Hubby asked me…

“What do you want for Christmas?”

I said the usual.

“I’d like to go away.”

Don’t get me wrong, I love my home…

I love my animals.

But, I also love to go places I’ve never been to taste what they have to offer – and to feel who I am in another environment.

Do you know what I mean?

Sometimes when you remove yourself from your old place and put yourself in a new place where you have no history, everything begins anew – you feel more… or observe more… – your senses are heightened.

I like that.

BUT IF I WAS HONEST WITH SANTA…

But, if I was to be honest with myself and say what I’d really like for Christmas…

I’d say this:

(…Besides world peace and providing humane treatment for all animals…)

I’d love to be able to afford an original painting by Teresa Elliott.

There.  I said it.

I’d also love a home with a mantle worthy of an original painting by Teresa Elliott.

I dream about this place.

It is the same dream all the time… Outside the huge wood framed picture windows would be my herd of healthies, set against the local golden-kissed mountains where they sip from the river – coats shining against the tall grass.

Sigh.

And, luckily for me, Santa Hubby is willing to take me to a place like that for a few days.  I doubt there will be a Teresa Elliott painting over the mantle but you never know…

–So today I readied the animals for my departure.

 

WHY DOES EVERYTHING GO WRONG WHEN YOU HAVE NO TIME TO FIX IT?

I’m here almost every day and generally, nothing out of the ordinary happens.  Sure, a fence board may come down.  Or, perhaps someone (generally Wrigley) has a bite mark… but most of the time, not much happens.

Not today.

I went to the barn and opened the stall gate.

The gate fell off in my hand.

Wha?

Ohforcriminy sakes.  Why now?  REALLY?  TODAY?

Since Hubby wasn’t around, I got a bungie.

Oy.  Now the gate is bungied on.

Perfect.

Inside the stall, earlier, I had finally gotten to the end of the hay stack and unburied the stall dividers that the hay guys put on the bottom of their last load of hay – don’t ask… – the slats had been buried for 88 bales.  And I could finally see them!

Yay!

I could now make a stall for the horse feeder to bring in any horse who gets too wet in this horrible weather that we are having this holiday.

As I lifted the immense boards and slide them into the slots to create the wood slat wall, the boards stop at an odd angle.

Huh?

I looked and saw that my sight line wasn’t exactly congruent with the wall line…

I realized that when they were stacking this fall, one of the stacker guys was leaning a bit to the left… so much so that he stacked two entire stacks a bit too far to the left. Over the line.  Into the slats for the stall wall.

I will not be able to create a stall until… maybe Spring.  Exactly when I wouldn’t need a stall.

Sigh.

SLICK AND NORMA

And why is it that when I am preparing to leave town, Slick and Norma have now just decided that they hate their shelters and would rather stand in the pouring rain for 24 hours straight?

Why?!  Why do they do this to me- now?

Frantically, I put both of them in the aisle of the barn – since I couldn’t make a stall – while I decided what I could do.

Instantly, they wrecked everything and taunted the puppies who were in the only secure stall I have left.

Great.

Yes, Slick and Norma were dry but if I left them in there while I was gone, they were liable to take down the entire barn, one ponybite at a time.

What to do?

What to do?!

 

WHAT I DID

So, I found some older plywood walls that Bodhi had removed during his remodeling phase and I dragged them over to Slick’s enclosure.

To backtrack… Bodhi is huge.  When Bodhi lived where Slick lives now, Bodhi felt he needed more of a breezeway around the bottom of his enclosure so he chewed off all of the lower panels.  That worked great for Big Ol’ Bodhi, but tiny Slick uses that shelter now so most of Slick is exposed when he stands in there.

To be fair, the shelter still works perfectly during most times because Slick can be shielded but still see all around him.  He likes that.

However, when the rain is sideways, the shelter doesn’t provide much shelter.

OK, back to my fixing the shelter…

I set the plywood walls upright and ran to the house for my petite Makita that I bought for just this sort of an emergency.  I kept it charged!

Racing back with wood screws, I leaned against the plywood and drilled.

I didn’t measure.  I didn’t eyeball it.  I didn’t do anything but look for an anchor point and drill.

Have you ever seen the website, “There, I fixed it!“?

Well, that is exactly how I feel about this fix… it ain’t purty, but it works.

Now Slick has full walls on two sides.  I put in a feeder so his hay will stay dry.

There.  Now at least he will stay in there for as long as it takes him to eat.

NORMA

Norma is a different story.

She’s decided that something about her huge and hearty shelter, bugs her.

I think it could be the metal roof.  Not sure.

MamaTess and Dodger are using it.  But all of a sudden, Norma is standing on the outside.

Arrrgh!

My only idea was to buy her a Rambo waterproof blanket.

So, I went online to find one but of course, it cannot get here instantly.  And, I needed it right now.

But even if there was a Rambo store at the end of my driveway, finding a donkey-size proved to be almost impossible.

I actually didn’t even know her size.  So, I ran outside with a string and measured her from center of chest to tail.  I think she is 62″.

Close enough.

So I ran back inside and tried to find one anywhere near that size.

Fat chance!  I could almost hear the webpages laughing at me as I searched for tiny Rambo coats for my jenny.

Finally, at JUST FOR PONIES, I found almost her size, maybe.  It was a 63.  I ordered it!

Norma’s rainproof coat should be here just in time for the weather to clear…

Sigh…

Off I go, crossing my fingers that the bungie holds and that the horsegods are watching!

 

 

HORSE AND MAN is a blog in growth… if you like this, please pass it around!

 

 

 

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