJ wait by his head, still talking to him, as I got the ramp down on the back of the trailer and went in the trailer with him. I had MJ get out and talked to him and encouraged him and he reared up and got his legs off the chest bar. He then backed out of the trailer, with me beside him, onto the road (that was shut down with cars being blocked by us and the trailer with cars parked in every direction).
Mingo was snorting, blowing and was still very upset, but under control. As we were only a little over a 1/2 mile from the house, I walked him along the road, on a path along the shoulder, and walked home. There was blood all over the horse, blood all over me. MJ was standing in the middle of the road, with broken glass and a truck she couldn't drive (it's a standard) and me leading home a horse we thought was going to need an emergency visit from the vet for stitches. I can just imagine what all the other people in their cars in that line we were passing were thinking. We must have looked frightful. Something out of a horror movie.
I got Mingo home, called the vet, and went inside to wash up to make sure I wasn't bleeding from anywhere and loose my mind. I was hyperventilating, sobbing, beside myself. Then MJ called and wanted to know what to do with the truck. I told her to pull it off the side of the road, lock it and come home. She still had to go to help out at camp - where we had been heading for the week with Mingo. She came home and got her truck and left.
I was still waiting for the vet. And waiting. It always seems like forever in an emergency - whether it be for the kids or the animals - when you are waiting for the doctor to call you back. It seems as my vet and his wife had their new baby and the vet on call was over 2 hours away on another emergency. Finally, Roger called me and said he would come up as the other vet was still busy and we only had a small window of time to do stitches.
In the meantime, I had taken cold water, betadine and some soft washcloths to get most of the blood and wounds cleaned up. He wasn't a pretty picture. I was almost sick to my stomach. There were a few deep gouges that I knew wouldn't be able to be stitched as there was nothing left to stitch to. So, on with goops of bag balm. I love that stuff. It keeps bugs off the wound and it doesn't promote proud flesh and it's not harmful if they somehow ingest it. I fed him a little grain with some bute in it to help with the swelling and pain that I knew were well on the way and sat down and cried. And apologised to my new boy. And tried to figure out what went wrong.
He had a deep scrape on his nose, on the bridge of his face, over his right eye, between his eyes, in his forelock area and two on his poll. He also had a deep scrape on his leg that ended where his chestnut had been ripped off. However, that was nothing compared to the very deep v-shaped large cut over his left eye. I left that wound alone as I knew if it needed stitching, they wouldn't want me gooping it all up with bag balm. I did clean it up and cleaned up the blood the best I could, but it was painful so I didn't mess with it much. Figured it could be done better with some pain meds on board.
Ashley drove me up the road to pick up the truck and trailer, parked by the side of the road and partially blocking the road. I drove down the shoulder, and did a big circle around the flag guy standing in the road and drove home, shaking all the way.
So, the vet comes. Says that everything I did looked good and asked if I wanted the good news or the bad news. I cried and told Roger, "I can't handle any more bad news." He just smiled at me and told me the farm call would cost more than the antibiotics I needed to purchase. He didn't want to stitch it - he wanted to leave it alone and let it heal on it's own as it was too close to the bones in the eye and it was cut in such a way that it would drain down his face.
So, I put some bag balm on his eye, put a fly mask on, and kept him in his stall that first day, with the pony boys in the barn with him to keep him company.
Now, almost 2 1/2 weeks later, there is little evidence that he had such a tragic accident. His most damaging wound over his eye has a little bit of healing left to do. Most of the others have almost totally healed and are starting to grow a little hair back.
And we have trailered twice since then. Thursday the same week in the same trailer, but a different route. And Sunday that week. And he walked right on the trailer with me both times. Not any hesitation. Total trust that I would take care of him.
So, sometimes even when you do everything right, when you do everything in your power to make sure things will be ok, things can still go wrong. Horribly and in a heart-beat. And then they can go right again.
A quote from the movie the Whale Rider, my friend told me... Sometimes it's nobodys fault. Sometimes things just happen.
What a kind friend with kind words.
