And the hits just keep on coming!

I finally made it home, and was posting all my adventures when I get the frantic phone call from a number I do not recognize. It was Madison and she was really shaken up---she said something about a gate and hinges broken and horses in the road and come quick!

Well that is a hell of a thing to hear, huh?

I go rushing off, calling Barry the whole way to see WHY he is not home from work yet. He of course does not answer, making me even crazier. By that time, I am at the farm and Madison is in the front yard- she should be in bed by now, it is a school nite. She has the second set of gates shut and says they are all in there--pointing to the barn. Since our barn is open on one side and both end doors stay open all the time, that is surely a temporary thing. They of course, scatter like skunks when I get there. She is telling me that some are "in there", and point by the old meth trailer, but I cannot tell if she is saying they are behind the trailer or in the pasture. The gate on their pasture is padlocked because we have had vandalism before, but it is otherwise laying on the ground, having been removed from the hinges. It was hanging from the padlock!

I get my mind cleared long enough to understand that she is saying that Snap and Aries are still in the pasture with the down gate, so we try to get it fixed--it is just not doable as the hinges are actually OFF. I cannot begin to imagine how that happened, it is a relatively new gate. And HEAVY.

That accomplished the best we can until Barry gets there, we go off to collect the miscreants. Squeaklet as always is easy to catch and Madison gets her stalled--Boogie went with her. Whatever, I locked them up and went on. Target, Radar and Rondee are in a corner of the yard and were surprisingly easy to get stalled in the back barn, and baby Cricket is running around like a loon.

When things get calmed down, she tells me that she was looking out her window for some reason and was sure she saw shadows at the farm that looked like horses in the wrong place. It was after 9 pm so pitch black out but there is a security light there. She hollered at her mom to tell her horses were out, her mom argued with her then looked for herself. By this time, they were in the road and some crazy person was hauling balls down the road right at Radar. Now I realize it is a road and he ought not be in it, but people drive entirely too fast there all the time. The driver slammed on her brakes and skidded--the noise spooked them all and they headed north. I dont know who, or when or what, but someone opened the closest gate and got them in there. Unfortunately this is not our property, but the rented cropland of the dude who insisted we put up the Great Wall fence. Madison and her mom in some miraculous feat got them driven back down the road, up the farm drive and to the barn.

I have done that, I KNOW how hard it is--and harder still when they are scared, it is nite and they are half silly two year olds to start with. I cannot imagine how they go that accomplished and I cannot even begin to think of a way to thank them.

It is now thirty minutes later, things are fixed, horses put back where they came from and I am home. Tequila has been sleeping off a good pain pill buzz in my bed and I may let her stay with me.

I check my email right off and see that the friend I was talking to about men who do not answer their cell phones, thus causing us panic, has sent me a new message--the reason he was not answering was that he was in an accident and was in a distant hospital. I have called her and she is en route to it, but knows nothing.

A few horses in the road seems silly while I sit here waiting for word.