The big move

Poor Reily, he most think we're crazy.  It was dusk when we brought him home from Maryland, now it was completely DARK and we moved him again.  Truth be told it was all perfectly planned.  But as they say, the best laid plans always go to sh**.  Or at least they say something close to that.  Well we had been planning this move for a while, part of the reason I allowed myself to get Reily was because I knew we were going to be moving so I'd only have one month to have to pay extra board.

Wondering why I'm packing up all their junk. Little did they
know they were moving that day night.

The original plan was to move us humans (plus dog and cat) to the new house on Saturday, then drive back across town Sunday afternoon and meet my friends who were kindly helping me move the three big boys in their large 3 horse slant load and the little fella would ride in one stall of my very small 2 horse trailer and the other stall and the back of my truck would be used to haul all of their stuff, gear, etc.  But then something came up and we had to bump up the horse hauling to Saturday.  So at 11:30 I left the big strong men at the house to finish packing the moving fan and headed out to load up all the ponies' gear and supplies so I'd be ready to put said ponies on trailers at 1pm sharp, drive the hour to the new place and unload in the daylight, give them plenty of time to look around before setting Reily loose in the new feild because, unlike the others, he'd never experienced electric fence before and horses tend not to learn to mind it well in the dark.  Unfortunately, when my friends arrived at 1 they're trailer had a flat and the spare was at their house... trip #1: 35 mins to go get the spare, 1.5 hours looking for but can't find the spare nor any spare with the correct number of lug nuts on the rim, 35 mins back to the farm... trip #2 take flat off trailer, 35 mins back to their house to change tire and put good tire on correct rim, 35 mins back to farm with new tire, put on trailer.  That makes it almost 5pm... in December... in Virginia... the sun is well into setting and there's already very low light.  Well we had no choice but to go ahead and move them.  Sadly that means that by the time we reached the new place the horses were unloading after 6pm and it was pitch black.  We turned on all the flood lights that we could but it was pointless.

At this point it would be best if I explained that the other 3 had lived here before.  It's actually my parents old farm but they don't live there anymore so we're renting it until we can buy it, so the other 3 had all lived there for at least 8 years prior to this.  We tried letting Reily loose with the others hoping they'd guide him and keep him out of trouble... we're such optimists.  He promptly walked straight over a t-post (snapping it in half, talk about thank goodness for faulty materials!) and through the gate which wasnt' yet hooked so there was luckily no electric current, but then the other horses started running so he ran back (through mind you) the fence again, breaking it a second time, undoubtedly getting shocked and then they were all just going crazy.  So we went out and caught Reily and Napoleon (poor pony always get stuck babysitting) and banished them to the run in for the night.  After fixing the fence we had planned to leave Boo and Scotty out in the feild but then Boo, for no reason what so ever, ran through one of the gates himself so he and Scotty got banished to solitary confinement each in a dog kennel for the night.  It was outrageous.  Luckily the next morning brought a nice, sunny day with it and they were all freed into the big field together.  Reily learned the fence in no time and now their just happy little munchers!

His recovery is going well also.  He's on anitbiotics for a few more days but luckily he's not a picky eater (at least relatively speaking) so he hasn't been too irritated that there's some weird white powdery stuff covering his food and it's not confectioners sugar, he knows that much.  And lord knows I've kept every inch of him slathered in antibiotic ointment every second of the day to keep out bacteria, promote his hair to grow back, and deter any excessive scar tissue so his skins probably as soft as a baby's bottom oily enough that he could pass as an otter.  The only particularly bad thing about his injury is that because of the location of the wound he has some minor "subcutaneous hematoma" meaning that air bubbles are entering through the wound and being forced up into his body in the layer between his skin and muscles.  The body can break down some of this on it's own but the air can carry batceria so the vet wants there to be as little in there as possible, so 3-4 times a day I have to "deflate" him by pushing all the air bubbles back towards the wound and essentially forcing it back out the way it came in.  The only way I can explain it is that you can hear the bubbles moving around in there and it feels like rubbing your hand across bubble wrap.  Unfortunately every time he moves he's potentially letting more air in the cut, but locking him a stall wasn't an option yet.  Luckily since he's living right out the back door I can deflate him as many times as need be each day.