Busy Monday and stuff happening

Even the promise of a brand-new fly mask at home could not convince Heather to load up yesterday.  She is home, though, and she and her buddies are wearing their masks to avoid pesky flies today.

John Fuller will be here soon, so I'd better get this morning's posting finished earlier than usual.  My horses are first on his schedule today, and he will be in a good mood cuz it won't be hot yet. 

He'll be shoeing both Lily and Lefty, all fours today, and maybe doing a little work with Heather's shoes, which are clanging after just three weeks.  

Heather has white hooves, which tend to be soft, so I think something expanded or contracted with the warm weather cuz they're pretty loose and noisy. 

We brought Heather home yesterday afternoon,  via the walking and leading route on Selle Road.  

Horses go through their stages, and Heather is currently in a stage called, "I REFUSE to get in the trailer no matter how hard you try to entice me."  And, that even included a trip home to get her friend Lefty.

Finally, before allowing a really bad scene to erupt, I decided to walk Miss Obstinance home.  Melissa offered to ride her, but it was hot,  and Selle Road traffic is not conducive for well-seasoned horses let alone rookies.

The walk wasn't too bad except when Bill spelled me off just before the Selle tracks.  I took the car home for bladder relief and came back to find he had not progressed very far.  

He told me to turn the car engine off because we might be there for a while.

"Why?" I asked.

"The tracks," he said.  "She won't go over them."  

At that moment in the hot sun, the fact and any sense of empathy that Heather had never seen railroad tracks, ever, were totally superseded by the dreadful notion that we may never get this horse home on this hot Sunday in July.

We made a couple of attempts to entice her across, but no deal.  That's when, with Bill at the lead, I rushed Heather from behind---at a safe distance from her potential kicks---and yelled vehemently at her to get up and go.  

No luck the first couple of times, but that little pebble flung directly at her butt, provided just enough motivation for her to take a wild leap over the tracks, just missing Bill's entire body.

He let out a big noise of some sort but held on and quickly realized he was still alive cuz Heather had not trashed any segment of his being. 

I took the lead.  Bill climbed back in the pickup and drove home.  

After all, while we'd been trying to load Heather and lead Heather home,  Lori, the hay cutter,  had come.  She had just almost finished the main field when I dashed home for my potty break.  

So, Bill hurried home to make sure she would cut the small field next to the lane.  He arrived in time to wave at her as she headed out the driveway AND, yes, she had cut along the lane.  

Hard to believe our hay got cut while we were on a routine mission to go haul a horse home from 3.5 miles away, but as I said to Melissa last night, "Stuff happens." 

Only problem is that it seems to happen in big ways on a day-to-day basis when you're dealing with farm animals and their idiosyncrasies. 

This morning, horse-shoeing stuff will happen, as will lawn mowing stuff and watering stuff and picking garden items stuff and whatever other stuff wants to come in between or to completely wipe out the daily routine of planned stuff. 

How many times this summer have I said, "Never a dull moment."  

Happy Monday and welcome August, I think!