Blown Away

Horrendous Wind Today 

Along with colder temperatures made the day quite miserable outside.  The Boys seemed to be hanging around the barn again, mostly to use the building as a windbreak.

That is for most of the day. But in early afternoon, my phone rang with a frantic call from my cousin who was at my aunt's house next door.  "Your horses are loose!!"

Sure enough, I rolled myself off the couch to see Chance frolicking by the living room window on the front lawn.

Bad. I'd forgotten that the fence had some rails down along the edge of the driveway, and Chance is master of any escape opportunity.  Toby and Tucker were still in the back, all riled up that horse number three was further along in the adventure than they were.

The gate to the paddock was open. The only thing I can figure is that I had the chain looped over the hook but hadn't fastened the snap hook.  Since I hadn't used that gate in weeks, who know how long it had been closed that way?  And the intense wind must have lifted it and blown it open.  (This, by the way, relieves a certain horse of any guilt in the initial escape.)

I grabbed my coat and a handful of carrots and ran out. By then, my cousins were coming over from next door, but Chance had decided to go back to the other Boys in the back yard again.  The carrots were an instant lure for him and Toby and I soon had two chestnuts back in the paddock with one very wily bay on the outside.

Tucker simply would not let me lure him far enough into the paddock to get the gate closed. Part of the problem was that I was being mugged by Toby whenever I offered Tucker the carrot, so that posed a problem.

I finally solved it by leading Tucker with the carrot bribe to another gate on the other side of the barn where there were no other horses and, with a bit of solid bribery, lured him into the front paddock.  With all gates locked securely, it looks as if another disaster had been averted.

Funny thing was that when I was lying on the couch, I thought I heard some strange thudding noises outside, but I didn't bother to go look. Considering how many hoofprints are on the back lawn, I now know was the thuds were.

After I got the Boys back in I used some handy dandy baling twine to squeeze the fenceposts by the driveway together to I could get the rails to stay in place--the posts have shifted and the rails are too short.  I kind of tied the rails in there for the time being, but it's one more chore to finish up properly once the good weather gets here.

And, I'll be cleaning up some more branches that have blown off the trees. The only plus of the wind is that it did blow a lot of leaves off the front lawn, making that chore a little less daunting as spring approaches,  I never did quite get the leaves cleaned up before the snow, so having them blow away is a nice bonus.