MANY OF YOU WROTE ASKING ABOUT MY YOUNG HORSES FROM THE STORY YESTERDAY…

YES, THEY ARE FINE… And, yes, they got into trouble all the time.  Here is another story…

Worse than Running with Scissors!  I am soooo Lucky…

I feel really, really, really lucky today.

What happened yesterday morning could have been a huge disaster.  Huge.  Someone was looking after me and my two youngest…

Remember these guys?  I wrote about them yesterday.  As stated previously, VB (Violet Beauregard, very busy gum chewing Icy filly) and Wrigley (Morgan 2 year old who stands a skinny 15’1…) are the two who get into trouble when there is no trouble to be had.  If it is out there, they will step in it, trip over it, break it, eat it or destroy it.

 

THEIR NEXT ADVENTURE…

Well,  I had them locked in the barn.  Not really locked…  but they were in the barn with both end gates shut so that they could mosey around and eat all the hay that was on the ground from the recent hay delivery.  I was using them as horsey Hoovers.  I wanted the aisleway clean.  So, I closed all the stalls, the hay room door, the tack/feed room door and left them to do their job.

Or so I thought…

HERE IS WHAT I SAW

I walked to the barn for the evening feed.  I knew I had to put these two Hooligans back out but that was easy.  I just had to open the other side of the barn and out they’d go!  So, I was relaxed and happy as I approached.

But, something looked askew.  The place was a mess!

At this point I still wasn’t alarmed because they can make messes, as we’ve seen before…  But as I got closer to the barn, I didn’t see any horses – especially a little Icy and a huge Morgan baby gelding.  Wha?  Where could two, largish horses hide in a very open barn?  The stall doors were shut.  Check.  The feed room door was closed.  Check.  The hay barn door was closed. Check.  Both barn gates were closed.  Check.  Where could they be?

I even opened the hay barn slider, thinking they had worked it open and I’d find then standing on the hay bales – as they had done before.

Nope.  Nothing.  Where the heck were they?

UH OH

Let me first say, this was happening in a matter of moments.  I was gathering my thoughts as I looked around but it was all happening in a surreal way.  I wasn’t panicked or rushed.  I was just trying to figure out where 1600 lbs of horseflesh had gone.  The severity of the situation hadn’t hit me yet.

Then I started to note the items strewn about.  Uh Oh.  It was beginning to dawn on me…  The pellet bag which should be the tack/feed room, was out here.  Weird.  Oh, and the alfalfa cube bag was out here, too.  Both were empty.

And then the biggest clue of all…  The box fan which was in the tack/feed room on the counter – so it could cool me when I was preparing the dogs’ food – was smashed and laying outside the closed feed room door.

But, the most telling sign?…

The cord was still inside the feed room.  Uh oh.

Double UH OH.

THE TACK/FEED ROOM

The tack/feed room is a very small room that I cram all my extra tack, seasonal barn stuff and feed.  There is also a refrigerator and a three rung saddle rack.  Let’s just say that there isn’t much room in there.  In fact, if I am in there, my Mastiff won’t even try to enter.  If he is in there alone, he has to back up to turn around.  He weighs 185lbs.  These horses are bigger.  Much, much bigger.

PANIC

OK, now I was panicked because I realized that they are both in the tiny tack/feed room.

OH MY GOD.

I immediately tried to push open the tack room door.  I couldn’t.

I hear a shuffle inside (Smart horsies – the Icy is studying at Wyotech to be a deconstruction engineer…) and I know that the noise was VB making room for the door to open.  She may be a Disaster Creator, but she is one smart Icy.

I tried again and I could open the door a tiny bit.

INSIDE

OMG.  Inside I saw two huge horse butts and a very, very full room.  Everything was everywhere.  And, it smelled like a horse locker room.  They had been sweating in there for probably at least an hour.

I will always remember the smell of no air and horse confusion/sweat.

I did have the window open in there, but it was still a very warm room – without two horses jammed inside.  The temperature yesterday was 95…

VB

Somehow, she knew the danger in this… She listened to me as I told her to NO!  DO NOT RUSH THE DOOR!

There was no way she could have gotten out but she could have easily wrenched her neck between the opening of the door and the counter top.

She stood there, with her butt facing me, wanting so badly to jump out that door…   I pushed her away from the door and against Wrigley as far as I could.  Wrigley practically balanced on top of a plastic crate as I did this, his head pushed between two of the bars on the empty (thank God) saddlerack.

As I pushed VB back, I could just manage to open the door all the way.  This gave a clear opening of about 24″ since the counter was in the way.  I have no idea how she managed to turn around because it happened in a flash!  That girl wanted OUT.  I think she folded herself in half.  I don’t know but in a moment she was coming out the door, head first.  Wrigley followed immediately after.

They both stood in the cool aisleway kinda stunned, looking at me.  I barked at them and told them how BAD they were and what MISCHIEVOUS horses they were and how LUCKY both of them were and how AWFUL Mommy would have felt if something went wrong.  Both of their chests were full of sweat (hence the smell…) and they stood rock still.  Then, their eyes softened…

“Hey, it’s all good.  We’re fine.  When’s dinner?”

BUMS RUSH

I put them back into their pasture, rather abruptly and not very softy I might add…  Then, I went back into the room to inspect the damage.

OMG, again.  But, this time I started laughing.

I started laughing that hysterical, convulsing laughter/cry/spittle one  has when they realize that they’ve just dodged a bullet…

Now that it was over and everyone was safe, it was really unbelievable and amazing – and funny.

I went to the house and got my camera to record the aftermath.

YOUNG HORSE CONVERSATION

I started to just chortle at the whole thing!  I cannot imagine the conversation inside the room…

VB:  Hey, lookey, I got the door open!

W:  Huh?

VB:  I’m goin’ in!

W:  Where?

VB:  Ohhhhh, look at all this!!  I’m going to eat everything!  I’ll start with these cookies and …

W:  What?

VB:  Hey, I got the pellet bag… I’ll bring it out.

W:  OK

VB:  Hey, I got the alfalfa cube bag…  I’ll bring it out.

W:  OK

VB:  Ooooooooooh, I think I can get this trash can opened but I have to put some weight into it… Hey, C’mere.

W:  You want me inside there?

VB:  Now!  Help me open this!

W:  OK (Wrigley pushes his way in and tries to turn around and his huge butt wipes out everything on the counter and water heater including the fan which ends up outside the door.  He gets his nose caught in the speaker wire.)

VB:  Now come up here and …

W:  (they tussle for position and the door slams shut)  What was that noise?

VB:  Crap.

W:  What?

VB:  The door shut.

W:  Oh, OK.

VB:  No, not OK you big oaf!  Now we’re trapped in here.

W:  Great!  Food everywhere!

VB:  Wrong.  It’s all dog food.  I checked.

W:  We can sing camp songs…

VB:  Quit breathing and sucking up all the air… Gawd you stink.

W:  When do you think she will come?

VB:  When she always comes.  MOVE OVER!

CLEAN UP

Upon clean up, I noticed several things.

First, no poop inside the tack room.  Yeah!  They couldn’t have been in there that long…

Second, they smashed everything.  I cannot even imagine the mashup that was going on once they were trapped!

Nothing was permanently broken and everything kinda went back to normal.  I was even able to pull the cage back out on the fan and it was humming along as I was sweeping.

Unfortunately, the dogs will have hay in their food.  I swept up the dog food and put it back in the cans, but there were some errant leafs of hay.  Ptooey!

ALLS WELL THAT ENDS WELL

And, everyone was still fine this morning…  I feel very lucky that most of my pellets and alfalfa cubes were already gone; the bags were mostly empty. I was so happy that I hadn’t just made a trip to the feed store with all new sacks of grain – destroyed.

I was lucky there were no chemicals in my feed room.  I am really, really lucky that there were no sharp things.  I’m incredibly lucky that I had just sold all the saddles I which were on that rack.  I cannot imagine the confusion and panic it would have caused if they had managed to disrupt all those saddles.  I’m lucky that they have both been trailered enough to understand cramped quarters.

And, most of all, in a twist of fate, I’m lucky that they get themselves into binds all the time…

I guess I’m lucky that these two Laurel and Hardy, Perils of Pauline Chuckleheads are constantly in a pickle.  If they didn’t spend half of their lives waiting for me to fix whatever they had just gotten themselves into, they might have panicked.  But, they didn’t.  They just waited.

IN CONCLUSION

I dodged what could have been a horrible outcome on this day.  I am incredibly thankful to the horsey gods for perhaps looking after my bad door closing skills and my two Knumbskulls.  I am also very grateful that my not shutting the door properly didn’t leave me in a world of regret.

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