So about 11 am I notice that my critter-sitter, also known as R, had just left a message for my cell phone. Unfortunately, the routine that I use to check messages while in the US did not allow me to pick it up in Canada. This wouldn’t have worried me so much but my critter-sitter wasn’t supposed to try to reach me except for an emergency. After several failed attempts at using the cell phones belonging to me and Jack I started begging cell phones from friends here at the convention. (We left one very elderly dog at home and horses are ALWAYS an emergency waiting to happen.) I finally got hold of my friend D who boards my mare and asked her if she knew why my critter sitter had called me. (The friend D who boards my mare has what is essentially our medical power-of-attorney for our critters so I knew she would know what was going on.) D assured everyone was fine including Rion who was playing in her back yard and that R was there. It turned out that Indi (a very sweet, older grulla gelding) had decided to play with the hydrant in D’s barn the previous night. He had never, ever done this before. In fact, no horse had done this for over a decade, which is why there wasn’t a safety fastener on it. It was quite a stretch for Indy to reach the hydrant and flood the barn. When D got to the barn in the morning, all the horses but my mare were up to their fetlocks in water. R was calling to find out where we keep our Shop-Vac, so she could take it over to help the clean-up process. I don’t know if she ever found it, but D reports on Facebook that her barn has been cleaned up.
It’s always something.