UPDATE: The Fourteenth Horse

This story is the point of view of only one of the more than 100 people who helped save the lives of the 14 horses trapped beneath the ruins of what once had been Sun Gold Stables in Bethany, CT. There are as many stories as there were people, and all I can offer is mine. I left my house thinking I was going to cover yet another collapsed utility shed or old, empty barn, something that has become almost a daily occurrence in this state with our record snow and ice. I quickly learned I was heading into a life-or-death situation that would count on the expertise and bravery of a large team of people. I wish I knew more of the names of those involved, but as you will soon understand, there was no hope of taking out a notebook and asking questions. Please forgive me. So here is my account, to the best of my ability, and I hope that from it you will understand the extraordinary miracles, all 14 of them, that occurred on Ground Hog night in Bethany in the year 2011.

On Tuesday, Feb. 2, the first text came in at 4:20 p.m. that a barn had collapsed in Bethany. I was getting into my truck to drive over to Hunters Trail to check it out when the second text came. It simply said, “Call me,” and it was from Lou Cuomo, whose father lives near there. I called.

“I heard,” I said. There’s a barn down.”

“There are horses still in it,” Lou said. “And it’s flattened.”

“Oh, God. How many?”

“Maybe 16, I’m not sure,” he replied. “They won’t let anyone up there.”

“I’m on my way,” I said.

The inner turmoil instantly began. Was I going over there as a journalist, or as a rescuer? For 10 years I’ve been rescuing horses from slaughter, abuse, starvation . . . every horror that humans can possibly heap on an animal. I know my way around crazed, terrified horses, I can fill a syringe, inject, sedate, wrap, bandage. I have held my hand over gushing arteries and cradled old and young in my arms as they died. Oh, yeah, and I write articles for a living. Did I even have an option? By the time I reached Hunters Trail, I had decided the laptop was staying in the truck. I would bring the cell phone and the camera, and that was it. And why hadn’t I remembered my hat, neck turtle and gloves?

The emergency vehicles lined Fairview Road at the base of the hill leading to Sun Gold Stables. The state police had blocked the entrance to Hunters Trail, so I pulled past, parked at the end of the line and walked over.

“You can’t go up there,” one of them said, which was exactly what I had expected.

“I can help,” I said. “I know horse first aid. Is there a vet here yet?”

“Yes, there are one or two up there,” the officer replied.

“Who?” I asked. I’d made a quick mental calculation of the equine vets in the area and their locations and I couldn’t come up with one who could have gotten there that fast unless they were already on a call in town.

“Don’t know, please wait in your truck, ma’am.”

“Please, if they need any help, I know what I’m doing, I promise,” I said.

Another of the officers had identified my truck as I drove past, which is prominently labeled “Locket’s Meadow Riding Center,” and he said, “I know you do, and if we need trailers or anything else, we know you can help. We’ll let you know if you can go up. They have to cut the power first.”

I started walking to my truck while dialing Stacey Golub’s number. There are a lot of vets in the area, but very few of them have gone through the training she has done in large animal rescue. I knew she carried the necessary equipment in her truck, and if she wasn’t already on site, she needed to get there. No answer. I reached for my door handle and heard shouts from the police.

“Hey, hey you! You can go up now!”

I turned and headed back, trying not to run.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” one asked.

We joke on the farm about horse life being “all glamour, all the time,” with glamour being our euphemism for a mix of mud, manure, and sometimes, blood. It wasn’t the time, however, to tell a joke about us glamorous farm gals.

“Yes,” I said, but in the back of my mind I was wishing I’d never have to see anything like this in my life.

At that moment, Shauna Wetmore Cusano, another barn owner in town, drove up in her truck.

“What do you need? What can we do?” she asked. “Do you need trailers?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I was told it’s a total loss. Trailers, blankets, places to bring them to . . . they’ll all be in shock . . .”

“I’ve got it,” she said. “I’ll be back.” And I knew she could be trusted handle that part of it perfectly.

As Shauna sped away I prayed that shock would be all that we had to deal with. Please, God, let them only need blankets and a few stitches . . .

I called Lou and asked him where he was, and he replied I should just head up the hill. He had one of the horses in his father’s yard. It had a gash on its face and probably needed stitches, he said. I walked as fast as I could toward the small clump of people standing around a beautiful paint.

“Where’s the vet?” I asked when I reached them.

“None are here yet,” a woman answered (and please forgive me that I am not remembering everyone’s names, I know I have met and spoken to so many of you before, but the night quickly became a blur as events unfolded.)

“There are no vets here?” I asked again, knowing that in desperate situations requiring fast action there is often a communication gap.

“No, none.”

I dialed Sarah Murray as quickly as I could. Sarah is a large and small animal vet who lives in a cottage on our farm. She doesn’t do equine for a living, but at this point, any vet would do. I hadn’t thought to bring my first aid box, and now was kicking myself . . . journalist . . . rescuer . . . journalist . . . rescuer . . . I hadn’t brought the tools with me with me to be either of them.

Sarah answered her phone.

“Get dressed and get over here,” I said. “Barn down.”

“I just heard,” Sarah said.

“There’s no vet here yet,” I said. “We can’t get in until they cut the power, but get here fast.”

I thought of calling my other vet, Kim McClure Brinton, but she’s so well connected in town, I was positive she’d already gotten the call.

I don’t remember much of the next 15 minutes. I believe I spoke with a few people, checked the horse to make sure all was well, called Orange Patch Editor Terri Miles.

“I’m not going in as a journalist,” I told her. “I can’t. But I will call and give you updates. Start an article and just add as I call. I can’t make any guarantees, but I will do my best.”

“Will do,” Terri replied.

“I don’t know about pictures, I didn’t bring up my computer up so I can’t send them from my camera, but I will try from my phone.”

“Just do your best,” she said.

Terri and I have worked together, off and on, for about 11 years. She now covered the adjoining town of Orange for Patch.com and I covered Bethany and Woodbridge, as Bethwood.com I trusted Terri to get it right, whatever it was I’d be able to give her.

A utility truck drove past us and onto the farm. Soon. I have to admit, I was scared, and I’ve seen enough that I am hard to frighten. What would we find in the rubble? I dialed Stacey again.

She answered. “I’m on my way,” she said, knowing what my call was about. “I just have to pick up Debby in Portland (her assistant) and I’ll be right there. What’s happening?”

“They just got here to turn off the power,” I said. “I haven’t seen anything yet. Sarah is on her way, and I don’t know what other vets have been called.”

“OK,” she hung up. She would call back shortly to tell me the list of other vets who were on their way, including a team from Fairfield Equine.

Luiza Ruest, the barn owner, who was dressed in navy coveralls and as pale as the snow around her, approached me.

“What’s happening?” I asked after a quick hello.

“We got five out,” Luiza said. “They’ve almost reached one of the trapped ones, she’s going to need a vet. Badly.”

“One is on her way, just minutes away,” I said. “Not equine, but she can do it. The equine vets will be right behind her. I can help. We just have to get in there.”

Luiza was trembling, and I thought she might be in a state of shock. The things you think about at these times are so odd, but I remember noting that I was glad she was wearing the insulated coveralls because she needed to stay warm. I asked her if there were blankets as the horses would need them immediately and she said there were some in the barn and that she could sneak in and get them. I replied I doubted they would let her sneak anywhere near the barn as they had secured things up pretty tightly, but with luck, maybe . . .

Sarah arrived carrying her box. She was still the only vet, and with nine horses beneath the rubble, one vet wasn’t going to stretch very far. We waited, and just a few minutes passed before we were finally allowed up the driveway.

I couldn’t have prepared myself for what I saw, the roof of the indoor flattened on the ground and the stalls that had lined either side of it in various states of collapse. How could any of those horses walk out of this? Luiza told the state police I was part of the medical team so I could assist Sarah, and we walked to the worst section of the barn.

The mare was flat on her side, pinned between a wall that had become a floor and a section of roof. A fireman was holding her head, towel over her exposed eye so she couldn’t see what the workers were doing to try to free her, trying to keep her from thrashing. I learned the fireman’s name was Jim Gugliatti and it was quickly apparent he knew horses.

This horse was doing what horses do best – panicking. The chainsaws and heavy equipment were more than she could bear, along with being pinned in the most vulnerable position there is for a prey animal, and her thrashing was going to seriously injure her or her rescuers. Sarah got out her stethoscope and did a quick exam while Jim tried to hold the mare’s head still. Heart rate, gum color, refill rate  . . . moments later she turned and filled a syringe with sedative from her box, quickly found a vein, and waited for it to take effect. The mare would have to be heavily sedated before they could safely lift the roof off of her.

The firemen were all being called back to the truck for something, but Jim stayed and waited with the horse, who wasn’t calming down. Sarah dialed Stacey to check how high a dosage she could give, then turned and told me to draw 3cc’s. I did and handed her the syringe, and moments later, Kim McClure Brinton was standing next to me. Two vets. Better. Kim leaped into the fray.

The sun was setting, and while they had set up huge lights all around the area, it was dark on that side of the barn. I always carry a small flashlight in my left jacket pocket, and wire cutters in my right. I pulled out the flashlight and trained it on the horse.

“Kathleen, can I borrow that?” Kim asked.

I handed her the flashlight, then dialed my husband, David.

“Baby, I hate to do this, but you’re going to have to get up here,” I said. “These horses are all going to need extra blankets. You have to go get some out of the big barn and get them over here. Oh, and if you can grab my hat and my neck turtle, I forgot them.”

“How is it?” he asked.

“Bad,” I said. “Real bad.”

“I’ll get there as soon as I can,” he said.

We waited. And waited. Another vet, Ned Shenkman, showed up. Three. Good. But we needed Stacey. She had the straps and gear and training needed to get these horses out of this and she was coming from East Hampton. Even if you drove very fast, she was a good 35 to 40 minutes away.

The firemen were apparently having some kind of strategy powwow, and while I knew this was important, there’s a window of time before the sedatives wear off, and if they could get the horse out before she needed another injection, it would be very, very good. One of the side-effects of some sedatives is the horses sweat it out of their systems, so if they weren’t sweaty enough from the stress they would be drenched and shivering from the meds.

Ten minutes. David would be here shortly. Come on Stacey! Drive faster . . .

The firemen returned and began to lift the roof off the horse, until finally, she was uncovered. I didn’t see any major gashes, just scrapes and cuts, but we wouldn’t know until she stood what the extent of the damage was. The next step was to get her up, but she was on her side, her back at the bottom of a slope, feet at the top, almost in what is called a “cast” position that would require her being flipped over to stand up on her own, not possible in this situation. She was sweating and shivering. I called David.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“At the bottom of the hill,” he replied. “They’re going to make me carry the blankets up.”

“Just bring what you can,” I said. “We’re going to need them soon.”

I looked around me. Other horse people from the area had arrived to help. Shauna had returned along with her sister, Melissa Lambrecht, which meant there was at least one trailer at the ready.

Stacey called. She was about 10 minutes away. I decided I needed to leave the mare and check on the status of the blankets, but I wasn’t sure I could get back in with security so tight. I was hoping I could bring back something to put over the horse to keep her from shivering until they could find a way to lift her out, which was looking more and more like they would need to bring in the heavy equipment. I spoke to one of the officers and he said, “Go ahead, we’ll get you back in.”

I knew there was little chance of that, but I try to believe that you end up exactly where you need to be, so I took the chance and walked out from behind the barn. Luiza was waiting there.

“How is she?” she asked.

“Almost ready to get her out,” I replied. “She’s holding up well. Gum color good, refill good, doesn’t look like any internal bleeding right now. She’s sedated and quiet, and I didn’t see any major cuts or bleeding. As good as can be . . .”

A police officer yelled at all of us to be quiet and ordered us behind the line. Crap. I wasn’t getting back, for sure. Luiza thanked me, and smiled just a little.

“Get back,” he bellowed again.

“She’s medical,” Luiza told him, pointing at me. “Please try to check on Lacey,” she added as I was allowed to go back over near the fire trucks, where I was again told I wouldn’t be allowed to assist the vets. I knew how important it was to Luiza to find out the condition of the horses . . . I understand the point of knowing who was where at all times, but I had already signed in and been back there . . . I walked towards the end of the driveway to look for my husband.

I have asthma and only a few things trigger it: mold, cigarette smoke, and diesel or kerosene fumes. All the emergency vehicles were left running, and I was beginning to feel my lungs close up. I don’t necessarily have wheezing attacks, but the coughing fits tend to be so violent that I crack my ribs from the inside out, so I needed to get fresh air occasionally if I was going to have to stay by the trucks to assist.

I called Terri and gave her a report then took one photo of the flattened building with my phone and sent it to her. I had decided there would be no photos of trapped horses. People on the outside would be panicked enough without seeing anything like that. I saw my husband walk into the yard carrying a stack of blankets and I ran over to him.

“Bring them here,” I said, and walked him over to the area that had been cleared of snow for triage. He handed me my hat, turtle and work gloves, and I filled him in on what had happened so far. For a couple with a horse farm, it was pretty terrifying stuff.

The state troopers were yelling instructions to us one more time to get behind the line, but Sarah and Kim were leading the first horse from behind the barn. They waited at the triage area, and I could see the poor mare trembling from where I stood clutching a blanket, at the ready. I decided to make a break for it and ran to the horse, who was drenched and shaking uncontrollably. Moments later we had her covered in a fleece, which would wick away the moisture, then buckled into Classy’s old brown turnout. Within a few minutes she was visibly improved.

Melissa started to walk her towards the driveway, but the poor mare’s legs were trembling and she stumbled several times.

“Where’s the trailer?” I asked.

“At the bottom of the hill,” she replied.

“She’ll never make it,” I said.

Dave Merriam, our resident state trooper, was nearby.

“Dave, this horse can’t walk all the way down to the trailers and we were told the trailers can’t come up,” I said. “Can you help get one up here?”

Dave went to work, and within minutes there was clearance for a trailer to come through to start moving horses to other farms in the area that had offered to house the rescued animals.

Luiza was nearby.

“She looks good,” I said. “She’s a miracle.”

Luiza nodded. I could tell she was beginning to see a little bit of hope in the midst of a lot of despair.

The rest of the horses on that side of the barn were standing in their collapsed stalls – intricately trapped in the lumber, but standing. It would get better, I hoped.

My phone rang. Stacey.

“They won’t let me up there with my truck,” she said. “Find someone in charge and make them fix this.”

I found a trooper and explained the situation and he said he’d take care of it. I called Terri with an update, then saw the Fairfield Equine contingency beginning to arrive, medical kits in hand, and ran over to escort them to where the “guards” were that allowed the doctors into the secured area.

Stacey called again, and her language quickly became quite colorful. Apparently they had let more than just one trailer up with the first mare and Hunters Trail was now completely clogged with them. She couldn’t get up with her equipment.

“Hang on,” I said, and I approached the biggest, most authoritative-looking state trooper I could find. “There’s a vet at the bottom of the hill who needs to get up here immediately but can’t,” I said. “She’s the one with the training and the equipment to get these horses out. Can you help me?”

“What’s her name?” he asked.

I told him her name, then what she was driving, and he told the people at the bottom of the hill, with no room for error, exactly what needed to happen to get Stacey to the top, with her truck. Minutes later, she was there, and then she was gone, racing straight back to the action. She sent someone out a few minutes later to ask her assistant, Debby, to get some equipment from the truck, and then the rescuing began in earnest, as close together as 15 minutes apart. I ran blankets, held tails to stabilize sedated horses, then watched the Wetmore girls get them off to the trailers and their temporary homes. It was a miracle every time one of them walked out.

I saw my neighbor, Ruth Beardsley standing off to the side, and she looked distraught. I walked over and she said, simply, “Moon’s in there.”

Holy Crap. I had forgotten Moon was at Sun Gold. I knew Moon well; he had been at our barn for many years. He was a crotchety old man, even when he was a young man, with a dry sense of humor. He only loved his Mommy; all other humans in his space were tolerated until, well, until he decided they were no longer tolerable. I have a weakness for horses with character, and Moon was hard-core character through-and-through. I stared at the barn, pictured him trapped, then cleared it from my mind.

“All the rest of them were standing,” I said. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

I tried to refocus and watch for where I was needed.

When things go terribly wrong, people want to help so badly, and yet, aside from the highly trained professionals (which we were so fortunate to be surrounded by) most people don’t know how to help, and are often paralyzed by circumstances. Horse people, however, have lives filled with drama, accidents and pain; it’s the nature of the business and a consequence of the lifestyle. You could quickly pick the horse people out of the crowd. They were the ones who arrived carrying stacks of blankets up the long hill, halters and lead ropes looped over their shoulders, set expressions. If you could see what they were picturing in their minds, well, it their own horses trapped inside that barn, and they were thinking how easily it could have been theirs, and their intent was that these horses would get out safely if they had anything at all to do with it.

So, those of us who were horse people fetched and buckled blankets, held tails to steady horses, and watched to see where there was a need, then ran to fill it. I called Terri with an update, and she told me Ron DeRosa, who is the Naugatuck Patch editor, was going to try to get there to take pictures. I wasn’t sure how he would get in, but I hoped for the best. Shortly afterwards, I gave him a call.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“Here,” he said, “but I can’t get up. They won’t let press in.”

The press. I was the press. I was there. Right.

“Do you realize what you’re doing?” he asked. “You’re the only one in there sending out information. No one else has this. This is incredible.”

At that moment, I had no clue what he was talking about. Ron said he’d keep trying to get in and I went back to work. One of the horses that had been led out of the left side of the barn stood shivering in a thin blanket. The woman holding him was also shivering. She lifted the edge of his blanket.

“This isn’t enough for him, is it?” she asked.

“No, it’s not,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

I ran around the fire engines to the stack of blankets and pulled out a small purple one, then turned to run back and realized I couldn’t; I didn’t have enough oxygen. The entire time I had been so busy I hadn’t realized I was coughing up a storm, and now my asthma was in full-swing. I opted to walk fast instead of run; those moments when I realize I am a mere mortal with an occasional lung problem are so very humbling.

I blanketed the pony, and took a moment to talk to the Santoros, Mark and his daughter Julia, who had raced over from Woodbridge when I’d told them earlier the horses were trapped in the barn. They were also pitching in to help wherever they could. With Julia was Morgan, a teen who has ridden at our barn. It slowly dawned on me that Morgan kept her horse at Sun Gold. She walked up to me.

“Katheen, my horse is in there,” Morgan said. “I’m not okay. I . . . I . . .”

“Oh, honey,” I reached out and hugged her and she held me and sobbed.

How could anyone bear what was happening right now if it was their baby in that pile of rubble?

“It’s OK, honey,” I said. “The worst ones are out, the ones left are the ones in the best shape. They’re being so careful, they’ll get them out. They’ll get them all out.”

Julia looked on. I could see in her eyes she was picturing being in Morgan’s position, with her Lucy or Candy trapped inside. I dismissed another vision of my handsome Captain trapped beneath a fallen roof.

It was less than 10 minutes later when Morgan’s horse was led from the barn and towards the trailers. I watched her trot alongside him, smiling, triumphant. One more alive. I called Terri with the update, then noticed some texts on my phone. One was from a former boarder, asking if a large grey Arab had been rescued yet because Leslie, who has also ridden at our barn, had a half-lease on him and she was bordering on hysterical. There was a grey Arab in front of me, but when I asked about it, it wasn’t the right one. Moments later, the right Arab was led out. I tried to text back, but by then, my fingers, wearing a pair of leather work gloves, were frozen and shaking. I was coughing constantly, and I simply couldn’t get my fingers to hit the right buttons. I laughed out loud, which is what I do when I don’t know what else to do.

“My fingers have stopped working,” I said. “I think they’re frozen.”

The man standing next to me reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of knit gloves.

“Here,” he said, helping me get them on my trembling hands. “They’re not very heavy, but maybe they’ll help.”

Forget my hands, I suddenly felt warmer all over. This stranger just handed me his gloves. On a night of one huge miracle following another, this small gift became a small miracle for me. I texted that the Arab was out, that I had seen him and he looked quite good. She responded simply, “Thank you,” but I knew there was much more behind it.

I called Terri, but just a few words into my conversation, my phone’s battery died. I went back down to “the line” that divided those involved with immediate rescue from those who were assisting horses who’d gotten out and were waiting for a trailer ride. Lou was standing on the other side, holding a halter. He had gotten onto one of the teams that was leading and blanketing.

“I need your phone,” I said. “Mine died.”

He handed his to me, told me the battery was low, but I took it and made my call. I handed it back to him and took Sarah’s from her since it had more of a charge. There were only a few horses left inside, and one of them was Moon. I decided it was time to stop changing hats, jumping from one job to another. By then I was beginning to realize that my little Bethwood Patch website was the only source for the locals who were so worried about these horses, and it was time for me to focus on reporting.

The second to the last horse was led out. It wasn’t Moon. Ruth stood behind the line, staring at the pile of rubble. Knowing Moon doesn’t handle stress well, and that when these people finally got to him he would be panicked . . . I admired her strength. While he knew his mama best and might be calmer if she were with him, there was no way Ruth would be allowed near the unstable structure. Would I stand as calmly to the side as she now was? Not if it were my Beatrice or Leo or Benny. A vet would have to inject me with a sedative.

Woodbridge Fire Chief Andrew Esposito was standing in front of me.  I asked him what the plan was for getting Moon out, and he started telling me, but I stopped him and dialed Terri, then handed Andrew the phone so he could speak to her directly since I could hardly get a sentence out without choking.

The state troopers began to round us up and send us to the other side of the fence because Moon’s rescue was going to need heavy equipment. I went with the crowd, looking for a spot to take video from, hoping my camera battery held up. I stood on a snow bank as the front-end loader lifted and moved piles of debris while the rescuers brought in a Sawzall and began to make cuts. I watched Stacey, easily identified by her pink baseball cap, squeeze into the space where Moon was trapped, and I knew she was giving him a sedative.

It was probably about then that I noticed the press had arrived, and they were directly across the barnyard from me on the far side of a fence in a neighbor’s yard. They had to climb through a lot of deep snow to get there, but that was as far as they were getting.

I called Terri and described how workers were spreading deep snow over the area where Moon would have to exit the structure. There was no way to clear all the debris, so they would protect his feet and legs with the very stuff that had caused all this trouble in the first place.

Shortly afterwards they began to lift the sections of roof to uncover the fourteenth horse. One huge chunk. Another huge chunk. People were carrying blankets to him, and we could see Moon’s sweat-soaked back as they worked to cover him. More lumber was removed, more cuts with the Sawzall. I would later learn that his legs, while all standing on the ground, were tangled in the trusses and they were cutting lumber just inches away from the horse. One fireman was leaning over his back end, trying to hold him in place, but Moon was starting to lose it; Sawzall, front end loader, and a stranger touching him, to boot . . . it was all too much. I watched the pink hat dive back in, and I assumed Moon was getting another dose of sedative. I called Terri every few minutes with the update, gasping out words, trying to talk and hold the camera steady.

Ruth was standing at the bottom of my snow bank.

“He’s almost out,” I said. “Almost there . . .”

“He’s not out yet,” she shook her head, not daring to get her hopes up.

“Do you think they would get this far and let anything happen to the last horse in there?” I said. “No, Moon’s coming out.”

One of the firemen in front of us turned around, smiled and gave me a thumbs up. They were almost ready to lead him out, but they still had to move the machine and the workers out of the way. Moon, however, would have none of that. As sedated as he was, he had seen daylight and he turned, lunged, scrambled up and out, leaving his blankets behind, knocking his rescuers aside.

And that was it. The last horse was out of what at first had seemed to be an impossible, inescapable, deadly disaster. A cheer went up, and I watched Ruth work her way to the triage area. It was a beautiful moment.

No horses were mortally wounded, no rescuers were injured, and while there were glitches, in the end, everything had happened just in time and all was well. If I could list the names of every hero who was at that barn in Bethany that night, I would; there were dozens of them. People came from all over and offered everything they had, hoping against all hope for an impossible outcome, and yet it had happened; the fourteenth horse had walked out on all four uninjured legs, and every person there was smiling through their tears.

Stacey later said that each horse in that barn had a guardian angel looking out for them, but I would have to say every one of them had dozens of angels that evening. Some were firemen from Bethany and the surrounding towns, some were state troopers, some were horse people who rallied with a focus and vengeance usually reserved for the U.S. Marines.

Later, after I had coughed and wheezed my way back home, I would charge my phone and find out I had gotten a “traffic alert” notifying me that at one point there were more than a hundred people on my Patch site at one time watching for Terri’s updates. I would learn that Ron had scrambled through the snow and trees with the other reporters and gotten some really good pictures that Terri posted shortly after. I would find out that thousands of people had passed the story around the Internet, during and after the crisis. But all I could think about when I got home was how badly I needed to get to my own barn and tuck in my babies for the night.

I kissed all the horses on the nose, from the biggest Adeline to the tiniest Clementine, then climbed into Ozzie Osboar’s stall, gave him his banana and covered my handsome pig with his favorite red blanket before piling straw on top of that, patting him just the right amount of times so he would fall back to sleep. At the end of the day, I usually think about how wonderful my animals are and how lucky I am to have them in my life. This day, however, I was thinking more about how wonderful many people are and how lucky I was to live in a community filled with just that sort of human being.

And then I got to work editing film, but when I finally fell asleep late that night, my dreams were peaceful, and the people in them were smiling. And I am sure it was because the fourteenth horse had gotten out.