"MareStare Moments" - Share yours! (not a mare specific thread)

Well, I'll start. I'm sure I'm not the only one to have a "moment" like this while watching cams.

My most recent one happened tonight. But let me fill in some back story....

I've got a lot going on right now. But who doesn't, right? Between a LOT of stress at work and then having to find a home/farm in short order, then add Raven about to foal on top of that and well, I'm earning my gray hairs!

So, I finally get home from work tonight, late of course, and we still have metal to put back on the barn from winds these last few days. So we're using the last few minutes of light to get it all nailed back on, feed quickly, water, check that everyone still has 4 legs and 2 ears and call it done! Run in the house, feed dogs, feed cats, start the oven, check work email and now it's time to pull the cams back up. As I'm getting them all up and arranged on my screen, (yes, there is a method to my madness and no, it doesn't involve drinking...yet), I see that Heather has updated the thread Raven is on on MS to say that Chanel has wax. How exciting! So, I'm getting the cams in order and I look at cam 2 and there's Ravey and her cohorts (4 screen split) and one of the stalls looks funny. I can't quite tell what I'm seeing. But something doesn't look right. Then as I'm peering closer and closer to my screen (like that's going to help!) I SEE A BABY! Oh my god! Temptation has a baby in her stall! What is going on? Where is Heather??? Where is Shannon???? Do they know she's foaled???? Run! Where's my phone??? Find my phone. Dial Heather. Rings forever (or so it seems). She answers.

"Heather!" I say.

"Yeeesss" is the tentative response to my urgency. What the heck? Doesn't she realize there's a foal in Temptation's stall???

"Heather, there's a foal in Temptations stall" I yell.

I hear the hesitation on her part. What's wrong with her?

Then, finally, her acknoledgement. "I know. She had a foal a couple of days ago."

What??? What???

OMG! I'm looking at Temptation but thinking Chanel!

I was so embarrassed!

I quietly apologized and hung up the phone. And I haven't even been drinking! :GetDrunk

That's my latest marestare moment. Now, come on ladies, share yours!

oh no!!!! lol Parmela LOL you poor thing I don't have one to share at the moment but WOW I don't think we can top that one! I can't help but laugh but you must be exhausted!!! :*(

lol try get some rest.... it sounds as though you need it... hugs! lol

The first year we had Mare Stare I never gave it a thought that "the world" was watching. When I get in the house for the night, I love to get into my "comfy house clothes", which consists of baggy flannel pants and an old t-shirt. I went to the barn about 9:00 PM to check on a mare that was close to foaling.

I came back in the house and checked my e-mail...there sat an e-mail from my mother who was watching the cams. The e-mail stated "loved that outfit". I looked at what I had on...vertical big-striped multi-color flannel pants and a pink & green horizontal striped t-shirt. Can we say U-G-L-Y outfit ? LOL I have since learned to keep jeans handy near the door for a fast change, if we need to get to the barn quickly.

I always hope people are looking at the horses and not me.

Actually hoping they are saying "get out of the way so I can see the foal!".

OMG that is hilarious Parmela!

The worst thing I do is talk to the people delivering through my computer. Like I'm their assistant or something. Can they hear me? NOOOO

I am also guilty of pushing with each mare that I see push. LOL and then I cry because each birth is a miracle and it just touches me to see this beautiful new life come into the world.

The gate on Britt's stall is very low cos she is so tiny and I want her to see out. Well last year I popped over the gate with my grooming box in my hand and caught my foot and ended up flying into her stall and landing on my belly Of course the cam was on for the whole world to see my entry Britt shot to the back of the stall looking petrified at my behaviour

Castle Rock Miniatures said:

Now THAT must have been a picture to see!!!!!! HOW did I miss it??????

(BUT I'M REALLY GLAD YOU DIDN'T GET HURT, my friend! !!

)

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You have me in stitches

Haha oh no Renee!! I can't stop laughing you poor thing!!! Lol

Diane love the pics as always her hee you always some how find the best ones!!

Oh my goodness Eagle. Those are the times you go "why do I have this cam on LOL" Too funny.....

Our first year on Mare Stare I had JUST left the barn and went to the house to start dinner. I made it as far as getting everything out and turning on the oven when the phone rang.

"Your mare is foaling. Are you watching her?"

"I just left the barn !" I protested.

I thanked the very nice person and ran to the barn without even checking the house cams, just on the belief that they were right. Well sure enough my mare WAS foaling! After the foal was born and things started settling down I kept thinking that I had not even asked this person's name and had no way to thank them (this was before we had caller ID). My husband wandered in to the house (probably looking for dinner, and saw me on the house monitor out in the barn with a new foal and came to find me). I told him the story and a few minutes later he returned to the barn with a large green (2 x 3 foot) chalk board that we had in our son's room when he was a kid, and some chalk.

We wrote in BIG LETTERS, "Thank you for calling!". Hoping that the person was still watching. Well Steph acknowledged seeing it on a Mare Stare message board and we have remained friends through the years. She often TM me even at 1 am with updates that are often followed by "Are you still awake?"

I so admire the people that give up their day to watch over my mares and support me in my wanting a live foal. And go through the losses as well (those are so hard to go through publically).

You girls are cracking me up!!!

And Joanne, what a wonderful story, especially since you made a new friend in the process!

What an awesome thread!! How did this one get lost so many pages back?? We all NEED some comic relief right about now!!

I can't help but wonder how many people looked at our cams last Thursday and wondered WHAT in the world was going on???? That looks a like a vet and a crowd of people but that is NOT a pregnant mare???? No, it was our yearling colt who was being gelded in the large foaling stall because there was snow on the ground. My phone rang in the middle of the procedure and it was my regular vet (the one with the broken leg) calling to check on things. He was so glad he got to see the procedure so it worked out well all around.

amystours said:

What an awesome thread!! How did this one get lost so many pages back?? We all NEED some comic relief right about now!!

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YES! I definitely need a laugh. I'm so tense and focused on Sadie that everything else is on the back burner. It's pretty tense around her because of it. This thread reminds me to relax, just do my best, and that we're all here for each other!

We don't have a cam online, but do have it run to Mom's house. Everytime I take pictures of her nether reigions or get my milk sample, when I head inside, my Dad will say "Leave that horse alone!! She's never going to do anything with you up her butt all the time"!

Wish I could have a monitor in my house, but I have cows in this pasture, so Mom's house was only logical!

I tell ya what, if my phone is ever lost or stolen, Lord help whoever goes through my pictures!! LOTS of hooha and boobie and butt shots!! Haha!!

I LOVE the stories!!!

Heres mine

It was my very first foaling, I had bought a mini mare and she was in foal. I didnt know about testing strips, Didnt have internet cam., just a wireless baby moniter with a small tv to watch her.

It was raining cats and dogs, lightning, thundering...tv was sketchy at best. So I was watching her and all night she had been pacing, figured it was the weather. As I am on the phone giving detail to a friend, she goes down, and gets back up, after a few times my friend said GO...So I threw on my flip flops and headed out the back door in a sprint to get to the barn through the rain.

Then it started! As I was sprinting my flip flop got stuck in the mud, I fell down into a nice gooey mud puddle, and lost the flip flop! Determined to get to the barn, I got up and kept going, Only to walk in the stall and slip in the wet spot where her water broke. Nice! Baby was coming so I *helped* a bit got sack off, I was shaking with excitement Then after foal was born I looked at it and thought...Thats ONE WEIRD looking foal! Turns out my mini was covered by a donkey and I had a mini mule!

What a night!

Thanks for sharing Diane

LOL!! Diane, that secret code of honour is just brilliant!!

One year I remember we had several mares to foal and I had been checking through the evening in the barn with 7 of them. Three were pretty close, but I realised one was moving towards the first stage of labour. Popped back into the house(25 yards away) to grab my cuppa from the kettle I had left boiling and returned to watch and wait. Popped into her stall to pick up the mushy poos as she produced them, took a quick check down the line of other mares - all grazing quietly - and returned as she went down and started to push. Easy delivery, cleared the bag off baby's head and just moved it a little way so she could lean round to say Hi to her new child. Stood up, glanced up the barn and guess what? Mare at the far end had gone down and was pushing! Rushed up there to find two legs and a nose (thankfully!) and helped deliver another baby, same proceedure as before, clear bag from head and move just a little closer to proud Momma (I like my girls to stay laying down as long a possible). Thought I would pop back to check on first foal and ........................... goodness me ...................... a third mare was down and just starting tp push half way down the shed (I was beginning to think that there must have been something strange in the water supply during the previous day? LOL!!) Another easy delivery thankfully. All this took just under 20 minutes from when I fetched my cuppa - which I never got time to drink by the way!! Plus the last two mares never gave any last minute signs - they just grazed their hay, lay down and pushed so it just goes to show - dont expect to be able to drink your cuppa even if you have time to make it, and if you have more than one mare to foal, keep your eyes peeled down the barn when attending to the one who IS foaling!!

Having taken a deep breath and wiped the sweat from my brow, I used my mobile phone to call daughter who was asleep on our sofa - her turn for a kip- and told her to come out and bring me another cuppa!! We then spent a little while checking the new babies, doing their cords, finding out the sex, making sure the straw in the stalls was well banked up at the edges and in front of the doors plus a bit of fresh where there might have been a wet area from the foaling, telling our girls that they were very clever and thanking them for their sweet babies, and then finally offering the girls a small warm mushy feed and renewing their hay supply. Then we just left them to enjoy their new sons and daughters and retreated to watch from a distance with more cuppas and a cigarette or two until the foals were up, safe and feeding.

But that was an evening I wont forget in a hurry!!

OK, so I already kinda told my story on my thread, but I will give you a better version of it on here. Mine doesn't have to do with cameras, but still a good laugher none the less!! I still get myself tickled about it and can't stop laughing!

I'm on mare watch with my one and only mini Summer. I have been doing this since the 1st of March, since she was showing me so many foaling signs. I thankfully recently purchased my parents RV and it is parked right by her barn with a big window facing it, with an almost perfect view, there is only one little corner that I can't see. So I watch her and sleep in there.

I had been getting up every 30 min because she was doing funny stuff, so needless to say I was running on fumes and totally exhausted. (I also have 2 boys that I homeschool during the day) So one night I stayed up until 12 watching her, until I could not physically hold my eyes open any longer. I set my alarm for an hour and got up accordingly. Well I was so tired I forgot to hit the start button on my alarm after checking her at 1. At 4:45 I wake up in a complete panic, knowing I had been asleep WAY to long. I fly out of bed, run to the window, and I see this most tiny,brown, wet, curly haired baby horse curled up in the barn and Summer was standing next to it!! I grab my phone call my sister, who has been waiting for me to call her so she could help me in attending the birth, tell her we missed the birth and she had the baby! She says "Is it ok?" I said Im not sure I just saw it through the window and I'm running out there now, BYE! Well neither of us hung up our phones for the excitement!

My sister has 2 kids, a 9 month old and a 2 yr old so she was going to have her husband get up and go sleep with the baby while she was gone... her husband was sleeping in the 2 yr olds room.. they have strange sleeping arrangements... LOL.... So he hears her come running through the house, she runs to him and shakes him to death and says "Go in there with the baby!" and she runs out of the house and is already in her car peeling out while he is trying to ask her what is going on!!

Meanwhile I have run outside with my towels and all my supplies for baby, I run to the gate and Summer comes to the gate looking at me like I'm insane and still looking extremely pregnant! I'm so confused. I look in the barn and there is nothing in there, and it hit me like a ton of bricks that it was Summers shadow I saw, on top of some kind of hallucination! Just sheer exhaustion!

Well as soon as I discover it was a shadow baby I grab my phone to call my sister and tell her there is no baby. I realize neither of us hung up with one another and I can hear everything shes doing! She was in such a panic that she was trying to start her car with no keys! Well she cant hear me trying to tell her there is no baby, and she is already half way up the driveway by now.

So I'm trying to figure out how to tell her there is no baby with out freaking her out, because my emotions were all over the place. Laughing and crying at the same time!

She comes running up and she says "whats wrong??" And I tell her theres no baby, I'm so sorry, there's no baby! She dies with laughter and I'm crying and laughing, it was such a strange emotional roller coaster.

So she goes back home and whispers in her husbands ear "Mindy is seeing things, there is no baby, isn't that funny?" He says "NO!" and storms out of the room. She couldn't stop laughing.

Every time we talk about it we just get to laughing so hard we are crying and our stomachs hurt. All of this happened in a matter of about 5 minutes! It was a very crazy moment!

Hope this gives someone else a laugh... I know it certainly has us!

The hubby storming out had me in stitches Men have no sense of humor especially if you wake them in the night

Thanks for sharing Mindy.