Fred is Stuck on the Fence!

In the spring of 1977, my dad went to Douglas Wyoming for six weeks for police academy training. I was nine years old. Kent and Kris had graduated from high school and were no longer living at home (I think Kris was living with Grandma Jasperson). Kelly was living in Hawaii that year going to high school. So, I was the oldest child still at home. I think Dad was originally scheduled to be gone the entire three weeks but he came home on one weekend.

Dad made arrangements with our neighbors to feed the cows and stock in the yard. However, Cade and I were responsible for the morning and night chores. I think the only chore we had was milking the cow. 

We had two large Belgian horses that we used as a team to pull a sleigh in the winter for feeding the cows. The horses were named Flax and Fred. They were full brothers. Flax was one year older than Fred. My dad raised them from colts. Their mother was one of the first Belgian horses my dad owned. (Her name was Bess.) They were one year younger than Cade and I. 

Not the same horses from the story
but some other draft horses that Dad had
and an example of loading the sleigh to feed the cows in the winter
January 1989

In the first week that Dad was gone, we had an animal crisis. One evening, when Cade and I went out to do the chores, we found Fred stuck on the fence. At the time, part of the fence in the yard was a pole fence that crossed Miller Creek where it ran through the corner of the yard. Fred had knocked the top pole off of the post. Then he attempted to cross the fence. Somehow, he ended up with his front feet on one side of the fence and his back feet on the other side of the fence. The middle pole on the fence was right under his belly. In a sense, Fred was "high centered" across the fence. 

Jamie, Tanner, Allyn, Jason, Truman, and Ashton
Summer 2005
(Miller Creek in the corner of the corral
the poles the kids are leaning on in the middle of the creek are the poles Fred was straddling)

Cade and I tried to get Fred unstuck from the fence. We lifted his front foot to get it over the fence. However, Fred could not lift his leg high enough to get the front foot over the fence. We lifted Fred's back foot. But, Fred could not lift it high enough either to get it over the pole. We tried making Fred jump to get over the fence, but he could not. 

Cade and I walked to the house to get Mom for help. She could not get Fred over the fence either.  Mom decided that we would need to remove the pole from the fence post to lower the pole so that Fred could get unstuck. She asked Cade and me to go to the shop and get a hammer. 

Unfortunately, Fred really was high centered. Part of his body weight (he weighed about one ton at the time) was resting on the pole. As a result, we were not strong enough to pound the pole away from the fence post so that we could lower the pole. 

About this time, Cade and I made a brilliant conclusion. We walked to the barn and returned carrying large armloads of hay. We told Mom that we would just put hay on the ground in front of Fred so that he would not starve. Then we would wait until Dad came home to help us get Fred unstuck. 

Mom assured us that while innovative, this was not the best idea. Dad was not scheduled to be home for three weeks. She was not willing to bring hay and water to Fred for three weeks each day. She called our neighbor Bernard Larson. Bernard and his son Gaylon came over to help us. They were strong enough to pound the pole away from the fence post, lower the pole, and get Fred to finish walking across the fence.