Leaving Home

Wow, it's hard to leave home!  I need to find a solution to this though because I think I am extremely tied down with the donkeys and hens in particular, the cats being a bit more independent!  While traveling isn't high on my list (I'm a home-body) we would like to take a trip to the UK this year.

I was just whisked away for a birthday weekend.  A good friend offered to house-sit and she has years of horse-experience so I wasn't at all worried.  But it took ages to write down everything I do during the course of a day and with Dorica's recent colic episode, my radar is still on alert.  I'm still hyper-vigilant about water intake, especially.

The morning we left, I got up extra early (groan) and flew around cleaning the barn, filling buckets, picking hooves etc.  We needed to be in the car by 9 AM and everything was going smoothly until .... I glanced at Dorrie who had been munching from her hay bag in her stall, and suddenly, there she was, not eating, just standing by her gate.  I thought my heart would stop!  Whaaaaat's wrong???

I let her come out of the stall and she roamed around a bit (not uncommon for her) and eventually went back to eating, but gosh, that was almost enough to make me cancel the whole trip.  In the end, all was well and my friend had a great weekend with the animals and all the food and treats I left for her!
But I think I aged a bit faster on this birthday, as it was about 8 hours and a phone call home before I quit worrying!

So how to get away for 3 to 4 weeks?  A sweet sister-in-law has offered to house-sit for 2 weeks and she
is 100% responsible and reliable.  Although she doesn't have equine experience, if I can put back-up
people in place, it should work ... no?  As long as Rose doesn't get a Spring abscess and nobody gets out a gate and onto grass and nobody colics and, and, and .... sheesh!  Think I can do it?