How to catch a horsey....

As of Sunday night, we now have 9 new members to our menagerie. 9 horses joined our pasture family. Well, if you want to get technical 5 horses, one yearling, and three babies joined our pasture... but who is counting?

And why you ask have we added these new members? Well, actually, they sort of added themselves. On Sunday night we had just gotten back from seeing the movie Cars. (Cute movie, not as cute as I expected) My sister, her fiance, Jake and I all went to see it after we had dinner at my grandpa's house for Father's Day. Jake had just left to take back my parents van that we had borrowed and I was just pulling all of the clothes out of the laundry basket to wash in the hopes of actually having something clean to wear.

I looked out my window and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a line of cars and nine tiny horses... (oh wait... wrong story!!) Out in front of my house there were nine horses running down the middle of the road and cars were backed up in both directions. Some people had gotten out of their cars, but they were basically all just standing around looking dumb founded.

Having knowledge of horses I thought maybe I should go out and attempt to help get them back to where they were going. I slipped on some sandals with my socks and ran out the door. (Knowledge of horses yes, knowledge of fashion... no...) I would come to regret those sandals SEVERAL times over the course of the next couple of hours!!

On my way out the door I called my mom to have her call the neighbor to see if they were their horses. They weren't. She then called back and told me to call the non-emergency police number. I got some woman, who wasn't quite sure that I knew what I was talking about, but assured me that she would send a police officer.

Apparently car/horse accidents are not on the top of their concern list, because it took them 20 minutes to get the officer to my house. In that time, we managed to get the horses into my back yard, where they were contained. I then asked these people to make a human line between my yard and the road to keep the horses in one spot.

First problem, never ask city people to contain horses. One of the men thought it would be a brilliant idea if we tried to put them into my pasture. So, I opened the gate to the little pasture to the south of our house. Unfortunately, the horses didn't think that was such a good idea and one of them walked, not ran... just walked towards this man and he just stepped out of her way.

It was at this point that I lost it. Once the herd saw that one had gotten through they all made a run for it.

"What are you doing?? Why didn't you stop her??"

"I didn't want to get hurt"

"Those horses kick don't they?"

"They are more afraid of you then you are of them. And they are NOT going to KICK you with their HEAD!!"

"What about that one? Can it see?"

"It's a fly mask, it has holes in it!!"

Can it see? Why would they blindfold a horse and put it in a pasture? And more importantly how was it able to run around you and not into the side of the car if it couldn't see?? It was at this point that I knew I was in trouble. I called my mom and told her that I was working with a bunch of city people and she said they were already on their way down.

By this point the horses were spooked and running straight for the four lane highway which is a half mile from my house. I yelled at some of the people to stop staring and get in their freaking cars and head them off before they got onto the highway. It was about this time that the police officer came meandering over.

He rolled down his window and all I could do was yell at him. "If you don't get up there and head them off before they hit the highway you are going to have a hell of a mess on your hands!!"

That made him put the petal to the metal a little more and so I started walking back towards my house to get my vehicle. I was almost to my driveway when Jake came driving up. Having NO idea what was going on I just jumped into the car and told him to drive!! We got up near the horses, but the people had no idea that you have to get out of your car and go around them, not next to them so I jumped out.

Luckily there is a frontage road right before the highway and they got them diverted onto the frontage road and then into a field. We grabbed some grain and went back and traded in the car for my jeep and drove into the field across the street. We could see them walking through the corn, but then they turned and headed back towards the frontage road.

We turned around and headed back towards the road and finally discovered that they had made it back into the pasture that they were supposed to be in. Unfortunately, it was about this time that I got a call from my mother telling me that they couldn't stay in that pasture and if we didn't catch them they were just going to be out again.

I guess some people had been working in the field next to the pasture and they had bulldozed down about 100 ft of fence in one section and another 25 ft in another section. So we sent Jake and two other guys down to the field to try to guard the downed fence section while we tried to calm and catch the horses in the pasture.

Finally we got them to calm down and come to us, since we had some grain. 4 of the horses had halters on, but the rest did not. Since we knew that they could not stay there I suggested that we put lead ropes on the ones that we could, block off the road, and walk them to my pasture. Unfortunately, the police officers were not horse people and they were worried that they would not stay together.

In a horse group if you lead one, the rest will follow. But we couldn't get them convinced of that. Finally we called my dad and told him to bring a livestock trailer, since the police officers were not happy with my idea. It was about this time 8:15 or so, that the caretaker finally showed up. The owner was in New York and I guess it took awhile to find the guy who was in charge of taking care of the horses.

When he got there, he told us that the horses did not like the trailer and they would not load. So we called my dad back, canceled the trailer, and were left with my original plan. Block off the street and lead them down the road to my house. It worked well. The ones who did not have lead ropes ventured a little, but we had people on the sides of the road to block off entrances to fields, etc. so they pretty much went with the others.

Our only other possible problem was that Jack and Sadie were outside in the pen and were sure to bark and possibly scare the horses. So, my mom ran ahead and made them go inside. I still have no idea how she managed to get them inside without them running out towards the horses, but she did. After that, they lead right into the pasture.

The care taker brought them a water tank, and told me he would come every day to feed them. Since the people doing the construction work did not have permission to tear out the fence, nor did they tell anyone they were doing it, we are unsure of how long the horses will be at our house. The pasture that they are in is not very large, but if they are supplemented with grain and possibly hay they could be there for awhile.