Quebec had some hurricane too!

Granted, it wasn't at the devastating level that it was further south, but we lost power and water for over 24 hours and had mega strong winds and rain that kept it very dark in the barn.

On Sunday morning, before it was due, we filled all the buckets, bins, boxes and bathtubs (b's!) with water as the stalls have automatic waterers. As we were doing this, the power was flickering on and off, and finally it went off at about 10.30am. The wind was getting stronger and it was raining, but we were rotating the horses in pairs on turnout in the indoor school every 3.5 hours, with hay and water. It seemed like we didn't stop mucking stalls, giving hay, moving horses all day. We finished at 9pm and I went straight to bed, watched an episode of Grey's Anatomy on my laptop and then crashed pretty soon after! zzzzz.

This morning, it was up at 6 to get the 3 overnighters out of the school. Fortunately the wind had dropped to a stiff breeze and the sun was coming out, so the smaller fields weren't too bad, just with some of the electric fence down and branches strewn about. We got Deedee and Chelsea down to the big field 5, and Chelsea, who sometimes does do this, decided to pull away before I 'd got the halter off and I couldn't hold her. She ran to the other side of this 3/4 acre field and we had to track her down - fortunately I wasn't alone! Valerie managed to catch her, and went to take it off, but she ran AGAIN. B!***. So, we caught her again...dumb horse! And that was it, she came in. Usually, if she's going to do this awful habit of hers, she pulls when the halter is all but off, which is annoying, but safer for her. She doesn't always do it, and sometimes she pulls and then stops, sometimes she pulls and runs and bucks. Today was unprecedented. I know she's been in for 21 of the last 24 hours, but come on! So, she sat in her stall and stewed while I thought about it. I decided to take her again to a smaller field, with a longe line, so if she pulled before it was off, I'd have much more slack to pull her back.

This time, she waited til it was off and went. Fast. It's so dangerous, because she bucks, kicks, doesn't give a damn if there's a human there. So, I was mighty angry now and chased her round a bit, but she enjoyed this and kicked and flung and snorted, so I calmed down, followed her round, watched by Annick on Bond, as they were on their cooling down walk on the lane. So, I had an audience of a horse trainer. Great! After about 10 minutes, I caught her and took her inside, grabbed my gloves and took her to the school where I longed her til she was dripping with sweat and blowing hard. Then I removed her halter and bingo, no reaction. Ha. Of course not. So I took her to the manege and took it off. No reaction. Annick came over to see how we were getting on and she said that I knew I'd better do the field as well, while I was at it. I did know, so after giving her 10 minutes to cool down, I caught her again and took her into the barn for an extra halter. I figured I'd have the longe line on a chain on her halter, then put the second one on to fool her into a reaction. If she pulled, I'd pull hard. So, with fear for my face and her hoof connecting with it, I headed to the same field, halter with chain over nose, longe attached to this, and dummy halter over the top.

I turned her to face the gate and gave the rope a tug to remind her what was what. I unclipped the first halter, and as it came over her ears, which is her cue to bolt, she pulled. I yanked HARD and she stayed put. Huh. So I put the dummy halter on again and off again. She stayed put. I went for the jackpot and took off her last halter, and she didn't move. She let me pat her and then she mooched off.

So, tomorrow's another day. She will have been worked pretty hard in the morning before she goes out, but I'm fairly sure she'll go for the pull and run again. I'll wear a helmet to turn her out and do the two halters thing. We shall see...