It was 4pm on December 13, 2016. I had been out all afternoon in the frigid 20 degree weather, and was busy prepping the animals for our first night of below 20 degree weather. I had been patting myself on the back for completing all needed tasks early AND getting all the animals fed well before dusk. Heck, I’d even taken our horse Ace out for a brief romp through the snow (he had no idea what to make of everything being covered in a white blanket).
I had two more items to tick off my list: Feeding and blanketing the horses, and feeding the cows. We’d run out of cow food, and, not wanting the cows to be too cold that night, I decided to bucket up some of the leftover deer corn to feed them. Like I always do, I put the cow food in the side by side (Honda Pioneer 4 UTV) along with the horse food and hay.
I drove up to the horse pasture and set out their dishes of grain, then drove in. I had just finished installing a perimeter track inside the pasture to keep them off the main turf, and I drove along my usual way, counter clockwise following their track. The track is approximately 12 feet wide, but widens out to roughly 20 feet at the corners. The corners are where I place the hay piles. I stopped at the first corner, threw-on the emergency brake, and jumped out to throw some hay and ready the blankets.
Horse blankets are like dog jackets . . . just horse-size.
The horses wandered over and I threw the first blanket on the young mare, Dezzie (short for Desert Rain). I managed to get her to hold still while blanketing her, and moved on to do Tango, our black and white paint. He was excited to see I’d brought blankets and eagerly stood waiting.
Unfortunately, the horses found my cow corn and were fighting for dibs on it. I smacked them in the chest to back them up, but it was like holding crack out in front of a crack addict . . . they could NOT control themselves!
After fighting them to stay out, I got clever and tossed the bucket beyond the inner fence. There was a small bit of corn left on the seat of the side by side, but I figured they’d just eat it and move off.
I was wrong. I had JUST managed to get the blanket on Tango when . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . the side by side zoomed away!
Now don’t ask me HOW, because horses cannot talk, nor would they confess how they’d done it anyhow! It caught my inner fenceline, paused, then broke-free and blasted across the pasture on its’ own, with me furiously running trying to catch it in the 10 inches of snow.
I was screaming like a banshee out front (yet none of the neighbors were kind enough to come out and help . . . I KNOW they were watching out their windows), and all I can think is “I hope it just stops and does NOT hit the fence!”.
I have to admit. Hitting the electric fence has ALWAYS been on my mind. What would happen??
I found out first hand that evening.
The rope from the inner fence had caught one of the tires and suddenly the side by side turned and headed right for the main hot cote line fence.
SMASH!
It blasted right into it and smashed a post, a round 6″ treated post.
The top cable popped off.
By now it was dark. Still no one came to my screams.
Luckily, Erik was out running errands and could not see my mess. He would be VERY upset.
But how was I going to fix all this myself? And before Erik got home? The horses could come over at any minute, see the opening and decide to take-off!
Sobbing and feeling like a complete failure, I went back to the horses and finished putting their blankets on. I couldn’t punish them — I don’t know who caused it since they ALL had been after corn, and besides, I needed them calm and in ONE spot so they didn’t see the broken fencing before I could repair it!
Frozen and fingers numb, I stumbled through the blinding winds back to the side by side, and set to work unwinding the rope fencing from the tire. The horses had pried the seat off (maybe they hit something down there that sent it flying across the pasture?) so I put it back on, then went down the inner fence line re-stringing up the inner fencing for the track. My palomino, Moisie, saw the line down and took the opportunity to run in and begin rolling in the fresh snow field. I ignored him until I got to the last post where the gate was, and left the gate open for him to get back into the track. It wasn’t a big deal if they were all loose inside the main pasture anyway.
Lastly, I set the broken post back up. Fortunately, the bottom two strands were still attached to the post. I wrapped the broken top line around a nearby post to help keep it somewhat taunt. The line had detached from the corner post way down the fence. Shouldn’t be too hard to fix . . It looked sorta like normal . . . It might be enough to get me by until the next morning when I’d HAVE to get everything fully completed and the corner re-attached.
When Erik finally came home that night, and I managed to crawl into the house (and after feeding the cows what was left of their food), Erik knew something was wrong. I looked ill. Over and over again he asked if I was ok. I was not. I was ready to be done. I was done with calamities, and broken things, and never seeming to get ahead in life.
I was ready to walk-off into the woods and collapse in a snow bank, to be buried forever.
But I didn’t. I made dinner. I tidied-up the kitchen. I got the three year old ready for bed. And I DIDN’T breath a word of what had happened.
I finished fixing it the next day. With plenty of screaming and crying because time was running out FAST — Erik would be home for lunch and see the mangled fence! Winter kicked-up a blizzard just for me, and snow and wind pelted my face, reducing my vision down to thin slits.
With temps in the teens, I was dripping sweat under all of my clothes, walking briskly back and forth down the fence line, working the cables back into place, and struggling to re-wrap them around the corner post.
It’s now done. Mostly. When we get a thaw I’ll have to somehow fix that broken post. Erik WILL find out eventually. Hopefully by that time I’ll have a publisher for my camper memoir and that will take the sting down a bit . . . maybe.
You ARE a writer, Suzanne Wow and thanks!!