Horsey stuff, the saga continues and DONKEYS HATE ME
So it is week three of working at the barn. Which means only two days of work under my belt. All the horses are in because it is shitty and rainy. But in the 50s - 60s. My thoughts are - turn 'em out in the rain - but I ain't the one paying the bills. And all the stalls are full up. We can turn 'em out in the indoor but there are lessons going on in there so it means I have to pull one of the less insane horses out and put them in cross ties. Cross ties scare me, I have seen some big boo boos in cross ties. Still, since I am still in recovery from my near death experience of horses (So what if it was nine years ago) I pull the oldest horse out - he is in his 30s I think and a very sweet cross bred) and put the old guy in cross ties where I can watch him. He doesn't quite go off to sleep , but believe me, he aint worried about the cross ties.
So I start mucking. And rotating horses into Black Bear's stall. I keep the old dude in the cross ties for about a half an hour and then shift him out for another horse. It takes forever to do the barn that way. Move a horse, shove them in a stall. Muck stall, clean buckets, rebed, return horse to stall. From 9:30 until almost 2pm. Long, painful work. Painful because I working around 20 horses and a pony I don't know very well. Three mini horses and two mini donkeys. Which brings me to the donkeys.
They are cute, a little reddish girl and a grayish boy. Shaggy, long, fuzzy ears. They stand maybe about 10 hands high (which is 40 inches to the non-horsey sect). They are wee, little, cute, fuzzy things. Last week I told my little one about the story of how the donkey got the cross on his back. The stoic, docile little guy carried Mary, pregnant with Jesus on her back to Bethlehem. The sweet little donkey was Jesus' first ride. Yeah, I DONT THINK SO. They could be Lucifer's minions. Old YED, has nothing on them.
They are in wee stalls with a dutch door. (top swings open - bottom stays shut) Both top and bottom are shut, but I need to muck see? And they share a stall and I can't put 'em in cross ties and they are so little that they wouldn't reach anyway.
So I keep the bottom door closed open the top and step over into the stall (yes - the stalls are that little) I muck around them and they are okay about it. They scoot when I ask, they move although reluctantly. I clean it up the best that I can under the circumstances and trundle off to dump manure and then get fresh bedding for them.
When I come back they are gone.
They have jumped over the bottom part of the dutch door and are gleefully wandering around the barn.
Well, I kind of freaked because both barn doors were open and they could have gotten out and ran their donkey selves crazy. Or grazed themselves into founder or whatever. Plus there is no gate/fence that encompasses the whole property so theoretically speaking they could have found their way out to a major road! I am all alone, two days under my belt with donkeys making a break for it.
So I grab the reddish girl (RDD) (red - demon- donkey) (She is the only one with a halter on) and half push, cajole and beg her back to her stall. I slam the bottom and top shut and try to grab the boy. He does not have a halter on but does not seem particularly inclined to wander while his girl is trapped in a stall. (I was still panicking because, hey TWO DAYS OF BEING HERE) and I don't know what he is liable to do. I can't reach the boy and suddenly the girl is in demon mode. She is slamming her body repeatedly up against the bottom and top half of the stall, with such violence that I can't slam the latch shut.
I couldn't back away from her because I was the only thing keeping her in. I couldn't lock the sliding lock because she was slamming me so hard that I almost hit the stall next to me.
It is like watching a bad movie where the zombie is behind the door and the poor unknowing girl is trying to keep her weight up against the vicious onslaught.
Finally, she can't take the strain of knowing her boy is out and she is in and she begins CLIMBING OVER THE STALL. Fuck- you can't make this shit up. She rears, drapes her front legs over the stall and tries to climb herself out OVER ME.
Well, shit! I just gave the fuck up then because I could barely hold the stall together with her banging and now I have donkey hooves on either side of my shoulders and ladies? It is not a pretty sensation.
Plus it reminds Saberivojo of horse trompling which is scary. Very scary.
So I jump out of the way and she crashes her RDD self down and takes off through the barn. Thank God, she did not run very far. I grab the boy, throw a lead rope over his neck and slap a lead rope on her halter and they both proceed to drag me through the barn like I weigh nothing.
I finally get them to stop (how, I have no idea - I think the boy was just tired) and then I am stuck. Because I can't get them back and I have no control on the boy (a lead rope over a donkey who does not care one whit does not help).
I had to call the barn owner and ask for reinforcements. Thank God for cell phones. She laughed a little. It turns out these two have a reputation and she called in the calvary.
It turns out I did not need them. I horse-talked them back into there stall. How? I have no idea.
After that I had a job interview.
I think I got the job. WOOT!
So I start mucking. And rotating horses into Black Bear's stall. I keep the old dude in the cross ties for about a half an hour and then shift him out for another horse. It takes forever to do the barn that way. Move a horse, shove them in a stall. Muck stall, clean buckets, rebed, return horse to stall. From 9:30 until almost 2pm. Long, painful work. Painful because I working around 20 horses and a pony I don't know very well. Three mini horses and two mini donkeys. Which brings me to the donkeys.
They are cute, a little reddish girl and a grayish boy. Shaggy, long, fuzzy ears. They stand maybe about 10 hands high (which is 40 inches to the non-horsey sect). They are wee, little, cute, fuzzy things. Last week I told my little one about the story of how the donkey got the cross on his back. The stoic, docile little guy carried Mary, pregnant with Jesus on her back to Bethlehem. The sweet little donkey was Jesus' first ride. Yeah, I DONT THINK SO. They could be Lucifer's minions. Old YED, has nothing on them.
They are in wee stalls with a dutch door. (top swings open - bottom stays shut) Both top and bottom are shut, but I need to muck see? And they share a stall and I can't put 'em in cross ties and they are so little that they wouldn't reach anyway.
So I keep the bottom door closed open the top and step over into the stall (yes - the stalls are that little) I muck around them and they are okay about it. They scoot when I ask, they move although reluctantly. I clean it up the best that I can under the circumstances and trundle off to dump manure and then get fresh bedding for them.
When I come back they are gone.
They have jumped over the bottom part of the dutch door and are gleefully wandering around the barn.
Well, I kind of freaked because both barn doors were open and they could have gotten out and ran their donkey selves crazy. Or grazed themselves into founder or whatever. Plus there is no gate/fence that encompasses the whole property so theoretically speaking they could have found their way out to a major road! I am all alone, two days under my belt with donkeys making a break for it.
So I grab the reddish girl (RDD) (red - demon- donkey) (She is the only one with a halter on) and half push, cajole and beg her back to her stall. I slam the bottom and top shut and try to grab the boy. He does not have a halter on but does not seem particularly inclined to wander while his girl is trapped in a stall. (I was still panicking because, hey TWO DAYS OF BEING HERE) and I don't know what he is liable to do. I can't reach the boy and suddenly the girl is in demon mode. She is slamming her body repeatedly up against the bottom and top half of the stall, with such violence that I can't slam the latch shut.
I couldn't back away from her because I was the only thing keeping her in. I couldn't lock the sliding lock because she was slamming me so hard that I almost hit the stall next to me.
It is like watching a bad movie where the zombie is behind the door and the poor unknowing girl is trying to keep her weight up against the vicious onslaught.
Finally, she can't take the strain of knowing her boy is out and she is in and she begins CLIMBING OVER THE STALL. Fuck- you can't make this shit up. She rears, drapes her front legs over the stall and tries to climb herself out OVER ME.
Well, shit! I just gave the fuck up then because I could barely hold the stall together with her banging and now I have donkey hooves on either side of my shoulders and ladies? It is not a pretty sensation.
Plus it reminds Saberivojo of horse trompling which is scary. Very scary.
So I jump out of the way and she crashes her RDD self down and takes off through the barn. Thank God, she did not run very far. I grab the boy, throw a lead rope over his neck and slap a lead rope on her halter and they both proceed to drag me through the barn like I weigh nothing.
I finally get them to stop (how, I have no idea - I think the boy was just tired) and then I am stuck. Because I can't get them back and I have no control on the boy (a lead rope over a donkey who does not care one whit does not help).
I had to call the barn owner and ask for reinforcements. Thank God for cell phones. She laughed a little. It turns out these two have a reputation and she called in the calvary.
It turns out I did not need them. I horse-talked them back into there stall. How? I have no idea.
After that I had a job interview.
I think I got the job. WOOT!