Vandals Strike!

I didn't know late last night, as I posted about our exciting day, that probably at that very moment more excitement of the wrong kind was happening in the barn.  After Herb went out to feed this morning, he came back and told me, but his description didn't prepare me . . .

for what I found waiting inside the tack room.

Herb was right about one thing--almost everything was ripped off the walls and thrown into a heap on the floor.

The chair was thrown clear across the tackroom, lunge lines were ripped off their hooks, even the extra girths were pulled off the hooks under the saddles, and the Western saddle and pad were thoroughly stomped on.

Who could have done such a thing?

The evidence is here in plain sight, if you haven't already seen it in the previous pictures.

No DNA testing or fingerprinting are necessary.  In fact, fingerprinting would be useless--these criminals left none!

They obviously didn't intend for me to clean up, by the state of this broom.  Fortunately, they missed two other brooms and a pair of rubberized gardening gloves.  I was glad to use those as I sifted through the manure-covered, urine-soaked remnants of my medical supplies, riding accessories, turnout sheets, and tack!

Finally the tack room was back in order.

Well, almost!  It's just going to take a while for the urine stains to dry, and I think I'd better pour some bleach over them.

How, you may ask, do I know there were two criminals?  Why not one or four?  Well, I don't know if this would hold up in court, but this is way too much pee for one horse to have done . . .

. . . probably too much manure for one--and definitely all equine!  The bovines are innocent!  Based on her criminal record, Brandy--the one who can open the doorknob--was the perpetrator with Angel as her accomplice.

Unfortunately, due to the Three Second Rule, they got off scot-free!  The Three Second Rule says you have to punish an animal within three seconds of its disobedience or it has no idea what it did wrong. 

So once I washed all the poopy stuff and hung the blankets to dry--out of reach on the garden fence!--there was only one thing to do:

Laugh!  =D  In fact, I brought Kara over to see so we could share a laugh together, and I chuckled mentally to myself the whole time I was cleaning up.  What else are you gonna do?  Besides remember to ALWAYS lock the tackroom!

One nice thing was that while I was busy cleaning up after the horses' depradations, Kara joined Herb at the chicken coop, and they made great progress! 

Oh, and I thought of new nicknames for Angel and Brandy:

Hun and Vandy!