Foal Tails

Just a Bit of Trouble

Being a teenager in highschool and owning horses can be tricky business at times, still, I made it work. I had to get up very early, drive the eight miles to where my horses were, feed and water then get to school on time. After school, it was back to the horses to do evening chores, work with horses, sometimes go riding. I don’t know when I slept, yet I know I must have. When winter rolled around, the daylight was much shorter, and I was doing chores in the dark both morning and evening.
Sometimes, the moon would be so bight, it made the snow sparkle like so many diamonds, and shadows would be cast as if it was daylight, instead of moonlight. When there wasn’t any moonlight, it would be inky black outside. I didn’t mind inky blackness during the winter. Bears and skunks, hibernate when the snow covers the ground and it gets freezing cold outside.
Arriving at the farm in usual, winter darkness after a quick supper, one day, I couldn’t find my sweet, little Darren Devil. Though his leg was well on its way to full recovery, I still worried about the little guy. There wasn’t a ridiculous amount of land there, and I couldn’t understand why he didn’t come running when I called. Sure, it was pitch black outside, but one would think, a white horse would be somewhat visible, even in the dark of night. Standing there at the back door of the barn, calling him, my gaze happened to wander down, and I frowned. A couple of the recently purchased, antique stall panels that had been leaning against the barn, for the revamp of the interior, were lying flat on the ground.
“Now how in the world did that happen?” I asked myself with a frown. They were heavy, and had been propped against the back wall of the barn, with enough of a lean that there was no way the wind, no matter how strong it blew, could move them. Yet there they a couple were, lying on the ground. Through my slight frustration, at realizing that the stall dividers, would have to be lifted back up as soon as possible, I suddenly felt sick to my stomach as I recognized what I was looking at, my little Darren Devil’s tiny, brown head. My young, bottle baby was under those panels.
We figured out later that he had likely come galloping around the corner of the barn, fallen and slid against the dividers. The force of his hooves against the bottoms on the heavy panels had moved a couple enough to cause a huge problem. The stabilizing lean had been compromised, causing two of them to teeter and fall directly onto the colt.
I don’t know where superhuman strength comes from, adrenalin or whatever but those heavy stall dividers were lifted off Darren as quick as could be then the real work began. Once again, poor little, Darren Devil was flirting with death.

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