This weekend has been insane and I have been running behind and frazzled the entire time.
Saturday morning I had a meeting with a gal about boarding. She was nice enough, but she and the horse will be high maintenance. The horse is older and retired and has arthritis, Cushings, had colic surgery a year ago, and has chronic scratches. Oh, and she can't lock her knees in order to sleep and has fallen down and become cast in her stall several times.
Finished that meeting and headed to the farm to pick up the money from taking care of the chickens. I pulled in and found a car IN the driveway, so I stopped next to the chicken barn and waited. She pulled down further when she saw me and I was irritated that she wasn't coming back out. I caught sight of two chickens arguing and Red Rooster breaking up the fight and became rather interested. Suddenly all the chickens took off towards the trees, which was unusual, and in that moment I just barely caught a glimpse of a dog tearing after a chicken. I leapt out of the truck and took off into the barn hearing a commotion from in the coop. I flung the door open and there wasn't anything in there so I hurriedly latched the door again and headed for the back door, trying not to fall over the reactor and tiller. I opened the door in time to see a dog with a chicken taking off, I yelled and the dog spun which caused him to lose the chicken. I lunged at him but he ran, and I gave up pretty quickly going he would stop and not wanting to go slip sliding through the melting snow in my tractionless muck boots. I was rattled and watched the dog lope off up the garden and across into the ag field next door, headed back towards a residential street.
I hustled back down to the house breathlessly looking for S, who was really upset when I recounted what happened. We walked up and found the chickens already pecking the injured bird who was mostly dead at that point. We found another hem who didn't look so good and found a spot on her where the dog had gotten her, so we sprayed some stuff on it and set her in the coop. She didn't want to put weight on that leg so we checked her again and decided it must be tender. I don't know if she made it or not. S was furious.
We walked back down to the house and he got the money for me and then we talked for a while. He told me that he might be able to use me for more than just the two days like he originally thought. I hope so because that would be really helpful.
The lesson for me was too not get annoyed when things are out of place because you never know when it will put you in the exact right place to take care of something else. If that woman hadn't stopped in the driveway we never would have known the dog had been there at all. The dog had a collar, and it sounded like a bell, which leads me to believe the owners know the dog hunts. Not cool.
I was late leaving his house and still had to change to head up to tea with the bfs mom, aunt and cousin. I jumped in the truck and realized I was supposed to be there 10 minutes before and I had to change and drive 18 miles up country roads to get there.
Raced there and had a lovely time. The food was really good and the price was great and I had a really awesome green tea with BlackBerry and Jasmine. Naturally sweet and smelled lovely.
Left there later than I wanted to be and checked in with the bf to find that he was picking up reds to come help with the feeders. I got home before he did and got a call from my out of town friend, he was free for the afternoon, so I told him I would check in a little later after I figured out the plan with the bf. Hindsight says I should have just gone to hang out and let the bf to take care of the feeders. But I headed down the hill to work instead because we couldn't deliver the one since the ground was softening too much from the balmy weather. We ended up working for way too long and the bfs dad came up to help, which was a help but his dad is a tinkerer and can't leave well enough alone so we spent way too long working. We finally got back up to the house and the bf wanted a shower before we headed to hang with my friend and we still had to drop off reds which was in the opposite direction as my friend's hotel.
I emailed my friend to let him know the scoop, and got a response while we were in route to drop reds off that he was too tired and had to crash before his flight. I was really disappointed but being behind seemed to be the theme of the day.
This morning started out in a hurry trying to get the feeder loaded and delivered. It worked out well and we only forgot two things, a Phillips head screw bit and planks to brace over the feeder box to walk on to get the roof on. We managed without it and were really please with how it came together but we were still late.
Left there and raced home to get ready for the photo shoot that I had later and bolted out the door again. Still hasn't had breakfast so we grabbed panera before we arrived. It went well, and we were out of there faster than I expected which was a little relief after the weekend was so frazzled.
Now we are relaxing doing nothing because we have no tv to watch the game on.
Whew. Tomorrow I'll be helping out at the other barn because someone is sick so that's more money and it's supposed to snow allllllll day. Oh boy...