Those of you up to date on your ‘Rosemary Farm’ blogs will be familiar with the story of Molly, the pregnant perchie pulled from the slaughter truck to come and live at the farm (please read “Getting Molly” for the full story).

Molly had been living basically wild in a field for years, with a stallion, having babies, before I met her. Clearly her little experience with humans didn’t give her a lot of reason to respect us as a species. When I first saw Molly she had a hay string tied around her throat latch, dangling down so she kept stepping on it, choking. I will never forget that image of Molly.  It wasn’t easy at first because Molly wasn’t used to a human relationship; she thought she was in charge, and was going through all sorts of separation from her horse family. She bit me hard one day, in the back, when I didn’t ‘listen’ to her, so we had to re-order things. My fault and my responsibility to fix. Now we are close friends, and she ‘gets’ that I am in charge and will protect her, instead of the other way around.  She enjoys her special massive pregnancy stall and getting grain twice a day, and calls to me in a guttural whinny that pulls at my heart. Her pregnancy has been advancing normally and we are in daily expectation of a little bundle of equine joy any day now. All has been well.

I would add here “and she lived happily ever after”, but we had another incident a few days ago. It was a warm spring evening, the farm in early bloom. I had been down with the horses all afternoon and left to fix dinner. Molly had been eyeing the nearby field earlier, and now pushed open a gate and wandered out on our property, to graze the fresh grass. I had seen her around 6pm, and by 8pm realized she was gone. I wasn’t too worried, as she knows this is home and isn’t interested in leaving, and this was my first mistake. I was thinking that ‘I trusted her’, not that ‘she might be in danger’. We looked for her as the light faded to black, but after a few hours into the night,  became concerned. She wasn’t in any usual or favored spot, and there was no whinnying reply to my calls. It was about 11pm, and Robert went to check on the water tank for the main herd. As he was filling it, I sat in the car that we had been driving over our property, and the headlights were playing tricks in the shadows. How could I be seeing a horses’ shadow in front of me, down the bank, when the horses were behind me? I turned around to see if the light was bouncing off something behind them, but it was not. I looked ahead again, and the shadow moved. Oh my god, it was Molly, down in the swampy area. Or was it? It wasn’t big enough to be Molly, but looked like her profile; had Molly foaled and that was her baby? We scrambled down the hill, it was much worse then I could imagine. Molly had wandered into an area that, decades ago, used to be a manure pit. The containing wall had been removed over 15 years earlier, and all that remained was a swampy, smelly field. I had walked it myself. But one area that was strong enough to support a walking human was apparently not enough for a pregnant draft mare, and she had fallen through. Where there had been stubby grass that afternoon was now a black pit of old sulpherous manure swamp, and Molly was sunk up to her sides. Clearly she had been there hours, struggling and digging in deeper. She was exhausted and terrified. Of course we began furiously digging but it was clear it was too deep for us to handle. Robert called the fire department (which he happens to be a member of) while I stayed with Molly, and trucks and police soon arrived on the scene. It was nice to see friendly faces, the guys Robert works with every week. We all kept digging together, but it only got worse. Molly was exhausted and was sinking further. We tried to dig around her at the girth line to run something under her, but she was too big. It was about this time when I truly felt she might die. Her breathing was labored and she was disappearing into the black earth. We needed to get something around her, and quickly. We found a piece of metal and Robert curved it to snake around her, at first hitting her sides below, and the men tried again. Finally it worked, sliding underneath her enough that they could grab it on the other side.. All of this is being done now after midnight, in a dark pit, with emergency vehicles lighting the area, and every human covered in black muck as we all fell down over and over into the mire.

Once the metal was under her, a rope was attached to this; then a fire hose, each pulled carefully under and around Molly’s girth line. I stayed at her head, talking to her, giving her bits of grass. The fire crew was wonderful about understanding her pregnancy and trying to save the baby as well. When we had the hose around her, we hooked it to the fire truck crank parked back on the road, and began to pull. Molly’s front end came up out of the ground, but began to spin around, and the belt started sliding off. We had to stop. At least she could breathe better now, but was still stuck. We added a second line, around under her tail, which I was in charge of. She had been stuck awhile and had pooped over everything, and I was trying to see if she was in labor as well. Her long black tail was caught and filthy. My hands were freezing. I was able to push the line around her haunches, partway,and we tried pulling again. The rope snapped up, catching under her tail bone, threatening to snap it,  and I  yell for them to stop over the sounds of the motor. This repeated at least three times, as we would pull, the stop, then re-set. Molly was clearly out of energy, and getting very cold. Finally, the angle was right and they pulled again, and Molly was dragged out slowly on her side; when clear enough she began scrambling herself, shaking off gear and lines as she tried to stand. It was now 1:30 am, and she was shaking with cold, fear and exhaustion as she pulled herself shakily to her feet, with Robert at her head. We were all covered in black mud and shivering. But Molly was out.

I didn’t get to properly thank the crew as they wrapped up, as I had to take Molly right away for some food so she could generate some heat. She was very wobbly. After walking her, both of us shaking, grazing her so she could warm up, I got her to her stall and blanketed her. We were all as shaken as you can imagine. Molly seemed to understand all that had happened and was just as great as she could be. Showers and warm drinks helped the humans, and by the next morning it seemed that Molly would live. I did call my vet in the middle of the night, and they said what I feared, that either the baby would live or not, that we would have to wait and see. In the morning I walked Molly, brushed all the mud off of her, gave her extra grain, and did a physical inspection. No signs of labor, tail bone seems to have survived, no fever, and all limbs intact with no heat or swelling. She seemed shaken but ok. Now it’s been a few days and we have seen the baby kick. Molly is content. So it seems that Molly had yet another miracle in her life.

There were several mistakes and several miracles in this tale; my two mistakes were to not have that gate securely enough to stop a horse, and to not take her wandering off as seriously as it was. The miracles were that I saw her head poking out that night, in the black shadow of the hill, and that the fire department was able to save her from it.

There are so many people who have intervened in this mare’s life that I can be nothing but grateful; from the friends at auction who first helped me cut loose that hay string, to the rescue groups who helped me track the horse broker, even to that buyer who was willing to sell her to me instead of to slaughter that day; to the friends who helped fund her purchase and the other rescue group that contributed to her pregnancy vet bills… and now, for the Hobart Fire Department who saved Molly’s life from the swamp pit that would surely have ended it; who treated her like the family member that she is. Thank you. From the bottom of our hearts.

We hope we can now say, “and she lived happily ever after”.