Keep breathing

I was about to go for a walk when the phone rang. It was C, who has been housesitting at my friend’s place where I moved my horses to last month. The paddock at my place turned to a quagmire in the June rain. I dragged the horses from the fetlock deep mud, put them on the float and unloaded them in my friend’s sandy, well-drained paddock. So am now back and forth, once, twice daily, checking, grooming, feeding, rugging. Rugging isn’t a normal equine activity for me but this winter has been brutal and old Floss had been suffering in the wet, cold weather. Wrapped in her warm, water-proof blanket at night, with a hot bucket feed twice a day, she is thriving, looking ten years younger than she did a month or so ago. But still, I worry about her. And now the phone is ringing and I can see from the screen that it is C and I know it can only mean that she is concerned about something with my horses. And all I can think of is that something has happened to Floss.