Excitement on the Farm!!

Since I started renting property from a friend last Feb. I've been forced to feed the horses after I get done working at 1:30 in the morning. Lately, I've been making it work out to feed at 8 am before going to pick the baby up. Monday night I took a friend out there after work to help me feed because I had a migraine all day and couldn't make it out there that morning. So we pulled up to the yard, it's dark out of course, and I make the comment that it looks like someone was hot balling through the yard in a truck. I parked the car by the garage, got out and started making my way to the paddock which is on the other side of the yard. As I got closer I noticed that the "tire tracks" were getting smaller and more round. I stopped, bent down, and sure enough, not tire tracks.....hoof prints. So I got to the gate, which was down, and called for the horses. One little loan whinny answered me back.


I have one large paddock and a smaller one in back where Remme lives with Token. I went to the back to check the fence and not a wire was out of place. The fence is up to my chest, and the only way I can figure that Remme got out was to jump. Which is good for him and for my program (his designated job when he grows up is to be an eventer), but bad for me when he figured out he could clear it and get out to run with the rest of the herd. Poor Token was sitting there, all by himself, calling for his friends. Thank god he's not going to be a jumper, cause he'd stink at it!!


So anyways, I called the cops to report them missing. I can't say much for the dispatcher that answered the phone, she cut me off mid-description and asked for my number so they could call me if they found them. Went home to bed and woke up to a 7 am phone call that some guy found a herd of horses in his back yard. Now for the fun part......

Picked up the same friend that was with me the night before and headed out to do some fence repairs. So we were in the back, fixing some wires that had snapped because of the wind and snow drifts, and I look up to see a single file line of horses walking down the road about a mile away. Jumped in the car with some halters and a bucket of oats and went to wrangle up some ponies. They had better ideas. Okauchee was leading the pack, and they were making good time trotting back toward the farm. They stopped when they saw me get out of the car and came over to investigate the bucket. I walked them back toward the car and took out a halter for Okauchee. He saw it and bolted back down the road they had come from. Needless to say, we spent a good hour playing a not-so-fun game of catch me if you can. Okauchee would lead the pack far enough away from us and then stop to make sure we were following. Finally they went back to the same house they were at this morning to dig in the snow and eat some grass. They weren't hard to catch after that.

Walking two and a half miles home in near zero weather leading a pack of horses is a story in itself. We got some pictures, but they didn't turn out to well because my friend was taking them from the car. Plus, I don't think I could even get them posted!! I haven't had the time to figure out how this whole thing works.

I now know that I will have to work on the separation anxiety Okauchee has. I ended up having to put a chain on him on the walk back. Rain decided about a quarter mile from home that she was done walking and was going to run the rest of the way. The rest of the herd followed, and Okauchee didn't take it well. He's normally extremely well mannered, but that day he bolted, screamed, and tried to run me over a number of times. It was hard to get his attention back on me before the chain. He wasn't responding to just the halter and lead. Once he was wearing the chain I was able to get him to stop, bend and flex, back up, and stand. I wish I had a better facility so that I could separate some of the horses and really do some hands on work with them. The barn I planned on putting stalls in has such a bad roof that it leaks constantly. I'm not allowed to set up any separate pens opposite the shed next to the paddock because of reasons I won't speak of right now. There is only one quality boarding place on the edge of town, but the guy is getting old and isn't taking any more horses right now. This is the same guy that told me he'd take Ransom and Token for a month and then called me the next day to tell me he changed his mind. He's actually thinking about quitting in the spring. The other place that boards is the one I had Remme and Rain at when I first got them. These are the same people that didn't feed Remme and left Rain out in a pasture to fret herself down a hundred pounds in three days while I was gone. They aren't worth the two hundred some dollars a month plus the butt load of gas money I'd spend traveling and the anxiety pills I'd end up having to take from worrying so much. For how much they charge I could feed my brood for a month. What's a girl to do??

Becky