A Little Bit of Everything

DH went and picked up the new trailer yesterday and Cat from MIL’s on the way home. I was a little nervous having him try to load her by himself since I haven’t loaded her much and this trailer sits a bit taller than the ones she has been loaded in. The good news is he said she loaded fine. The bad news, he said the truck only got 6 mpg pulling.

I took all of my camping stuff out and put it in the front of the trailer. I can’t wait to go camping once the weather clears up and the trails open back up. I think we’ll do a “dry run” at mom’s & dad’s before we go too far away just to make sure we haven’t missed anything.

Here lately I’ve kind of regretted selling the Black mare a little bit. There are days I just want to get on and ride and not worry about training. There are also times I’d like to ride with my sister or a friend and not have to worry about having a broke enough horse for them to ride. At the time I really didn’t have much of a choice. We can only have so many horses and I was over my limit (I was shocked DH let me buy her in the first place but it was with the promise I’d sell her). I’ve talked to her owner and she said she couldn’t be happier with her.

At practice the other night one of the members offered me their Appy gelding. He’s pretty quiet but he’s pretty ugly too (I know, you can’t ride pretty but it sure doesn’t hurt either!). My trimmer was out and also knows of a gal who has a 12 yr. old? Appy mare that has been used for 4-H that he thinks will give her away if the home is right (are you reading this Traci?). I had him give her my number so I can go look at her. Unfortunately DH keeps reminding me that if one comes in, one has to go out.

I need to win the lottery so we can buy some horse property so I can have as many as I want. But the property isn’t the only issue. Hay prices are already through the roof and they haven’t even baled yet. We also got into a bit of an argument with my parents in regards to the horses the other night and thought we were going to have to move them somewhere else. If we had to move them we wouldn’t even be able to take what we have to MIL’s due to the convenience and restrictions she has on her land so we’d have to find a place to board which we wouldn’t be able to afford.

On another note: Do you remember me telling you about the two loose horses we caught a couple of month’s ago? A yearling and a mare and the mare foaled an hour after we left? Well I drove by the place Tuesday night on my way to drill and they had 2 more horses out so I stopped and they were home this time. Well last night DH and I dropped the truck off (it’s getting some repairs done) and decided to drive by and look a the river to see how much of the road it had washed out. On the way home we drove past the horse place and I joked and said – nope, no horses out this time. DH replied “yes there was”. I put the car in reverse thinking he was joking but he wasn’t. I knocked on the door but no one was home so I went to the barn and got a lead rope and a bucket of grain. The whole time I was drooling over the beautiful horses they had in their barn.

I walked out and the filly started to walk towards me. I shook the bucket and bam! She took off the other direction. They pulled in the drive laughing and said “let me guess, there’s a horse out?”. Come to find out they didn’t even think she was halter broke so it probably would have been a task to have gotten her caught. We helped run her into the pasture and I asked them what they did. They are horse traders but I guess I’d classify them as “high end” horse traders. They deal mainly with halter horses and well broke horses.

They walked me through their barn and the scrawny little palomino yearling that we’d help catch a few months ago was now a HUGE beautiful yearling! The only thing I didn’t like about him was his pasterns. They were pretty upright but I’ve been seeing that a lot more in halter horses lately.

They said in the 9 yrs. they’ve lived there they’ve had horses get out 4 times and 3 of the times I’ve found them. DH and I joked and said “they probably think we are letting them out”.

She took my number and I’m hoping to pick up a part time job checking in on their horses while they are gone (they are gone a lot). They had a hired man but he went to work somewhere else and they just haven’t replaced him yet. I sure wouldn’t mind making some extra money right now with the way gas and hay are going to be.