BATTLE OF THE QUILLS

One thing that I have learned living on a ranch for all of my 34 years is that you have to roll with the punches and "plan" to have your plans changed on a daily basis.  Today held true to that course.  As one of my scheduled days away from the hospital, I had a laundry list of things to do including all the regular day to day chores, doctor 3 horses with wire cuts (all thanks to the 150 heard of elk that welcomed themselves to our hay fields and ran the horses through the fence), help Todd ride the 4 sale ride horses and mow my 5 acre lawn!!!

To be honest all was going well and I was almost done with my lawn when my Dad showed up and said that he had just seen Scotty's colt (posted above) out of PERKS STATUS SYMBOL and that she was limping across the filed with her front leg full of porcupine quills.  My thoughts on this...."of course she would be, my day was going way to smooth."  I continued to process this and realized that it was going to take a bit of an effort to get this filly and Scotty in as it would require us to run the entire herd of 21 mares and colts (42 total) through 2 sets of gates and down the road for about a mile to the nearest set of corrals.  You see Scotty is one of the few mares that we own that cannot be caught in a 100+ acre field.  On top of that, we have yet to start halter breaking our colts so needless to say this was going to be interesting.  In my mind, I could see it as adding 2-3 more colts to the barb wire list and maybe Todd as missing his hand since this little filly had never been touched before.

Well, Todd got home and I threw Maisie and Ashlyn in the truck and told them that today they were going to learn how to take porcupine quills out of a horse.  Of course, both were fascinated by the whole concept and beyond excited to take part in this little venture. 

Much to my surprise all of the horses were right next to the gate when we arrived to the field.  And even more shocking all 42 horses single filed out the gate and onto the road as soon as I opened the gate.  It's almost like they knew we were there to help a fellow "girl" out.  We made it up to the corral with no one getting cut, bumped or kicked in the move.  Of course my positive thinking was "okay, now we have to catch this little girl so for sure this is were it all goes south."  Once again, knowing that we were there to help the filly stood as we put our arms around her and moved her into the gated alley we invented for this procedure.  I stood and pet on the filly and Scotty as Todd worked quickly and precisely to remove all the quills.  No one lost a hand either!  Things were going way to smooth.  After, removing all the quills and checking deep within the wounded area to make sure that none of the quills had broken off, we gave the filly her antibiotics and opened the gate for her to run free.  Nope, she just stood there thanking us for comforting her.  Not bad for her first human experience.

Obviously this did not take all night as I had envisioned and I will still be able to get a decent supper on the table for Todd, Maisie and Ashlyn.  Topic of conversation will be how well the day actually went and for Maisie and Ashlyn to reflect on what they learned in the "battle of the quills"!