As many know, we had a fire in our barn on Thursday. We are incredibly lucky/blessed that it occurred during the day while all of the horses were outside. Our barn cat, Poca, was found in the loft and taken to the vet for smoke inhalation, but she came home Saturday and is doing well. The quick response of the fire department in putting it out contained the visible structural damage, but everything is covered in a layer of soot, and more equipment than originally expected will have to be replaced. Thankfully, the tack room was only effected by smoke, so while my tack currently smells like a bonfire, we did not lose any of it. Oddly enough, while the front of Cedric’s stall is completely destroyed, the pink lead rope we used as his stall guard is untouched. While Cedric will destroy any stall guard by just walking through it when he decides he wants to be out, he completely respects this leadrope and it has survived many years of keeping him in his stall. Despite the request not to touch anything while they’re in the process of assessing the damage, I grabbed that leadrope and it will now live in my trailer as a good-luck charm.
The range of emotions one faces in a situation like this is interesting. When I was in school, unexpectedly being picked up by my parents instantly filled me with dread. It was very likely something had happened to a family member or one of our animals. June 9th, 2009 stands out: that was the day my dad came to pick me up from school because Cedric was on his way to Tufts Veterinary Hospital for colic surgery, and the outcome did not look good (thankfully it was, and 9 years later he’s still leaping sideways 20 feet for no reason at random times during our ride). Now that I’m an adult and working, that dread comes from an unexpected phone call from one of my parents in the middle of the work day (we typically text about non-urgent issues). That was the phone call I received on Thursday from my mom – “Don’t panic, all the horses are fine, but we had a fire in the barn so your dad and I are both headed home.”
I joke that I should have a career in emergency response of some sort, as I tend to be very levelheaded and rational in a crisis. I recognized immediately that I needed to drive up there, but as the animals were safe and healthy, I could take a minute to wrap up anything at work and make sure my meetings for the rest of the day were covered. Great credit is due to the team I work with; everyone was (and continues to be) incredibly supportive and allowed me to push meetings around so that I could focus on helping my family out the past few days.
Thursday evening and Friday were spent sorting out the logistics of where the horses would live, getting the equipment/supplies we needed to replace right away, meeting with insurance inspectors and fire investigators, and moving horses around. The barn is not habitable due to the smoke damage (and the loss of two stalls), so Thursday night we moved all six horses to boarding barn nearby that was gracious enough to take us in. Our three older horses will be staying there, while I moved Cedric and Chandler down to Northern Virginia Friday afternoon, as that was the eventual plan so they could be closer to me. Roy decided to make our Thursday night even longer by taking a piece out of one of his hooves on the trailer ride to the new barn. Thankfully he didn’t damage anything important, and just needs to be on stall rest for the week while it heals before he comes down to Virginia to join my other two. Specific thank you to our farrier, Brandon Amos, our vet Jamie Peddy, and the team at Elixir Farm for being at the barn with us later than I’m sure any of us were happy about to take care of him.
The emotional aspect of what happened started to hit me on Saturday once I had a chance to slow down and process. I have refused to the play the “what-if” game of imagining scenarios where this didn’t happen during the day with the horses out, or the girls we had helping us hadn’t seen the smoke from the house as soon as they did. I’m not sure if this is an unhealthy way to process the event or not, but I don’t see any benefit doing so would provide. My mom and I both came to the realization Friday night on our drive back from dropping the boys in Virginia that this was the end of an era. It is unlikely my family will ever have horses on the property again, as the house has been for sale, and it will take a while for everything to be cleaned up and rebuilt. I spent many of my high school and college years training out of our barn, teaching students, and spending countless hours in it. I really felt this on our way home from dinner Friday night (none of us felt like cooking after the 24 hours we had had). It was cold out, and as I warmed up in my car on the drive home, I instinctively braced for the 10 minutes in the cold that night check would take – before I realized that was no longer something I would be doing. It’s amazing how much I’m going to miss that. At some point, I fully plan to have my own barn again, but for the time being this is a big change.
The positives: everyone is safe and healthy; we were able to find great places to board all of the horses; the barn is insured and will be rebuilt; the loss of hard-to-replace equipment like tack was minimal; I was forced to make a decision on barns and move my horses closer to me; the barn I moved them to is very well suited to get us legged-up for the competition season; and we have amazing people that care about us.
To the friend that drove me to my apartment to get my car, the friends that stayed on the phone with me during the drive up, our veterinary team and farrier, the barns that have opened their doors to us with little notice, the team I work with, and everyone who has reached out to check in on us, thank you. While we were incredibly fortunate compared to many others who have faced barn fires, the logistical stress and the loss of what has been a way of life for the past 9 years has made this a hard event to swallow.