Stetson’s Stall: The Wind vs. Tree vs. Shelter

Yesterday was an exciting day! We thought we had prepared for the wind- all of the tables were turned over, the chairs were stacked, the trash cans were put away. For the past few months we have been trimming trees and cutting back all dead branches. We were pretty confident that the wind would not be an issue.

Of course, as an English teacher I should be circumspect about hubris; pride always goes before a fall. The fall of a tree, that is- one of the trees that was in Stetson’s stall was actually ripped out of the ground by the wind, and fell over onto his shelter, collapsing it. Thankfully, he was safe and did not get hurt. Javier cut up part of the tree so we could get Stetson out, and we put him in the arena where he could be safe.

I called a few people to have them come out and help us- even though it was a weekday, we were very thankful that we had eight people who came out to help. We are so lucky to have such wonderful volunteers!

Javier finished cutting up the smaller parts of the tree that he could take out using his small saw. That evening, however, we were faced with having to deal with how to get a large tree trunk out of the stall in addition to determining how to put the shelter back up. After inspecting the shelter, it was apparent that  the pipes that hold it up were bent and unusable, so instead we took the shelter apart and put it on the ground in front of the stall. The tree, however, posed a different problem- it had been ripped out of the ground, its roots exposed; even with eight people, it was much too heavy for us to move. We finally tied a rope to the tree and tied the other side of a truck, and slowly but surely we pulled it out of the stall. We had to rotate the trunk a few times so it wouldn’t get stuck, but eventually we were able to get it clear of the stall.

We cleaned up the rest of his stall and put Stetson back- he still has some shelter from the trees that are still solidly in the ground, and it’s not supposed to rain until next week, so we have some time to get parts for his shelter and will plan on putting that back up for him. He was so happy- the first thing he did when he got into the stall was he went to the bathroom, then he walked over to his feeder and began eating (he wouldn’t eat his pellets when he was in the arena). Even without the shelter, at least for him all was right in his little world.