Just as it did a few weekends ago this weekend got off to an auspicious start. On Friday morning my horse Lexi decided to put herself in the running for a Darwin award. Not five minutes after Amy and I had left her pasture after feeding and putting on rainsheets my Dad calls me to say there is a horse tangled up in the fence and to come fast. He also said to bring my chainsaw. GULP. OK, I don’t know what else he could have said to make me panic because that certainly did! I ran to the barn, grabbing my chainsaw and other tools and jumped in the trusty Kubota and drove that poor utility vehicle faster than I ever thought possible! In the couple of minutes I had to think about what was happening you can imagine all of the horrible scenes that were going through my mind.
As I skidded to a stop in the Kubota and was assessing the scene my first thought was “this is really bad.” I could see it was Lexi and she was very much trapped underneath the fence. As I walked up and started examining things I realized that the situation was not as dire as I thought. I could see no signs of a struggle and Lexi was laying there quietly waiting for someone to help her. Her mom, Bridget, was standing over her and looked so relieved to see me.
Clearly Lexi had gone down to roll, and when she went to flop to the other side she got all four legs underneath the fence. She also put herself on just enough of a downward incline that she could not scoot herself back. Plus it had rained overnight and she couldn’t get any traction. She also complicated things by also now having her head underneath the fence. Her piece de resistance was that she had a fence post between her front and back legs. Great.
It would be impossible to flip her over so she could get out and dismantling the fence was the only option. My dad manned my much-maligned chainsaw while I covered Lexi’s eyes to keep debris from the sawing getting in them. To her great credit she just laid there quietly with the saw buzzing away inches from her head. I honestly thought I would be racing back to the barn in the Kubota to get some tranquilizer for her once we started using the saw so close to her head. However she could not have been any more cooperative. First we removed the bottom board from above her front legs and her head but she still didn’t have enough room to maneuver. So we ended up removing all four boards and completely tearing down that section of the fence.
She still wouldn’t get up and it looked like we were going to have to completely dismantle the other section of the fence and remove the post. Just as we went to start doing that she suddenly decided to try and get up. She popped up, shook (I guess to finally complete the rolling experience) and then ran off to rejoin her buddies without even saying thanks. We had shooed the other horses away so there wouldn’t be anyone trying to escape after we tore down the fence.
With perfect timing Jason drove up then so he got the job of rebuilding the fence. I had called Jason and told him to come home NOW after dad had called me and before I actually knew what the problem was. At least I didn’t have to rebuild the fence myself. As Jason was very grumpily rebuilding the fence I pointed out that this could have ended with a huge vet bill and that we were really lucky. Of course he pointed out that if Lexi wasn’t so stupid as to roll right next to the fence vs. the 20 open acres of pasture she lived in the whole thing could have been avoided. I did remind him that Lexi was not the first horse to roll right next to the wood fence and do this, and unfortunately I’m sure she won’t be the last. Why do horses have to roll right by the fence, especially the horses on this farm who all live in huge pastures???
Amazingly Lexi does not even have a scratch on her and is none the worse for her experience. I can’t say that I am none the worse for the experience as I had even more years removed from my life. I have decided that the horses on this farm are all in a conspiracy against me and are determined to see just how many years they can shorten my life span!
Other than that the weekend was pretty quiet, thank goodness. Jason and I are continuing to get to know Mina and Jo, the adorable fainting goats. They were very shy at first but are starting to warm up. They will now eat of my hand and let me pet them while they are eating. I still can’t just walk up to them and pet them though. Any goat whisperers who happen to be reading feel free to give some suggestions for making friends with goats in the comments.
We got a little bit of snow overnight Saturday night, our second snowfall of the winter. We only had maybe an inch of accumulation that had largely melted by Sunday afternoon. As I understand it lots of other areas received a lot more accumulation than one inch so we were pretty disappointed! Like all good southerners and transplanted Canadians we look forward to playing in the snow a couple of times a year. At least the weekend ended a lot quieter than it started!
Trillion, Faune, Asterik and Henry in the snow
O’Reilly, Bridget and Lexi (without a scratch on her!) in the snow
Billy
One of the roosters
Mina was very interested in the camera
Jo was feeling really frisky
Jo giving me a kiss on the nose