Weather Or Not

Damp Either Way

The heat and humidity together were horrid. All I did was feed the Boys and pick out one stall in the AM and I was soaked with sweat. Mr. Weatherman's prediction of good weather was not right for sure.

I decided to wait for evening to do at least a little work with the Boys.

Well, that was another mistake. I put Chance on the lunge line and managed to get him worked well on the left rein as a nice cool breeze kicked up. It was quite comfy out there and he was working well until...well, big drops of cold rain started falling.

With heavy thunderstorms predicted, and an ominous looking sky, I surrendered once again to Mother Nature, and gave up.

Of course, I had just spent the hour before trying to get Tucker out of the tackroom. Somehow I had forgotten to hook the gate at the far end of the barn and left the stall guard off the tack room door. I found a 16.3 h horse happily raiding the grain bin, wedged into a 10' wide room with cabinets on both sides. Needless to say, the place was a wreck. I drove the tractor out from under the shed roof, cleared everything from the door leading out to the lawn, and tried to convince Tuck to come out that way. He tossed his head, hit the top of the door and stalled. He wouldn't come forward and he wouldn't back up. He was totally stuck in there.

Goodie. The floor is only 1/4 inch plywood over beams and he'd already put a hoof through the floor twice in earlier raids, so this was getting dangerous. I had a 4ft X 4ft piece of plywood over the holes, reenforcing the floor but there were still several places where another errant hoof could spell disaster for horse and floor.

I was nearly at my wit's end and Chance, who was in the aisle of the barn, was not helping by trying to get in the tack room behind Tuck. So I went into the barn from the outside door to get him out of the way. I shooed him back outside, turned around, and saw Tucker's head sticking out into the aisleway. Somehow, he had managed to turn himself around. That should have been a impossible task considering how narrow the space was, but apparently my big boy is quite agile. Thankfully, he stepped back down into the barn aisle and saved himself.

Mental note. ALWAYS close the stall guard into the tack room.