Accident Prone? Who …me? — Part 2
Recap: In the previous part, I was left alone at a remote farm in Uxbridge, Ontario, with a bunch of farm animals and dogs, a dislocated finger and no ice.
The Farm Watch from Hell …Continued
Allowing myself to be only temporarily thwarted, I noticed that the fridge had not been recently defrosted — and used a leather-working pick to chop ice from the freezer section of the fridge (no, I did not puncture anything…); soon I had a nice bowl of ice shavings into which I could plunge my throbbing finger. Ahh, sweet relief. I sank down at the kitchen table and marveled at the effectiveness of such a simple remedy. Exhausted and sore I propped my face on the table while my hand iced.
I must have drowsed off momentarily. I was surprised back into reality by six cold noses poking at various exposed portions of my body, and soft, but insistent whining. Wild eyed, I checked the clock. Doggy dinner time! Fortunately this task was simple, and I was able to execute it with a single hand. Soon the canines were all happily munching. Unfortunately, it was also horsey dinner time and already I could hear impatient whinnying and loud, angry thumping as the hungry equines signaled for supplies.
Experimentally, I removed the injured hand from the bowl of ice chips. Big mistake! It was as though a huge, very hot sledge hammer had just made contact with the digit. Swearing horribly, I quickly shoved my hand back in the bowl. This was going to present a very big problem. In order to feed the horses, I required two hands, or at least one hand and a spare elbow. I would have to get through the heavy barn door, which was heavily bolted (to prevent a certain clever equine inmate from breaking out); then close and latch it from the inside. This was made complex by the fact that you had to lift the door while opening and closing it, since it sagged.
Once safely inside and the door closed and latched, I would have to break open a bale of hay with wire cutters; and pitchfork sections of hay into each of the stalls. This would hopefully keep the horses distracted while the really tricky operation of oats distribution took place. This operation required that the tightly lidded and locked grain bin be opened, and a scoop of grain be placed in each feed bin.
In order to get to the feed bin, the heavy, stoutly bolted door of each stall would have to be opened. With one hand, I would be forced to put the scoop down in order to open the stall door, then try to pick up the scoop and get into the stall and get the grain safely into the feed bin. All this without getting run over by the hungry horse, whose beady little eyes were on the grain bin and the scoop. The problem here was that the horses were all well aware of the location and contents of the grain bin, and were always on the alert for the slightest opening to arise which would allow them to get their noses into it.
With my useless right hand in a Pyrex bowl full of ice, it was going to be next to impossible to accomplish any of the above actions. A light bulb went off in my head as I remembered the emergency telephone numbers. I could call the next door neighbour (three fields off), who happened to be the local blacksmith, and maybe he and his wife could help me. I had forgotten that they had teenage daughters. The telephone line was engaged. I tried to think of alternative solutions.
Well, maybe I could still manage by myself — I could fill a plastic bag (or any bag actually) with crushed ice, fashion a sling a scarf or dishcloth, and muddle through somehow. I began searching for a bag.
Naturally, there were no suitable empty bags. Fortunately however, the milk came in bags, so I emptied the milk into a jug and stuffed the ice into the milk bag. A twist tie closed the top, and a checkered tea-towel made a sling.
We headed to the barn. (“We” included the dogs and myself) Opening the barn door was made doubly complicated by the “help” rendered by several of the larger dogs (one was a Newfoundland), who were keen to get through the door as one, united force.
Surprisingly though, the horse feeding actually proceeded quite smoothly.
(Smoothly, that is — after I got the pony out of the grain bin; broke up a fight between two of the dogs and tripped over a piece of baling wire I had forgotten to pick up, oh, and accidentally stabbed my foot with the pitchfork.) The whole process had only taken three hours (normally should have taken an hour — tops), which considering my hampered state, I thought was quite good.
It was getting dark by the time we returned to the sanctuary of the kitchen, where I turned on the lights, re-stocked my milk-cum-ice bag with ice shavings and gratefully sank into a chair to rest. The dogs also appeared to feel a rest was in order, and accordingly all flopped down around the room. As I sat nursing my hand, I could hear the peaceful chirping of crickets, along with the soft snuffling and snoring from the dozing dogs. I actually began to think about getting some dinner.
It was about then that I became aware that some of the soft, intermittent creaking and snuffling sounds I was hearing were not coming from any of the bodies inside the house.
As the possibilities flitted through my mind, the hair began to rise along the back of my neck.
To be continued…
Note to the curious: Part three ended up in https://medium.com/human-basics for some reason they decided they liked that one part, but not the other three. Go figure…
