Mr. Moses

I have had this post queued for a very long time.  It is not possible to be in the animal rescue business & not have someone like Mr. Moses in your emergency contact list.  As of now Becca is looking better, if still a bit tippy, (we did a spinal tap, we are waiting for results) & I thought this lull might be a good time to get this up there.
 
Unlike the man of song, our Mr. Moses is not so much a merchant as a knackerman.  For anyone who has never read any of the All Creatures books, first: shame on you & second: the knackerman comes to take the body away & make it into....fertilizer...I'm guessing.

The first time I called Mr. Moses I actually got his wife & mother.  Let me say, Mr. Moses is not a young man.  If he is less than 60, I am something I am not.  On this day we had euthanized an old thoroughbred who had arrived here years earlier without a name; they called her the other red mare.  I decided that was unacceptable, renamed her RedBud for my favorite tree & then went on to discover what complete asshats the operators of the rescue that fostered her were (for example, RedBud was '"unleadable".  It took me less than a week to realize she had an abscess behind her ear, right where the halter pressed. Once treated, she led just fine).

In her last months, summer months, she lost weight almost before our eyes.  She was old & broken & I did not think putting her through a winter (even here it gets below freezing) was the best way to end her days.  I made an appointment with S***** & we put her down in the early fall, the air was already cool until the sun was well up.  She had many carrots while the shots were put together & she went over slowly & died peacefully.

Unfortunately, although I had called Mr. Moses ahead of time & made an appointment, something bad happened to a good part of a herd of cattle & he left to go deal with that. Around dusk, his wife & mother came with the back up truck, winched the body in & drove away. 

I have called him since then, although I have not seen anyone but him since that first time.  he is a hands-on kind of person & does the work efficiently & not unkindly.  There is no other knackerman in our area & we are lucky to have him.

//& happy Saint Pat's.  Like so many he was almost certainly more than one person.  His cult has grown well-beyond the church, although he remains invoked by the faithful to heal snake bites, to calm sufferers of ophidiophobia (who may very well be victims of snake bites, hence the fear), as well as being patron of engineers & excluded people.