It’s one of those days that you know will happen, you just don’t think it will happen to you and one of your horses.  But one day you find yourself clutching the phone, thinking pick up, pick up! as it rings and rings.  (Actually it only rings twice, but to you it feels like twenty.)  When you do get a human’s voice, you struggle to control your own.  “This is an emergency horse call,” you say.  “His eyes are swollen—the left one is nearly shut—and his nostrils and lips are swollen too.  He has no temperature.”  As you hear yourself talk, you try not to think about, let alone mention, the obvious: it’s snake season.  Was Gunsmoke bitten by a rattler?

Even a first-time owner would know something awful has happened to her horse. (Photo by Joan Fry)

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