E is for Empty

I wish I could have snuck out of the paying job early today to play in the warm weather. I think today is our last really nice day before the cold front blows through and we'll be stuck in a deep freeze. Guess a deep freeze gives me time to recover from all the bugs and maybe sit down and do some much needed and much ignored paperwork.

I still don't have anything ready for the new boarder coming on Sunday. Or at least I think we are going to go and get her on Sunday. Now that the weather is changing, we may want to hold off. The weatherman is predicting 12 below Sunday  night. The herd will definitely be going into the barn and stalls overnight. I need to see if I can get the gate open in the mare pen so I can pull everyone out. If the winds are as strong as the weatherman is predicting, we'll be looking at wind chills of 30 below. The only catch with the horses in the mare pen is that Rabbit has been pretty standoffish lately and won't let me touch her. I think she's mad at me for putting her in with the ponies. She pushes Tommy and Skippy pushes Mayhem. It's an odd combination.

So I have to confess and tell a little story on myself. It's totally unrelated to the Sanctuary but it's a good lesson for me to remember when hauling horses. Last night I had drill team practice. The gas gauge showed that I had just under a quarter of a tank. No problem. I was only going to go a miles one way. I should easily be able to make it there and back.

I hopped into the truck last night to head home and saw the dreaded gas gauge light had come on while I had let the truck warm up. The only other time that light has come on was when Dad was using the truck for something. He pretty much said that the minute the light comes on, you better be close to a gas station. Well, I wasn't TOO far away but far enough as far as I was concerned.

Of course, in my panic to not be stranded on the side of the road in the dark with a horse trailer, I called Mike. He tried his best to assure me that I would "probably" make it but I'd better drive slow and coast as much as possible. Do you know, there's a lot of hills to get to a gas station from practice. And even worse, how can all those hills be going UP and not down?

I drove as slow as I thought I could without totally puttering. I was afraid if I puttered too slow, if I DID run out of gas, I'd stop RIGHT in the middle of the road instead of being able to coast at least a little ways. I was only about a mile away when I saw the gas station lights. It was a beacon of hope. I wasn't sure how much farther we could go so I slowed down even farther and we practically coasted into the gas station. I MADE IT! woot woot! I'll never let the gas tank run down that low ever again!

I filled up and put 22.5 gallons of gas in the tank. I am guessing it's a 24 gallon tank. But when you get six miles to the gallon, you watch how many miles you have to go before getting to a gas station. It's a good thing we weren't out in the middle of nowhere! I would have been riding Rain home!