Relative Something

Of all the things we learned from Pam and John when we arrived home, the last thing I anticipated was a report of more damage to the paddock fence.

If you inspect that image you should be able to find that the top board of the wooden plank fence to the left of the gate opening is missing. That board was broken completely in half and the screws holding it to the posts were ripped loose. In addition to that, the high-tensile wire that was strung above the top board was also broken.

The power to the electric fence had been turned off while we were away and I will need to repair that break before we can energize the wires again. It occurred to me that having the electricity off for such a long time may have allowed the horses to show less respect for the fence. Still, the mystery remains about what precipitated the dramatic actions on two different occasions to trigger the horses bashing the barriers they’ve tolerated for all the years they’ve been here until now.

One factor I am considering, beyond the fact they were initially being kept off the pasture (while we anticipated the arrival of hay-cutting equipment), is that the four horses were separated in twos, split between the two paddocks. We did that to make it easier on our horsesitters at feeding times.

Now that Cyndie and I were home, I was able to remove the barrier between the two paddocks after they finished eating late yesterday afternoon. It didn’t take long for the horses to move across to the side they had been kept from for the last ten days. I stood and watched as the horses explored and surveyed the grounds “on the other side of the fence.”

There was a lot of sniffing and some brief grazing as each horse patrolled the space that had previously been out of reach. Mia laid down to roll in the dusty dirt.

We tried to look for video recorded by the camera mounted off the overhang but couldn’t see any evidence it was being saved. It looks like it is programmed to record so my troubleshooting will look toward the format of the memory card and the instructions about the path (network address) where the files are to be saved. This exercise may require the expertise of my primary technical consultant, our son, Julian.

Pam and John did report hearing coyotes but that is not an unusual sound whatsoever in these parts so we don’t think that would explain Swings or Light suddenly damaging fences. I did hear some fireworks after dark last night but that is also not that unusual. I put the camera view up on our TV in the bedroom and observed their behavior during the “pop-pop-popping.”

They looked to be aware of the situation and paying attention to the surroundings but weren’t showing any signs of being particularly anxious or upset by the noise.

While I am mowing grass today I will be pondering my options for trying to bend the metal gate flat again. It may be a fool’s errand, but I figure I might at least improve the spacing between the bars where it got opened quite a bit. If that doesn’t work, we’ll probably end up shopping for a replacement.

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