All's Well...?

Stop the presses! It's a miracle! The well guys are actually out on the land as I write, drilling away on the spot the dowser picked out.

The drilling rig all set up on our land. A thing of beauty, is it not?

 What a loud, dusty, dirty job those guys have, at least in the beginning. As they just explained to me, the first 25 feet is drilled dry, which kicks up a lot of dust, but after that, they add water into the hole, which speeds up the drilling considerably. Guess they need that first 25' of hole to have somewhere for the water to accumulate. I'm sure it is a loud process all the way down, but I hope they're not breathing in all that gritty dust all the time. The younger guy had a mask on, but the older guy did not. I wonder what his lungs look like...

No mask!

 They had only reached a depth of about 12' down when I was up there at around 3:00, but hoped to get somewhere between 25'-50' by the end of the day. All depends on how hard stuff is down there.

The older gentleman, Carlos, told me that he hopes to hit water by about 280', but when I told him that was also our hope, yet even if we did, Michael wants to drill down to 400' as a safety measure, Carlos said that may not be possible. Something to do with whatever may or may not be down there and how it affects the machinery once they've hit water. If I understood him correctly (which I am not at all sure of, between the noise of the drill and his heavy Spanish accent), the bottom line seemed to be that they are often only able to go about 20' past the water, or the drill gets stuck. Something like that, anyway.

So, am I still stressing out about the well? After the morning I had, I am honestly hardly able to think about the well. After not a whole lot of sleep, I woke up to the phone ringing at 7:00 -- very early for me. It was Patricia, the lady who has my horses at her house. She wanted to let me know that my little palomino, Lido, had hurt his left front leg -- it had been bleeding but was not at that moment, and he was favoring it a little. Knowing that I am not up to snuff, she very kindly offered to try to clean it up and get a better look at it, but I said I would head over, as I knew she had to get to work. She also told me that a section of the pipe panel fencing was all cockeyed and part of it was sticking up in the air (a section in the interior of the paddock meant to keep the horses off of a steep bank), but she did not know what had happened. From her description, the wounded leg didn't sound too bad, so I wasn't hugely worried.

I did get up, though, and as Michael was out of town (which means my truck is out of town with him, so no way to haul the horse trailer), I called my ever-wonderful friend Dona and got her and her husband to meet me at the barn. I'm still not supposed to be handling horses or moving anything heavier than ten pounds, so I figured I would need some help to clean and dress whatever little wound Lido had.

Got to the barn, and the wound was much worse than I was expecting -- and Lido was laying down, both front legs bloody, the uninjured right one having "transfer" blood from the wounds on the left. I took one look at the damaged leg, which was swollen and looked kind of shredded on both sides just above the fetlock, and knew this was a vet call. No way to haul the horse in to the vet: no truck, and I wouldn't have been physically able to hook up the trailer in my post-surgical state; plus, I wouldn't have wanted to make Lido stand in the trailer for the winding trip down Geiger Grade Road anyway. So, I got "broke in" to Pat and Jack's house (thankfully, I know how to get in), got on the phone, and called for the vet to come to us.

Long story short, the very nice young vet got there in about 45 minutes, then Lido had to be sedated, shaved, thoroughly cleaned, examined, carefully bandaged with multiple layers doing different things, and medicated. The good news is that the vet is hopeful that poor little Lido got away without serious injury. However, she said it is hard to tell at this stage, as there is so much edema (fluid/swelling) around the tendons that you can't get a sense of any damage. The fact that he was able to bear weight on the limb, albeit painfully, was a good sign. He was clearly more comfortable after she wrapped his leg and the pain killers kicked in, and later in the day, he was even resting a back foot -- another good sign, as it means he is willingly bearing more weight on both fronts.

Resting a back leg...a good sign!

 The bad news is that Lido's skin was so shredded up that there could be some damage to the blood supply, which is always a concern in the lower limbs -- and infection is also a concern, not to mention the possibility of "proud flesh", which is the old horse world name for the formation of excessive granulation tissue in a healing wound. No way to stitch anything with a wound like this either. The key is to keep pressure on it with the wrap, but not too much pressure. So, we will have to figure out a way to rebandage him on Saturday, and meanwhile monitor him and hope he shows improvement with how he is walking and standing. He is confined to a stall -- not something he is used to, but Gryphon and Rogie have been hanging out in the stall next to his (their door is open and they could leave if they wanted to). When he had first arrived, no horses came to the fence to greet us, which was highly unusual. Turns out that as Lido was prone and injured on the ground in the lower part of the paddock, neither Gryphon nor Rogie were willing to leave him there.It was touching to see how they were quite literally guarding him, one standing on either side, when we went down there to find them. They simply weren't about to leave their injured friend -- how sweet is that?

Rogie and Gryphon hanging out in the stall next to their injured buddy.

As for what actually happened, I did find some blood and hair in the upper connector between two of the pipe panels. No idea how Lido could have gotten his leg in there, but in there it clearly was. Truly, there is no such thing as "safe" horse fencing!

Overall, not the best day I've ever had. The stress and expense of this incident were the last thing we need right now, but if Lido recovers from this uneventfully, I will be very grateful. It is not going to be easy doing the bandaging and medicating he requires in my current state, but I will have help from Michael, and Dona is more than willing to do whatever is needed. She is an absolute gem and truly loves my boys.

I will try to post more on the progress of the well tomorrow, and I'll be sure to include an update on my little golden boy patient, too. VERY tired now.