Safe again

Well, despite HIS back problems at the moment, Mark managed to fix all the gate hinges that weren't installed securely yesterday (FIVE of those gates!!).  The gates hadn't been put up yet when it was time to bring the horses home, so some of them were simply set onto two hinge pins that were both facing "up."   The gates are heavy, so I guess it was assumed that no one - particularly the horses themselves - would be lifting them off their hinges.  Wrong!  Leave it to Duke!

To install the gates correctly, it's necessary to loosen the hinge bracket that's attached to the gate, then slide it up onto a downward-facing pin, then tighten it back up.  Here's how it's SUPPOSED to work. 

Once the hinge bracket is tightened, it's no longer possible to just "lift" the gate off the pins since the bottom one faces up and the top one faces down, holding the gate in place no matter what, unless the bracket is unscrewed.  Apparently Duke (hopefully Duke and not some neighbor kid or someone)  lifted that side gate off the pins and that's how he got out.  Anyway, THAT won't happen again.  Hope we've got everything to the point now where the horses will not be able to get loose ever again.

I hope.  I'm sure Duke is examining all the possibilities.  Sure hope he doesn't come up with anything.  (Anything ELSE.)

And Mark is going to install the automatic waterers in their stalls before he heads back to work so I won't have to deal with those 5-gallon buckets after he leaves.  So I thought things were all pretty much updated and I would have no trouble with anything.  But obviously it's not possible to prepare for everything.  I was getting ready to feed the dogs this morning and Joey threw up.  Now normally that would be no big deal.  (Apparently he had been chewing on one of the blankets and his tummy was protesting.)  But this morning both Mark's and my backs were hurting so it was darned hard to get down there and clean it up!  Yuk!  But Mark did it for me.  I'm sure grateful that he was still at home or I probably would have just blown off work today.  If I were to get down on the floor these days, I'm not sure I would be able to get back up anytime soon!    Called that ortho doctor's office and got them to move my appointment up to 8 AM on Monday morning when he first gets back from vacation (thanks to his nurse!)  Sure hope he can do SOMETHING about this pinched nerve thing SOON!  It's amazing how many things you take for granted that you just can't do the minute something like this happens.