It’s been a friend-intensive weekend already, and it’s only Saturday afternoon.

This morning Marv called me to come look at one of his horses. Vet calls are expensive, and if it’s something small, I can sometimes treat it or at least tell him he should have the vet out. I give all of his vaccinations, for instance.

He’s got this old palomino mare — his first horse. She’s had arthritis pretty bad for the last few years and has been retired. I suggested that maybe it was time for her to go last year when her knee swelled up so bad that she couldn’t walk, but his horseshoer gave him some advice and she’s limped along OK for most of the year.

But last night that knee was looking a little swollen, and by this morning it was running and ugly, so he wanted my opinion. On first glance, it looked horrible. Her leg was swollen all the way up to her shoulder and she could hardly move at all. It looked like an abscess had popped and was draining all down her leg, taking a lot of the hair with it.

I talked to him about balancing treating a horse that’s in that bad of shape with her quality of life afterwards. You have to look at the money, and whether or not it’s something that’s curable at all. I told him that at the least, it was beyond my expertise to fix, and if he wanted to treat her, he’d better have the vet come out. And that’s several hundred dollars right there, and may not end up treatable. The tallow truck charges a couple of hundred to pick up a dead horse too, so if he chose to go that way, I could help him.

So that’s what he decided to do. He said she’d been in enough pain and cost enough money, and it was time to make that call. But he couldn’t do it himself, so I did it for him. I led her to the gate out of sight from the road so the truck would have access, and put a bullet in her head. It was pretty ugly, as such things are, and I left him with strict instruction not to let his wife go back there.

Poor old gal, she was a good horse and taught a lot of people to ride in her day. She also taught a lot of us to duck since she was prone to taking off through the orchards when she got the whim. I spent a lot of time on the back of that horse, but when it’s time, it’s time. And that’s the sort of things friends do for each other, even if it is sort of unconventional.

Right after that I had to head back home because my friend the Photographer was coming to pick up my extra washer and dryer. I’m glad I scavenged those; they were originally for the barn, but Cowboy never came and got them. The Photographer is starting over from scratch, so I’m glad I could help out my friend.

We went out for lunch and spent a couple of hours catching up. We’ve both been burned pretty badly this year and have remarkably similar ideas on dating and philosophies on life, so we chewed on those for a while. Then it was on to a side dish of freaky ex behavior — mostly his. His has required supervised visitation with his kids for no real reason (since he’s one of the best and kindest fathers I know) and he’s having a hard time finding someone acceptable to both of them to be the third party. His friends up in Sac don’t want to get into that can of worms because she’s truly unhinged and will be all up in their faces. But since I don’t live anywhere near her, I’m not a girlfriend, and I have known both him and the kids for a long time, I offered to throw my name in the hat if he needed me. I can spend a day on my off weekends up there as easily as down here and it’s good to help a buddy out.

It comes back at you too — his company’s looking for treatment plant operators, which I happen to be. I’m going to pass along my resume and see what comes up that doesn’t require too much traveling. I can act as a contractor to his company if I have to also, as I’m already set up to do that. I just have to get my certification as a woman-owned small business, and I’ll get even more points on my side. Man, if I only lived up there, I could have my pick of jobs, but not being able to move is really going to do bad things to me when this job runs out.

So, I think I’ll go get things together to head up to the mountains tomorrow. It’s a little ugly, but I could use a day of peace, and peace is up there.