Posts Tagged ‘horse drama’
Momentary Panic
It was a beautiful morning yesterday, with a thick line of fog hovering low across the valley. It completely obscured the view of our neighbor’s buildings on the property south of ours.
The horses were quietly eating from their feed buckets, and Cyndie and I were working together to scoop up manure drops out in the paddocks. Cyndie had her back to the horses, and I was facing them toward the overhang.
Suddenly, a ruckus occurred, and I looked up to see Swings struggling to get out from between Light and the wood fence. When she burst free, it was done very awkwardly. In an instant, before Cyndie could even turn around, Swings was moving right for us, stepping oddly sideways, like she didn’t have control of her body.
I’m not sure how she missed us, because we hardly had time to move, but she brushed past us, flailing sideways the whole way out to the middle of the large paddock. It looked like she was having a seizure of some sort. If not that, my only other perception was of her body being possessed by some entity other than her own.
She stopped moving and dropped her head down low. It reminded me of the way Light behaved when she was in pain from a head wound. After a moment or two, Swings regained her composure. She took a few steps and then laid down to do a normal-looking roll. When she got up from that, she had a moment of shakiness before slowly making her way up the slope toward the overhang to where she was before the whole drama unfolded.
It was the strangest thing I have ever seen in all the years we’ve had horses, but for some reason, not as unsettling as I would expect. It was good to have been there to witness it together. We kept our eyes on Swings for a little longer, but saw no indication of anything out of the ordinary in the time following.
Cyndie immediately reported the incident to the folks at This Old Horse. Since Swings had returned to normal, they felt that no action was necessary beyond watching her closely the rest of the day.
We spent some extra time with the horses in the middle of the day, and Cyndie was able to do some grooming on several of them to varying degrees. It was particularly rewarding to see Mia be so receptive to attention. Cyndie was able to completely brush out her mane, which had been a severe tangle of fairy knots.
Swings seemed fine the rest of the day, leaving us a little mystified about what caused her moment of panic, but it serves to keep us cognizant that she is 31 years old, and each day she makes it through without trouble is a blessing to be cherished.
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Scary Moment
If I haven’t already ranted enough about how long the grass had grown at home while we were up north for ten days over the Independence Day holiday, let me add one last exclamation point. After I completed a second round of mowing, there were still enough leftover grass clippings to rake into windrows for making yard bales.
While I was playing around in that small plot above the barn, I heard some knocking on one of the horse’s feed buckets. We try to bring the buckets in after the horses have finished their grain, but I had left one out because there was a portion uneaten, and Mia was showing interest in it. If we leave the buckets indefinitely, the horses have a history of messing with them, and the metal handles get all bent out of shape.
After three knocks, I decided I better retrieve that last bucket before it gets wrecked. To my surprise, when I stepped through the door to the overhang, I saw it was Swings who was knocking the bucket in the spot where Mix usually eats, and she was standing with one foot in it.
Thankfully, she appeared totally calm with the situation, but at the same time, in a somewhat precarious position. Concerned that things could quickly take a turn for the worse, I bent down to assist her in getting out of this predicament. I reached through the fence boards and grabbed the sides of the bucket with each hand to hold it down, hoping she would then simply lift her foot out.
It didn’t work that way. I couldn’t tell if she didn’t want to pull it out or couldn’t pull it out. I got the impression her hoof might be wedged in the bottom, but it wasn’t clear since I couldn’t tell if she was pulling up or pushing down. The bucket was moving around and eventually pinned my gloved hand against the fence board hard enough that I began to bellow at the pain as Swings appeared to try standing on the hanging bucket with all her weight.
It was a scary moment. In my increasing panic, I tried to determine what was going to give. The bucket needed to be lifted upward to come out of the latch on the strap it was hanging from. I had no way to cut the strap in that instant. The metal handle looked like it was bending a bit, but the heavy plastic bucket wasn’t looking near its breaking point. It pretty much depended on what Swings was going to do next.
Luckily, she still seemed totally calm about the mess we were in, even with my screaming. Somehow, she shifted just enough that I was able to get my hand free, and it seemed undamaged. The residual tenderness of the bruise didn’t show up until later. Just as mysteriously, the two of us did something that allowed me to finally pull the bucket down while she moved to get her hoof out.
I don’t know how she got her foot in there in the first place, and if it was intended or not, but it occurred to me that she might have been unable to lift it high enough again to get it out. I’m still not clear about whether it was wedged in or if it was just her not taking the weight off that kept it stuck.
Thank goodness for the happy ending. I was home alone at the time, so that heightened my distress during the peak drama. And hooray for the other three horses remaining chill throughout it all. Once Swings had all four feet back on the ground and I was standing there holding the mildly reshaped bucket, it was as if they were all thinking, “What was all the fuss about?”
Nothing to see here. Carry on with your normal healthy horse routines. I’m going to go back to raking up grass clippings.
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Gate Drama
While the “parents” are away, the horses will play? In all the years we have had horses, we’ve never seen what happened yesterday while we are up at the lake. The friends staying at our house sent us a question about one of the gates. They didn’t remember it being bent and wondered how it was supposed to be secured. Photos had Cyndie and me massively shocked by what we were seeing.
What in the heck happened!?
The chain was completely gone. Whatever the impact was, it broke the link and sent the chain flying into the tall grass.
Our best guess is that Swings or Light, or possibly both, might have gotten spooked and sprinted toward the gate, forgetting that it was closed. Whatever occurred, it must have been quite a spectacle. Our friends didn’t find any evidence of injury to either horse, so that is good news.
We had been told the farmer who cuts and bales our hay field was hoping to show up within days so we had confined the horses to the paddocks and opened the outer gate by the road to allow the tractor to roll in unobstructed. With that paddock gate blown open, the two horses in that paddock could have made their way to freedom if they had ventured to the far side of the field. Luckily, they didn’t.
Over the phone, we strategized with Pam and John to guide them to materials to temporarily secure the gate and assure them all was fine, even as Cyndie and I marveled over the outrageousness of what we were seeing and the incident we were imagining had happened. We also had them close that gate by the road as an additional precaution. The farmer can open it when he finally arrives.
You just never know when the usual serenity of life with horses might be disrupted by some spectacular incident.
Of course it would occur when we are away.
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Relative Something 