What a strange day.

Today we buried a horse. Not mine, we are not horsey people and have never had a horse on the farm.

When we were looking at the place there was a horse here. It used to stand in the furthest corner of the furthest paddock and eye us suspiciously if we came into sight. It must have spent a lot of time in that corner…it's not a great paddock but the grass in that corner has always been lush and thick. But that ended when we moved in.

But this horse's mother came from this farm thirty plus years ago. The owners had themselves moved away some years ago, and the horse had been pastured at a place near us. And now she was old, and falling apart with degenerating hooves and ankles and other, more complicated health issues.

The decision was made to put her down, but they needed somewhere to put the large corpse.

So I got a phone call asking if I would provide the space for the burial. They would pick up the tab, of course, and organize it.

I've known them for years. They are passionate about their livestock and they were dealing with a difficult set of circumstances. I was happy to help.

Many phone calls later it was all lined up for the Friday afternoon. The horse would be walked down the road to my place, the guy with the digger had dropped off his machine the day before, and the vet would be there at 4.00.

The reason the horse couldn't be buried onsite was they are about 2 metres lower than us, and with all the rain we have had over the last few weeks, a 2+ metre hole big enough for a horse would hit the water table. We are higher, and I have some spots that are higher still, with plenty of clearance from the underlying water.

On the day I moved my livestock out of the way so people could drive in without dealing with opening and closing gates. I also set up a trail of steel posts with a piece of cloth attached so they could find the spot.

The pit was amazing. It was about 2.5 metres, cubed….a huge, neat square cavity in the ground.

I got a call…the horse walker couldn't get in…the gate was locked.

We don't lock the front gate. Were they at the wrong place? It didn't make sense and I headed out to find out what was going on.

When I got there it was obvious, and obvious I should have thought of it….we have a cattle grid gateway. The horse couldn't have walked over that under normal circumstances, and unsteady on her terrible feet she was doubly at risk. Most the entrances around here have a second gate, and I've never understood what it was for. Firetrucks? Now I realized it was for when you wanted to move livestock out and bypass the cattlegrid.

For some forgotten reason I had wired ours shut. It wasn't locked but it needed a bit of muscle (and skin) to unwire it and open it up.

The vet arrived. Very professional, a smart young woman who knew what she was doing. The horse received a painkilling injection before a catheter was inserted. Then the vet rapidly pumped three tubes of bright green liquid in. They didn't do the trick and after a few minutes another one went in. The horse went down fast, and a couple of minutes later the vet confirmed with a stethoscope the horse was dead.

We waved off the vet, and I drove the walker back to the other property to where her car was parked. Happy to do it, but it also meant I didn't have to watch the digger push the horse into the gravesite.

When I came back he was nearly finished. He neatened up the site, using his massive machine with amazing finesse to level it all then pat it down.

When he had finished I showed him my terrible, mined paddock. He agreed he could do something with it, maybe take him a day, and we agreed I would be in touch when things had dried out a bit and I had the money.

I asked him about the job he had just done. It wasn't something he liked doing…it was sad, a lot of trouble, and on a pragmatic level cuts into a bigger day where he could earn more. But, he understood how difficult it was for the person asking him to bury their horse. So he took it on to help them out.

As did everyone who had been involved.