Calamity farm and the "simple" life

Last year about this time, I was leading my late gelding Casey to the barnyard, when suddenly it felt like Casey was climbing my back. Something significant was happening behind me. I turned around to see that his horse blanket strap had caught the already-damaged frost-free hydrant by the barn and that the force of Casey's reactive lunging power pulled it off to a 45-angle.

After putting him in the barnyard, I found the hardware clamp from his blanket strap about thirty feet away. For a brief moment, I entertained the thought of pulling that hydrant back into a straight-up position. But, fortunately, my limited knowledge and recognition of the possible consequences of having an eternal fountain outside the barn stopped my urge.

Turned out we ended up turning off the automatic waterers in the barn (on the same water line) for the winter because nothing could be done at that time to fix the hydrant---because we just didn't know if there was a pipe leak down there in all the underground muck.

Consequently, I hauled water in buckets to the horses' stalls for the rest of the winter, determined that this would be one of the major repair jobs next summer. Well, we followed through, and even had a water line run across the barnyard, allowing a new hydrant near the garden in the north lawn. That eliminated the need to drag three miles of hose with me everywhere I wanted to water this past summer.

Fast forward to Tuesday, Dec. 4. I was leading Lily to the barnyard, when suddenly something felt amiss behind me. This time, Lily was not climbing my back as Casey had. Something just felt wrong. I turned around in time to look down upon the big filly who now stands 16 hands high. Her hind quarters had fallen into a sink hole where that frost free hydrant once stood at its 45-degree angle.

A quick struggle, with my pulling her forward, allowed Lily to escape the soupy mud which had enveloped her belly and even the bottom of her blanket. She held one hind leg as if it had been injured, but after walking her up and down the driveway, Lily and I both figured the leg was okay, so I put her in the barnyard to eat.

Later, during the unusually warm afternoon----following one 24-hour period of continuous snow falling to a two-foot depth, followed by 28 hours of steady, hard rain----Lily once more sank into another hole inside the barnyard, near the new waterline. This time, it was just one front foot, and she walked away uninjured but wary.

While I grabbed some sand and proceeded to fill the hole, both Lily and my young Arabian gelding Lefty figured they needed to help. As I shooed Lefty out of the way, the little guy fell into another hole and had to struggle to get out. He, too, held his hind leg for a few minutes before deciding it was okay.

The horses went immediately into the barn for the night. And, my night inside the house was somewhat sleepless as I tried to figure out a solution to one more daunting challenge that has emerged from what seems like a storehouse of obstacles, designed to test our mettle and desire to live the "simple" life on a farm.

Let's see---this year, we've spent weeks building a board fence around the barnyard to keep the horses in a safe place during the winter. We've also strung hundreds of feet of standard fence wire across lots of pastures, once enclosed with goat wire four feet high, to keep the horses on the Lovestead during the summer and fall. We still have abundant goat fences to replace.

We've buried two beloved horses who died suddenly from strange causes, making us afraid to use one of the pastures for fear a noxious weed could have caused those deaths.

We've even chased after Lily twice when she's escaped the Lovestead and has gone visiting with the neighbor's horses, in one case to be almost wiped out by a dump truck on Selle Road.

We've tried to improve our water system to be more efficient, and then those damn bucketsful of water from the sky have gone and caused more pandemonium than a person cares to talk about.

Today, Bill is coming home at noon, and we're going to replace another section of goat wire with standard fence wire so that the horses can stay in the front pasture west of the house. Then, we'll figure out what can be done to make the sinking barnyard with its lovely white board fence safe again for our horses. In the meantime, we can at least say it looks nice.

Why are tears rolling down my cheek as I type this? Every once in a while we reach a point of frustration which makes us wonder why anything happens the way it does. I guess this is one of those moments because we have worked so hard and spent so much money trying to avoid these calamities.

I guess also that this is truly the farm life where there's never a dull moment. I'm looking for just a few dull moments to help me rebuild my confidence that this Lovestead stuff has all been a good idea. And, don't worry, I know it has. Life just presents us with occasional sink holes, and we're definitely digging our way out of this latest series today.

On a brighter note, I did order the satellite channel that shows the Zags game tonight against WSU----GO ZAGS !!!