If you don't do a good job - Mom will take care of the "Bad People"

The timing of the Kentucky event coincided Dolores’ annual vacation. Dolores is our regular farmsitter and knows the idiosyncrasies of our crew quite well. So, who to ask? After all, it’s not just the care of the animals, it’s also everything else (i.e. house).

Friends recommended a nursing student that they had used successfully in the past. It seemed to be a good fit, the parents own a feed store, and she is familiar with horses and other animals. We were fairly certain that all would go well, after all, JP would only be gone three days.

Imagine his shock when he came home to find a sick Saumur in a filthy stall, that hadn’t had any urine removed in three days, just some manure was picked out. (Saumur being sick of course most likely had nothing to do with the condition of his stall). When JP called the girl and asked what happened, why she hadn’t done the stalls she was completely taken aback and denied not having cleaned. In addition only two bales of hay were fed in three days to two horses and a pony. (Never mind that I left detailed written instructions on how much to feed).

To top it off, today her mother called to say we are no longer welcome to shop at their feed store because she didn't like her daughter to be criticized. Good thing that we don’t depend on them, they don’t carry most of our stuff anyway, but still: you can’t help but wonder how their stalls look, and what does that tell the young woman? You don’t do a good job - mom will 'punish' the “bad people”??