Have you ever noticed how the days you expect to be totally chill often are anything but? Sometimes I wonder why I try to plans days like that. Perhaps it would be wiser to just plan to have hectic days and then enjoy the peaceful ones when they come.
You know a day is going to be rough when it starts out with a phone call saying, "The horses are out...The ponies are down by the village grazing, but Shadow and Firefly are nowhere to be found." Of course, I was lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that the ponies were easy to catch, and Shadow and Firefly happened to be hiding out in the stall, and hadn't even left the pen. Oh was I lulled. It looked like the rest of the day was going to be easy. Hannah was supposed to come out and ride with me; we were going to go on one of the most beautiful trails I know of, I had chai and biscuits for our snack while we were out, and all of the horses were where they were supposed to be. What could go wrong?
I'll admit, I probably got a little cocky about how smooth the day was going to go.
Hannah came out (after a little mix-up because people in the office still thought the horses were missing...), and we saddled up our ponies. She was on Shadow, I took Firefly, and we were off for an epic adventure. At this point however, we didn't realize just how epic the day would turn out to be.
We moseyed along, not moving too quickly on account of the traffic (nearing the end of tourist season, but still pretty busy), and discussed our life stories and whatnot. Seriously...as we started riding, I asked her what her life story was, and she told me the nutshell version of it.
We went down the road a couple of ks or so (saw some giant squirrels and normal sized monkeys), and then turned off into the woods. Oh man, the woods are so beautiful. We went up the trail, weaving among the trees, trying to encourage the horses that they could indeed get through the gaps between the trees, and generally having a good ride. We had reached a bit where it flattens out for a while, and we were almost to the place where we could see some really nice views, when I heard Hannah's voice behind me. She said, "Laura, Shadow is acting really weird." I turned to see what was up, expecting to see him getting upset about a fly, or just being lazy and trying to stop and stand rather than walking. Instead, I saw him dropping to the ground, and Hannah jumping off of his back as he began to roll.
We both immediately knew what was up. Colic. A horseperson's nightmare. Something Shadow has issues with frequently, but I have never seen it come on so quickly.
We were in a grove of pine trees, fortunately one that had enough room that Shadow didn't get stuck when he went down to roll. Hannah pulled Shadow up as I jumped off of Firefly and ran over, but by the time I got to him, he had dropped again. With a horse that is colicking, rolling is one of the worst things they can do. Their intestines can get twisted, and once that happens, there is no hope for the horse.
Hannah and I each had a split second of panic (both of us have had horses we cared for die from colic, and it's a hard thing to go through), but then common sense kicked in, and we knew we just needed to get Shadow down the mountain and out of the woods as fast as possible.
We started down, but had a hard time finding the right trail. I grabbed Shadow so we could go in front, while Hannah took Firefly. I wasn't sure how Firefly would do. We were going really fast across sections of slippery rock that he always wants to gingerly pick his way across, and going through brush and tree branches that were catching him in the face and snagging his saddle. This was one of those moments though that he understood that his cooperation was vital, and he was a trooper and did exactly what was asked of him without balking at all. As Hannah kept saying every few minutes, "He was a total Stud!".
As we booked it down the mountain, Shadow was not doing well. He would grunt in pain with every step we took, and he was totally soaked with sweat. I loosened his saddle, but he was still in so much pain. Hannah and I both were praying crazy hard, pleading for Shadow's life. In spite of how serious everything was, I had to laugh a little at Hannah as she prayed. Here we were, on the side of a mountain, running to save Shadow's life, and she was yelling prayers as we ran. There was no subtlety at all. She was completely serious in her prayers, which was awesome. Usually when I hear someone yelling prayers, there is at least a little goofiness involved, but she was just praying, and didn't care if anyone thought she was mad.
Finally, we got to the road, and we were able to slow to a more reasonable pace. We had quite a ways to go though, and Shadow was still in quite a bit of pain. So we walked. And we hoped and prayed that he wouldn't drop again. A let me tell you, those prayers worked. About halfway back, his breathing started to even out, and he stopped sweating. By the time we turned off the road to go down the trail to the horse property, he was trying to pull me over to patches of grass so he could graze. We were finally able to breathe a little easier too.
After watching Shadow for a while, we determined that he was indeed feeling better. He rolled once in the arena, but it was his usual post-ride roll in the dirt (can't let that white coat look too clean...), and walked to the corner for a snooze. We had our chai and biscuits while we watched him (realized how desperately I needed the sugar as my adrenaline high began to fade), then headed back to town.
It was a weird feeling as we finished off the day. One of those situations where you don't know if you are going to burst into tears, or start laughing. There was a lot of random giggling coming from both of us as we tried to process. We couldn't stop talking about it either. We asked questions, "How didn't we realize he was about to colic?" "What should we have done.". We discussed what happened, what we did right, what the horses did right ("Firefly was a STUD!"). We just pretty well jabbered about it the whole way back to the office.
We thought our day was going to be a nice chill day, but it wasn't. However, it could have been so much worse. If not for the grace of God, we could have been walking back in tears after watching Shadow die. Or we could have gotten him back to the house only to find that he had colicked too badly and there was nothing we could do to save him. I've never seen any horse colic that quickly, but I have also never seen Shadow snap out of it that fast. Any of the 4 of us could have been injured on our mad dash down the mountain, or Firefly could have planted his feet and simply refused to move. But none of that happened. Despite the fact that the day did not go as we planned, God was with us, protecting us, and protecting Shadow. I was reminded that day of the fact that I have no real say in the way things go. I can plan and plan and plan, and no matter how perfect I think my planning is, something can come along to change it. But I was also reminded of the faithfulness of God, and the fact that he loves me more than I can imagine, and he even loves the horses, and cares for them.
