Murphy's Law

5:28am Christine, who feeds the horses when Janine is off, attempts to contact me and Janine. Her infant daughter is running a high fever and she needs to take her to the ER.

6:00am Janine is abruptly awakened by a loud knocking on her door. It takes her a minute to realize someone is actually knocking on the door because she took NyQuil the night before and was sleeping hard. Janine is sick.

6:02am I am comforting my son Gabriel, who has a fever, and suddenly realize I haven't looked at my phone. I see Christine's text message from 5:28am, saying she can't feed. I text her back: "Hey--I understand," I write. I get dressed, not realizing Janine was just opening the door with half/shut eyes to see Christine standing there, face white, eyes worried.

6:20am I look back at my phone and see that Christine has sent me another text, informing me that Janine is taking care of everything. It's Janine's day off. She goes to church and has studying to do. I immediately text Janine: "I'll be there as soon as I give Matthew his breathing treatment." "Don't worry about it," she responds. "I'm feeding."

And that's how it started....

Janine began to clean up all the stalls and prepare the feed. It didn't take her as long as it normally does, and she smiled to herself, thinking that perhaps this feeding would go smoothly and she would be finished in plenty of time to eat breakfast, have a nice long shower to ease her aching head, and make it to church on time.

The horses had different ideas.

She headed out to let the good horses in. "Remember those?!?" She would exclaim to me later. The "good" horses include Sky, Naysa, Annie, Tucker, Barney, Cymba, Dani, and Richard. They are the ones who make it easy. They run to the barn, go in their stalls, and politely eat their breakfast.

Not today.

Janine passed Amanda on her way to let the ponies in. Amanda had come early to take care of her horse, Noble, whose legs had begun to stock up, even though he stays out in the pasture.

"I had a small apprehension," says Janine, "I thought maybe letting all the horses in was NOT a good idea. I'm really not sure where the thought came from--maybe knowing what brats they all can be. Their routine was messed up, you know. Noble NEVER walks by their pasture in the morning."

But Janine put aside her apprehension and opened the gate.

The horses THUNDERED to the barn. Janine followed on the 4-wheeler. That's when it all went to hell in a hand basket, forgive the cliche.

Naysa was the only horse, out of those eight, who went right into her stall. "Bless her," thought Janine. Everyone else was racing around, tails flying, heads up. Janine was able to coax Richard into the barn with only a mild interruption when he and Zappa, who was already in the barn, squealed at each other.

"This normally works like a charm," Janine said to Amanda, the exasperation in her voice as apparent as the frustration on her face. Amanda agreed, saying yes, she had seen it work before.

Since Tucker loves his food, he only ran around the barn twice before he went to his stall to eat.

Sky, Cymba, and Dani turned when they saw Janine coming, and rebelliously ran to the other side of the barn and into the first pasture, which was empty and open. Janine closed them in fast. "Ha! Caught!" she thought.

Janine then focused her attention on Annie, because if she could get Annie, Barney would follow. Annie ran from her. Janine had closed one side of the barn, and Annie ran in the other side. Janine tried to close the door behind her, but the dirt and hay from when she blew out the barn earlier had blocked the door channel. She asked Amanda to stand in the opening while she opened Annie's stall door. Amanda was trying to get Barney to go to his stall. Annie was spooked by Barney, and bolted out the opening of the door. Amanda had to jump aside to avoid being trampled. Both horses ran all the way to the back pasture and proceeded to graze.

Janine ground her teeth. "Arrrgh," she murmured under her breath. Then, as she walked toward the back pasture, she shouted, "I LOVE HORSES!!"

"That was to remind me," Janine told me later, "that horses are most of my life and I do love them more than anything. To remind myself that I really was not so hungry as to want barbecued horse. I hadn't eaten breakfast yet."

Janine led all the other horses in to their stalls. It took her almost 2 hours longer to feed than usual. She never made it to church.

"Well, of course," I told her. "You didn't feel good. You weren't even supposed to feed. You got woken up abruptly. You had somewhere you needed to be. Did you really think they would be good for you?"

"LOL," Janine responded. "You put it so very well."