Round Up!

Tim and I have a joke that every time he travels, something happens with the horses. And honestly, that runs pretty true most of the time. So when he left town ten days ago, he sent me this tongue in cheek text.

Unfortunately, Two Socks was not listening when he had that chat with them. When I arrived for yesterday's barn check, I saw this - was Two Socks in the nursery paddock?

Yep! She sure was! And the stinker had the nerve to happily whinny at me when she spotted me.

I stood there in surprise, wondering how I was going to get her back in with the herd. And where was her mama? Apparently she had walked to the water trough with her two "aunts," Abby and Dolly - Sultanna was grazing out in the west pasture with Hokey.

Before I could grab a halter and retrieve Two Socks, she gave it away that getting into the nursery paddock was not a new activity.

She pushed her head through the wires of the fence, lifted the top strands up with her shoulders,

and calmly ambled down the lane to come say hello.

I've been saying all along that she is a bold and confident filly, but I did not anticipate this! A quick check showed me the fence was down in several places and I suspected that the electric wire had shorted out.

Tim has an ingenious system of gates and lanes so that he can configure access to pastures as needed. It is also very helpful when you need to close off a pasture quickly.

That system saved me as I began scrambling to shut off the area where Two Socks had gotten out. (Thank goodness she only got into another pasture and not out to an unfenced area!)

Much to the horses' disappointment, I closed off the lane to the trough and did not hang around to pet them and feed them treats. 

But since now they had no water and with it already in the 90s, I needed to make sure they had access to some. 

I walked out to the small paddock and dragged the rubber trough all the way back to where the horses now were. It was so hot and I had to stop a couple of times and catch my breath.

I got the hoses connected and stretched them out from the spigot by the new barn all the way out to the closed section of the lanes system.

Twenty minutes later (I sat in my car with the air conditioning on high) and the herd was safe and sound with water to drink.

My quick barn check had turned into an hour's worth of barn work and I was overheated and exhausted. Those errands I'd planned to run after the barn check could wait - I went straight home, hit the shower, and drank a lot of cold water. 

I will go out a couple of times today just to be sure that Two Socks (and the others) are where they are supposed to be. If they aren't? Well, I guess I will figure it out as I go.