Sweet Willie

On June 1st, about 9 pm, we heard (the mare)one of the horses making a racket, but we could not see why she was calling.  Only one horse seen, not two.  Flashlights up in the tall grass, there was my bay gelding Willie, dead.  He was in full rigor, so he had been dead for a while.  We put the mare in the barn, and tried to figure out, by flashlight, what had happened.  But even in daylight the next day it looked like he just laid down and breathed his last.  I hope he didn't suffer, but really there was no sign one way or the other.  I spent hours on the phone trying to get someone with a farm, backhoe, and flatbed truck to get him and take him to be buried.  Our property is only 1..5 acre and anyone looking our way would see (and smell??) what we were doing trying to dig a mammoth grave and move Willie to there.  Nine hundred pounds of inert horse.  And it is not like the matter can wait, with temps in the 80s.  The man we finally found (friend of a friend of a... you get it) came in about 2 hours with his son, and had him in the truck , covered and tied down in 2 hours more.  The fee was $450, which was far less than I thought it would be.

The mare is still in the barn, because she needs to get used to no Willie.  They are siblings, Willie was the older at 25.  When we let her out it will be just in the day, so we can see what she is doing, if she starts racing around and calling.

If Norm were here it would have been so much easier, he knew people he could count on finding someone for this.  I have thought about this for the last 2 years or so, and asked here and there what we should do, given our two geriatric horses, but got no solid leads.  I will keep this man in my organizer, the way my luck is going I will need it soon.


Thought for the day: " I'm not fat.  I'm just...easier to see."

In younger days