Yay!!! Spring has sprung and so have we!! There is nothing quite as exciting as a free horse in the spring! And for a horse owner, nothing quite as scary as a free herd approaching a highway. If you have been following That’s the Dream, you may be aware of last winter’s escapade of Raff trying to jump a fence when Teddy closed the garage door from stalls to arena. She was stuck on the wrong side and trying to get back to her herd. We fixed the problem by placing covers over the door openers, so they can’t be nosed open. Or so we thought. Miss Raff seems to have a good memory of what caused the doors to open and broke the cover to hit the button.
After circling the yard and tearing up the lawn, they headed out cross country. I managed to arrive from Fargo in time to try to block access to the highway but had only my car and myself with no leads or halters. Raff was happy to connect but she didn’t stay connected when Cricket decided to head across the highway and the herd followed. Thankfully my car and flashers were enough warning for traffic to pass carefully as I turned the horses back.
Once turned the horses calmly walked toward home in front of my car until Cricket decided to turn into a farmyard where we were able to get horses, people, and tack together. We didn’t catch Cricket but had his herd well in hand (even with a make-shift halter for Raff). The Dream Team and herd then went for a 2 ½ mile walk: temps were in the 30’s with bitter 30 to 40 MPH winds. We were wearing hoodies. Twasn’t really our plan to go for a walk. But from the video it would appear it was Raff’s plan to free the horses for a cross country jaunt!
I thought you might like the story and pictures. But most important are the illustrated life lessons!
When in need call on your team right away! If Amanda and Kayla hadn’t done this we may have had a highway accident and tragedy.
Communicate!! We recruited Nora for handling texts and calls as Christian and I were driving out from Fargo. Ron’s phone was broken and calls were going straight to voicemail which made things rough as we were calling all hands on deck. We probably would have done better with all of the team on one conference call, but that’s a lesson for next time (hopefully not needed!).
Don’t let your limitations limit you. I thought I was having a sick day on the couch watching training videos. Nora struggles with talking on the phone. But we overcame and did it!
There is always something to be thankful for! As we met to debrief over lunch (at 3 pm), we could see what we had done well, and what we could talk about now to do better later.
Learn and grow! When you know better, you do better.
Recognize strengths and weaknesses. Some you accept, some you can learn to do better. Grace for self and team is important: know what is possible and what isn’t realistic to expect.
Always be improving and prepare to prevent problems. Even though we thought we had a developed a good solution last year, we need to seek better methods- or less intelligent horses!