2:29 am
The Great Horse Escape, and Honeysuckle’s Due Date
This morning, 7 a.m. (well, technically, yesterday morning at this point) my alarm on my phone goes off.
I am out of town, helping family members in the midst of a move. I roll out of bed (literally, as it’s an air
mattress on the floor) and hit snooze. While my phone is still in my hand, it rings.
Our son-in-law, Creek. When he left for work, he saw our gate was open. At the end of the dirt road, he
found all four of our horses clustered just before the stop sign next to the paved road.
“Can you try to get between them and the bigger road and keep them from going out, and I’ll try to get
DJ to help you?” He’d forgotten I wasn’t home. “Just concentrate on the horses, I’ll call.”
After two rounds of voice mail, I get through to DJ, just as I’m in the middle of texting our daughter to go
try to find him if necessary. He’ll get a bucket of grain and halter/leadrope sets and help.
Then I wait. Praying. I remember my childhood friends whose horses got out. One was put down
immediately after being hit by a car. They arrived in time to stop the policeman preparing to shoot the
second mare, and she eventually recovered. I also remember last month when someone else’s horses
were loose on the paved road following a storm. Despite more than one reported spotting, we never
could find them, nor their owners. We never heard the end of the story. Hopefully they were eventually
reunited with their owners, although I’ve heard of other locals whose horses got out and were never
recovered. There have also been repeated sightings of a Great Pyrenees along the same paved road.
Again, we never can find it nor its owners. Could it be the puppy I saw darting across the road months
ago, now grown to maturity? A continued stray, or a frequent escapee?
Last Wednesday, I spent the day preparing for possible Category 5 tornadoes forecast for Alabama. I
moved the bunnies to cages in the barn, where I also set up the puppies. We cleaned out the bucks’
shelter and put fresh hay they could munch while under cover. Ditto for the bucks and wether across
the road in the neighbor’s pasture. I added a large covered cage to the goats’ birthing stall for additional
shelter. While usually a cosy spot, once in wild weather, rain blew in horizontally to soak the stall as
well. We put plenty of water and food under shelter for the chick pen, housing mama hens and their
little ones and for Charlie the rooster and his four hens in the poultry netting pen and coop.
The horses already had their run-in shelter with free-access hay. In addition, I tied ID markers into their
manes, writing contact info on strips of plastic or survey tape, just in case they would get out in the
midst or aftermath of storms.
Blessedly, the prayers of many were answered and the possible Category 5 reduced drastically. Although
we got plenty of rain (yay, our run-off stock tank and tubs filled!) and some wind, nothing worse
happened than some items blown off the shelves in the barn.
The horses should still have the ID’s fastened in their manes. A backup if they get away from Creek
before they could be caught. Assuming someone could get close enough to read the tags.
I thought of friends who lived not far north of us, who would probably already be up doing their own
chores. I called to ask if they would drive down the paved road from their direction, armed with grain
and ropes, in case the horses took off that way. Good friends that they are, they said, “We’re on our
way!” and started out within a few minutes.
The minutes go by. I haven’t heard anything. I don’t want to distract anyone in the midst of horse-rescue
by messages or calls.
Our friends text. No sign of horses on the paved road, nor all the way down the dirt road to near our
place. Nor do they see anyone out trying to catch horses. I wonder if I misunderstood, and Creek had
found them near the next stop sign, near the next, bigger, paved road. Our friends head that direction. I
keep praying, even as I’m helping our family members load up to take a round to their new house.
Finally, at 7:34, a text. “They are all in now.” Whew. Thank You, Lord!
I hear bits and pieces from DJ. “Creek was a big help. Made himself late.” When we can talk, DJ tells me
that by the time he got out to the road, our son-in-law (who is more into cars than horses, but obviously
had the needed touch) had maneuvered them into the neighbor’s yard across the street. All DJ had to
do was open our gate and shake the grain, and in they came. When I texted to thank Creek, he
answered, “No problem” and “No they weren’t mad” about his employers—good for them, as he has
been dependable day in and day out for years.
It wasn’t until I was back in town, eating a delicious “Welcome Home” supper cooked by our daughter
Abby, that I heard the rest of the story.
“How did you get them down the dirt road?” I asked Creek.
“When I saw them at the stop sign and they heard my car, it’s like they thought, ’oops, we’ve been
caught’ and they started toward home,” our son-in-law said. “I waved my arms and told them, ‘Get on’
and then I followed them slowly in my car, honking a little.”
However, at the place before ours the horses made a break for it and headed to the back of that
neighbor’s. His multiple acres border the big hay field behind both our properties. Creek stuck with
them, though, and somehow managed to get the horses started back again, until they ran into the
fenced yard across from us, where they fell to work cropping grass--and DJ found them.
I’m totally impressed. I had no idea our son-in-law could be such an effective horse wrangler. God bless
him for his willingness, perseverance, and ability!
At first, we assumed someone must have accidentally left the gate unlatched, but the last family
member in said, no, that wasn’t the case. Currently, in our pasture rotation, it’s time when we let the
horses graze the yards at night. Arrow, our 17 hand Kentucky Mountain Horse, is somewhat of a
Houdini, adept at untying ropes. Still, how could he have unlatched the chain that slips through a slot to
fasten, AND managed to lift and pull the gate off its support? This time, I padlocked the gate before
letting the horses out of the barn pasture for the night.
Sure enough, the horses started up the driveway for the gate. Curious, I followed them. There was
Arrow, his head stretched over the gate, in position to rock it off its support (which is raised on each side
to keep the gate in place when closed) and pull it open. The rest of the herd stood by, waiting for him to
let them out.
Time to go back out and check Honeysuckle again. With the dropping temperatures tonight, she’s
tucked into the birthing stall with a warming lamp. Today’s her expected due date from her Oct. 26
exposure, and it seems like maybe tonight will really be it.
Maybe I’ll go ahead and shut the horses back in to make sure Arrow doesn’t somehow figure out how to
turn the key in the padlock --or take the gate entirely off the hinges.