My sister-in-law’s horses escaped! Darn curious, devious horses just happened to escape several hours before our planned Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve. Every time someone reported seeing them, by the time they got there, they had already went somewhere else. It was sleeting and snowing (for Texas, it was a pretty good 12 hour storm, lol) and it was very windy. We figured they were just trying to get away from the wind.
My brother, sister-in-law and my two nieces came over around eight, although they still hadn’t caught the horses. At nine my brother got another call telling him that they were found again, so I went with him to help him catch catch them. There was only three horses, but they didn’t know us, so they ran from us when we got out there. I asked my sister-in-law which one would be the best to catch first, because obviously the rest will follow the dominant mare – the leader of the herd. Annie, the white one was the horse to catch first. In order to get the horses to come to us, we filled a bucket with feed. The Shetland (Lily) was the first one to come up, and soon the other two followed (Fancy and Annie). I got a rope around Annie’s neck because she didn’t have a halter on, and we began leading them back to their pasture.
It took three hours to do all this. It took an hour and a half to find them, and the rest of the time to get them back in the pasture. They’d gone a pretty far from their pasture, so it took a while to take them back since my brother doesn’t have a trailer. They’d just had these horses for a week, and his mother-in-law didn’t give him time to prepare. She’d just showed up with the horses last week, checked the fences, and placed the horses in the pasture.
It was the gate that didn’t hold them in, though, not the fences. Ah well, it didn’t ruin Christmas. I kind of had fun because I love horses and I got a chance to be around some. =] The only non-fun thing about it was that it was 30 degrees Fahrenheit. It doesn’t get that cold here that often.
What I received for Christmas: a matching red purse and make-up bag with makeup, Dove body-wash/lotion, The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, The Finder by Margaret Buffie, a “How To” package to teach me how to draw people with more detail with drawing pencils, a kneading eraser, and a pencil sharpener, a package of paper, and another set with drawing pencils, a kneading eraser, charcoal, charcoal pencils, charcoal pencil sharpener, a regular pencil sharpener, and a regular eraser, a soft, brown jacket, socks, and candy.