It's like a bad book where you know the plot 2 chapters into reading it. You think to yourself: "this is stupid, I should totally put this book in that trash can over there and then find something else mindless to waste my time". Instead you read it anyway.. hating yourself afterwards.
That is the mule and I. I know how it ends every single time I let her out of the stall and into the pasture with my boys, but I like pain I guess. At least she's *starting* to warm up to me. Starting. She got out again on Sunday through a hole in the rear of the property that I never fixed because my horses never go back there. (hi run on sentence how are you today?) Veronica does. Veronica does whatever it is Veronica wants. Sunday, she took my boys with her. I've never cried over Memphis before.. but on Sunday, I was a bawling babbling idiot. I was terrified something might have happened to him. I wanted my Memphis home and wanted him home like yesterday.
Fortunately, with the help of some neighbors we found Memphis and the other two knuckleheads and I walked them back home. And with the help of a neighbor we fixed the fence. In fact, I'd never strung fence in my life until Sunday and my sweet neighbor patiently showed my husband and I how to do it. Let's just say with a "trained professional" showing us the right way... the way I thought it out in my head was like way off. Way way off.
Then there was last night. Last night was just frustrating and it wasn't even her fault as it took forever before I could eat dinner. My normal nightly routine is as follows:
1. Come home and let dogs out
2. Walk in the house and put stuff down
3. Pull out the meat I defrosted the night before and place in oven
4. While meat is cooking go outside and take care of the horses
5. Come back in to the meat almost done and cook veggies
6. Pour a glass of wine and eat some dinner
Oops pork I defrosted smelled "off".. I don't do off smelling meat. I should have used the off smelling pork as my omen of what was to come. Throw a bag of crab in the oven with some brussel sprouts as my back up dinner. Put on my hiking boots (I REALLY need muck boots) and a pair of pajama pants. Zip up hoody. Grab key to the shed. Put collars on dogs. Take dog transmitter. Go outside. Everything is going great! Grab a pound of feed, grab a flake of hay, and make my way to the stall.
Until I get to the stall. I can hear Veronica making *squish* noises as she walks. Look down. SHIT. First thought was SHIT. Her stall is a soup of water/mud/shavings/shit/piss that is about 2 ft deep. ARGH!!!!!!!!!!! HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?! I put her hay in her hay rack and try to make my way to her grain bucket. Now I'm 2ft in shit water. Cuss words follow as my pajama pants aren't going to make it back after being exposed to that mule soup up past my ankles. Those pants are dead to me now.
I decide to try to get the slurry a out of the stall. The good thing about Veronica is that she shits in the same spot: on the gate. So it tends to pile up right there. Normally, this makes it easy for me to clean as I just have to roll it down the hill, but last night it mixed with the water and made a mini dam. So I grab the shovel that I leave up against the stall for cleaning out and start removing her "dam" thinking it would allow the soup to flow out of the stall. Crap. Literally. Not working. I decide to shovel the soup out, no that doesn't work either because its too soupy. Ok, I will just scrape it out. Ha! It works! I scrape the area in front of the gate.
Great! Look over to where her grain goes. Shit. Need to do it again on this side. I start scraping the soup mix over to the spot I just scraped out and then have to scrape that mix out the gate again. Woo its working.
Shit. Now I have to get the far corner. Start scraping that corner to the place in the middle I just scraped to the gate side and scrape it out the gate. Wooo. Now Veronica can stand in mud instead of slop. Then it starts to rain again and I figure out a gutter is backed up and water is coming back in.
Veronica cannot stand in this. That is a recipe for thrush. How to make thrush:
Have a horse stand in wet conditions.
That's an easy recipe. I mean there are probably other recipes for it out there, but at the moment I have this one to work with. I text my neighbor. I walk Veronica to his house and put her in the paddock.
My neighbor, bless his heart, once again has my mule at his house.
I have lost a pair of pajama pants. I learned not to touch my face when working with mule soup. My hiking boots are never going to be the same. (again I need muck boots)
But damnit, Veronica is at least not standing in 2 ft of nasty.
PS: I fixed the gutter downspout
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