When a day goes ten kinds of wrong

My day hasn't been a good one, and its only just now that the reason behind that are coming clear.

this i would assume is the main culprit.....well him or his owner at least

I get so so pissed off with irresponsible animal owners its not funny. We get loose pig dogs showing up at our farm from time to time....we are the last stop between the road and hundreds of acres of beautiful native forest. It is a favorite for feral pigs and there for hunters and their dogs. I don't have a problem with hunters, just when they happen to be irresponsible and idiotic hicks, like future events showed these ones to be....

At 2am this morning i woke to hear galloping, thundering hooves and high shrill screams of a foal. My life is nothing, if not action packed. I was the only one home as it happened, so leaping out of bed i grabbed the torch and a halter from the back door, and took off ruining for the paddock. There i found the youngest foal,who had either gone over or under his paddock fence, and was runing up and down along the wrong side, bordered on the other side by a steep bank into the stream. Excellent. I haltered the mare, who was galloping up and down on the correct side of the fence, to keep pace with her baby. After a few attempts of trying to get the foal back to correct side of fence, i gave up and got wire cutters.

by 3am after cutting the wire, moving the foal, and fixing the fence again. I was back in bed, knowing i had to be up again at 5.30am to go to a show for the day.

I woke up at 7am.

This is the first time i have slept in for a show in my entire life.

The show i was going to was a dressage championship, and my first test was to be 8.30am, i live just over an hour away from the showgrounds. my horse wasn't plaited or ready to go in any way shape or form. My day was getting worse. For an instant i contemplated, just rolling over and going back to to sleep, but I'm to competitive for my own good. Again i hit the ground running, ran to find my horse, found that her and the rest of the herd had gone through the electric tape in the night and were happily munching on knee high grass id been saving for winter. day got even worse. Rolled up electric fence, caught horse and ran back to load her for the show. Except the trailer had sprung a flat tire. Day now verging on near disaster.

i got to the show after changing the tire myself, only to be to late for my first test anyway. but still had 15minutes to get to the second test. i asked a random lady to help me (god bless her kind soul, she saved me) and in ten minutes i had my horse plaited and was on her back, no time for warm up. I went and rode my second test. It was not great, but i couldn't have expected it to realistically have gone any better with no warm up. From there it was straight to the last test of the day. Literally leaving one arena and straight to the next. The last test wasn't a great improvement. horse was tense and the whole thing was just a bit of a disaster. i really would have done better top save the gas money and stayed home. I headed back to the the farm feeling depressed and frustrated, with the morning events.

Just when i thought day couldn't get any worse , i dove up to the house, unload the horse, look to the paddock to find a big brown dog, chasing cattle.

F*$K, SH!T, CR%P!!!!!!! Was all i thought. Dogs chasing stock is about every livestock owners, nightmare. i threw the horse back in her paddock, and took off running for the cows. Getting closer, i slowed to a walk. I wanted to catch this dog not scare it back into the bush. I let out a loud whistle, and miraculously it stopped and started to come towards me, i whistled and called it again in my friendliest tone "come on boy, come on". But on hearing this my own dogs leaped from an the veranda of the house where they were locked and coming running to me. The brown dog turned tail and ran for it.

To cut a very long story short, ten minutes later the dog reappeared. This time i had my own dogs tied, my biggest fear being that if this was an aggressive dog, i didn't want it tearing my dogs to pieces. I called it again, and again it came toward me then ran back into the bush. This time i followed calling and whistling. I started walking around the trees where i last saw it disappear, and then turned around to find it sitting on the trail behind me, wagging its tail and panting. i called it over put a rope on it and took it to the house. It was a nice dog, a chocolate lab mix, happy and friendly, but covered in fleas and a bit mangy looking, as well as very thin.I tied it up, gave it some food and water and left it, happily relaxing in the shade of the house. Waiting for the owners to show up and reclaim it.

I didn't have to wait long. A couple hours later A beat up yellow Ute came rattling down the driveway, a dog cage sitting on the back. i walked out to meet them leading the brown dog, who on seeing the truck started wagging his tail and emitting happy whines of greeting. No dount these were his owners.Two men got out, looking every bit the beer swilling, country hick idiots they were. one wearing socks but no shoes, and a bear gut poking over the waist band of his pants, the other in a well over sized heavy rock singlet and ripped jean tucked into over sized gumboots.

Yea it was there dog, they'd gotten 'a bit messed around' hunting last night and ended up coming out the back of my farm, 5km from where they were supposed to be. About the time they described themselves 'banging around in the trees' is about the time i had horses running through fences....Co incidence? i think not? it doesn't take a huge amount to spook horses, and strange noises from the forest probably would have done it.

The guy explained that he walked to the end of our road and then called a mate to come pick him, his fellow hunter, and his dogs up. " 'cept i forgot to count ma hounds 'n left this fellow behind, ma best duck dog, he is". Genius. he only realised later in the day when he let the dogs out of the truck again.

I gave him back the dog, after telling him about the stock chasing and the horses in the night. he apologized and went on his way.

Not very far on his way, his truck battery had died, and while him and his mate tried roll starting it, it rolled all they way into a ditch on the side of the drive. They were now stuck at my place, Just when i thought my day might be getting better, it suddenly got worse...

I hoped in the farm truck and drove it down to them. He tried jump starting off my vehicle, but that didn't even wake a response from his tired old truck. So next he fished out a rope, as i offered to give him a tow out of the ditch at least. The rope snapped 3 times before i went back to the house and got our tow chain.

Finally towing him out of the ditch and along the drive, i was suddenly slammed forwards into the steering wheel, as my truck was smashed from behind. In-bred hick hadn't thought to use his brakes, and rolled his truck right into the mine.....WTF!!!! i wondered if this guy could be any dumber? luckily the farm truck is a hunk of junk and wasn't damaged.

Next the guy, who was sinking ever lower in my opinion, asked if he could " borrow a spanner, I'll just go ahead in be putting this good battery back in" as he lifted another car battery off the back of his truck.....Really? he couldn't have done this to begin with??

finally after countless minutes of fiddling with spanners and wires and continuous commentary about what a 'bad day he was having' he had the battery fixed in place, the truck started (thank god), and he was on his way again.

I think my bad day defiantly topped his bad day. But looking back all i can do is chuckle to myself, what a comedy of errors!! At least his loose dog and stomping around the forest in the night only resulted in broken fences not broken animals....His stupidity also had the positive effect of making me feel really intelligent by comparison.

Sometime is goes so wrong you have to laugh!!