Bruno giving us a sly look after he is safely back in his stall.

Last night, I got home to Roland making his monthly farrier visit. It was the first time he was having to do all the horses as in the past he has made separate trips to do Bruno. He had been there for well over two hours when I arrived. He was waiting for a patch to dry on Bruno’s bad hoof. I commented it looked like drywall tape and I guess it is similar.  Bruno had pulled off his specially sculpted cast and shoe about a week ago.  His hoof was looking pretty ragged.

Roland told me if it comes off again, I am to immediately duct tape his entire hoof and then put it in one of those boots that is used to protect the hoof when a shoe is lost.  Bruno’s hoof wall is still so thin, it cannot hold up to any type of abuse, even just walking around on soft ground.

It was another balmy day with heat indexes over 100 as we stood and held horses for Roland to shoe.  By the time Roland left, Lauren and I were both tired.  We might not have been paying a lot of attention to the usual details of closing the barn at night.

On clear nights, Snow, Mickey and Feather go out all night in main pasture.  Bruno is locked in his paddock, which is covered in case a stray shower heads our way.  To keep ol’Kid safe from Bruno pushing him around all night, Kid goes in the paddock in front of the main stalls.

We try not let any horse but Kid in this area.  As Roland told me, it is supposed to be a barn not a green house, but I have enjoyed planting climbing vines and hanging baskets full of flowers from the front of the barn.  Also, the cats have their food out which Snowboy would clearly eat (and did) when he had a chance.

Snowboy sneaking a snack of cat food!

We put Kid in his paddock, turned off the fans, locked the tackroom, closed the hay room, double checked the water troughs and went in to the much-anticipated air conditioning. Kid can be trusted not to bother anything.

This morning at my usual 4:00 am I let the dogs out the back of the house and immediately noticed the barn had all the lights on.  I rushed to Lauren’s room, thinking there had been some barn emergency I had been lucky enough to sleep through.  “Why are there lights on in the barn?”  I demanded.  She looked up sleepily from her bed with no comprehension of what I was talking about.  Then I got scared.  What if someone was out there?  Although, that would be pretty stupid, why would you turn on all the lights if you were planning to attack someone?

As I came around the corner of the house I saw Bruno looking at me from the gate (he was back-lit like a giant statue in the blazing lights of the barn).  However, he was on Kid’s side of the paddock, not his.  And what a time he had!  Sometime during the night he had gotten through the connecting gate of the two paddocks.  He literally reached in and pulled all my plants out of their pots and left them strung along the fence.  The cat food was a thing of the past.  We had bags of shavings stacked next to the main gate, just under all the industrial light switches that have a toggle switch instead of a normal up and down switch.  The bag of shavings was torn open and the lights and fans turned on.  Perhaps the industrial lighting switch company can use this in their advertising, ‘so simple even your horse can turn on the switches’.  I am not sure that is really an asset. I got the morning feed and literally had to drag Bruno back over to his side of the paddock and his own stall.  Apparently he likes all the attractions on Kid’s side of fence.  I guarantee we will be triple checking the chains on that gate tonight.  That’s after I have gotten all the plants re-potted and bought some more cat food.  Oh, Bruno!