What I learned on our Hesperia Adventure (or Georgie is home!!)

 

First of all, YES! Georgie is in fact home and healthy and happy!!

 

But what I learned in the process:

 

Haulers are rather expensive:

Initially I had planned on having her hauled home. I didn’t really want to make that trip in my truck, or make that trip again period  (5 is pretty damn boring). But it turns out that hauling a filly in a box stall costs between $450 and $550. Um, for five hundred miles, and an eight hundred dollar horse, thats just too much.

So plan B. My dad (suprising) offered to drive me down to get her in his truck. WOW. Wasn’t expecting that! He didn’t want me driving my truck all that way with the steering not being right (the steering has never been right since I started driving that truck but apperent its only now a problem).

Friends can’t always come through in times of need:

Not friends won’t, just that they can’t always. My first choice of trailers to borrow (I’ll explain why not my trailer in a minute) was a co-worker of Lorens, but turns out the door on his trailer doesn’t always stay on, not so good for a long trip. My second choice (who has lent me her trailer before) was uncomforitable lending out her trailer when it wasn’t insured. I can understand, losing ones trailer would be a big deal. My third (who I just happened to run into in town and remembered that I had hauled for her before) co-owns her trailer with someone I don’t know and didn’t really want to ask if it would be ok. Really? Who co-owns a horse trailer?

I really need to rewire my trailer, and apperently my truck too:

So the reason that I couldn’t just take my dads truck and my trailer is because the trailer isn’t wired for his truck. Let me side track for a minute and explain this: When I first got my trailer it was like any other, it had its little end thingy and I had an adaptor for my truck and one for my dads truck. Then one day, I um, well, ahem kinda hooked up my trailer but, cough cough, didn’t hook up the electical. Um yeah. It drug on the ground for about 5 miles and totally stripped the end bare. Just wires left. Sigh. Yeah, my bad. So when my dad rewired it, for whatever reason that is beyond me ( but made perfect sense at the time) we rewired the connector straight into the adaptor, so only my truck (and other trucks with the same kind of hookup) would be able to haul my trailer. Yeah, bad idea!

So we finally just decided to see what we could do about hooking my trailer to his truck. Everything worked except the tail/running lights. So in theory we could drive down in one day and back the next thereby not needing the tail lights. Really glad we bypassed that option.

So on Wednesday (the day before we were supposed to go get her) my dad and I started work on the trailer. We succeeded in going from turn signals and brake lights working, to nothing working. Great. So in the end we left it till the next day, rewired the connector to my dads truck and left in the afternoon.

 

Bring along cash for an emergency, and you will be faced with one:

So arriving at our hotel (we got there too late to load and Loren wanted a good nights sleep anyway, and as it turned out, yet another thing that is a really good thing we didn’t do!) we found that the engine was leaking water all over the place. Not one for dramatics, I said lets go to bed and deal with it in the morning, not really anything to be done now. Plus I was very tired and had already slept a bit in the car. Last time I dealt with radiator problems I cracked several heads on my car, for those like me with little car knowlage, this means that you just killed your engine that that your vehicle aint goin nowwhere for a while!

Anyway, next day after a hardy Denny’s breakfast (you can always count on Denny’s!) because I believe that any problem should always be dealt with with food in your stomache, we went off in search of a car repair shop. Luckly the one we found was very helpful, figured out what was wrong pretty quick (long dead water pump) and fixed it by early afternoon. Which was the time I had planned on being home at. Oh well at least we got home!!

 

I bought a wonderful horse:

Well of course I did!! Silly me! But really, she did great! Her breeder thought it would be best if we pushed from behind to help her figure out her way in (my trailer is a step up). I really have to admit, despite being facing with a small dark trailer, and having a rope around her butt pushing her in, she tried really hard to figure out what we wanted and never freaked out. It didn’t take us very long to get her in and then she just stood there next to me, nervous but calm. Wow, is this really an Arab? She rode perfect the whole way, she didn’t even freak out when we left the farm and all her friends.

Horses from the desert take some adjusting in the mountains:

The poor thing had a hard time figuring out how to walk up and hill, with uneven terrain to boot!

 

Lucy has rules about new horses and her respect for me as herd leader stops once the halter is off:

I brought Georgie and Ollie up to the pasture on Saturday morning after they had all eaten their grain. Lucy and Huck hadn’t even noticed that I had a new horse and that Ollie had been in another paddock all night. Lucy came down to inspect the new inmate, sniffing her and deciding her plan of action. As soon as I took the halter off though Lucy bit her and kicked her, and then chased her off up the hill. No more then I expected really. But Georgie did not learn her lesson quickly. She kept trying to come down the hill to the hay piles (at which Huck and Ollie were peacefully eating). So Lucy decided she needed to really instill fear of God (in this case Lucy) into Georgie. So commenced the chase around the pasture, and remember that my pasture is very large, very hilly and has lots and lots of trees, both upright and on the ground. In fear of my new filly’s life I decided to follow them to keep Lucy from hurting her. At which point I learned:

That Ollie is a truely sweet horse:

Lucy corned Georgie in the far corner of the pasture, then chased her behind one of our water tanks. At which point I felt that Lucy had her pinned in a bad spot and talked with Lucy about it. No really, I just sat petting Lucy’s head and talking to her about it. Then I went over and pet Georgies head and stood with her knowing that Lucy would not charge Georgie with me there. Lucy finally left (glaring at Georgie every couples feet) and I decided to move Georgie from behind the tank. So I turned Ollie (who was standing behind her) around and pushed him out. He ran off around the side of the tank and started to run down the hill, but then stopped, turned around and run up to Georgie and sniffed her nose. After that he stayed with her the rest of the day. It was pretty darn cute that he stayed with her! Although considering all the care Lucy and Huck showed for him the night before when I took him out to put him with Georgie I can kinda understand him sticking with the filly!

 

 

That I have really wonderful and awesome boyfriend:

And that I cannot say enough! I probably didn’t mention that I cannot drive a cluch, and that my fathers truck is in fact a cluch. So Loren drove the whole way, and put up with me telling him how to drive (even though he has in fact trailered before ) and learning to back up a trailer. He  is wonderful!!

 

 

Ok, enough talk! Pictures of Georgie!!!

 

One of those silly little things we ponder in life

 

So this morning I was laying in bed listening to the rain, commending myself for having the fore site to put Lucy’s blanket on the night before, before it started raining (rather then waiting to see when it would start raining the next day, and inevitable it would start raining before I got a chance to get the blanket on her resulting in a cold, wet idiot of a horse that jumps a mile if you try to touch her) when I starting pondering blankets and horses.

I usually am pretty good about putting Lucy’s blanket on before it starts raining, as long as my father has warned me about the inpending rain as I never bother to check the forecast, if I am curious, I merely ask him, otherwise he will generally tell me.

So do you think that somewhere in the dark recesses of our horses minds (pushing aside the parts that think about hay, grain, whinnying at friends and how much being ridden sucks I am not sure how much is left) they relize that when we put the blanket on them that isn’t going to start raining?

Although there are times when I leave putting the blanket on till the last minute or am not prepared for the rain, for the most part her blanket does go on pre-rain. And there have only been a few instances where I put the blanket on and it didn’t rain. If it fact Lucy is aware that it will start raining after the blanket is put on she must have been very confused those times!

I KNOW my horse wants her blanket on when its raining, why she runs around like an idiot when I try to do so is beyond me, but I know beyond a doubt that Lucy is cursing my very name every second when she is in the rain without her blanket. I think that is why she is hard to blanket once the rain starts, she is just so pissed off at me that I didn’t get it on in time that she feels its ok to make my life hell because  I DIDN’T BLANKET HER BEFORE IT STARTED RAINING.

Lucy takes her personal comforts very seriously. VERY seriously. I (and even more so, Loren) make fun of her to no end because we know how seriously she takes her comforts.

 

But I still have to wonder if she sees me coming with the blanket and thinks to herself: “Ah crap its going to rain!”. Although probably Lucy blames the bad weather on me. It really wouldn’t suprize me in the the least, I do believe she blames all her other woes (and I am sure that is a very long list) on me.

 

Now do I wonder if Huck and Ollie realize its going to rain when Lucy gets her blanket on? Ollie, no. Ollie’s brain is mostly used for wondering why nobody loves him, why Lucy gets to wear a blanket (and what he might do to get such special treatment), divising tactics to make sure his head gets into the bucket first (he isn’t so good at that) and planning his next escape from the pasture (which is the only intelligent thing he ever does).

Huck, I am absolutly certain KNOWS EVERYTHING. I have no doubt that he knows every little thing that is going on at our house from how many eggs the chickens laid that day to when its that time of the month for me. If Huck could talk he could explain every one of the worlds problems, how they came to be and how to fix them. But he wouldn’t because its too much of a bother. Huck is not a horse, I think he may have an alien experiment gone very wrong, or perhaps very right, I’m not quite sure!

 

 

Anyway, thats what I was pondering today!

Just a bit out of it

 

Eek! Haven’t updated in a while! Not a huge amount to tell.

I haven’t been riding much, just too tired. I stopped riding Fadzki, I just wasn’t enjoying him that much.

Haven’t ridden Lucy in a while, but I am trying to get back on schedule.

Right now I am trying to figure out how to get my filly from Hesperia to home. Its harder then it sounds.

 

I told Loren that we could no longer stay up every night playing wow. Apperently I was very loud about this (I would chalk that up to sleep deprivation and moodiness from having not ridden in a while) because Loren refered to it as “yelling” and took me very seriously.

 

I got the flu last Friday and therefore missed a beautiful weekend to ride. It sucked.

 

So hopefully better news (or any news!) soon.

Ah, wait….

 

…. this isn’t what was supposed to happen, was it?

 

I decided to start riding Fadzki (who has really great endurance potential) I wanted to ride a horse that was eager to be out on the trail moving out and going for long rides.

Why? Because Lucy does not like moving out a lot on the trail and going for longer rides.

So I put out the word that I might be looking to ride with another endurance rider and found Daniela, and of course Fadzki.

So what is the problem? Um, this horse moves out less then Lucy! Ok so I have only ridden him twice out on the trail, both times by myself (its weird riding a horse that you don’t know out on the trail by yourself, with Lucy its like going out for a hike with a friend). But really, this horse is driving me up the wall! I have a hard time getting him to move out and his gaits are appalingly slow! I miss my big strided QH.

According to Daniela he will move out more with other horses, well so does Lucy, thats not the point!

Of course this is a really wonderful learning oppertunity, I will be riding with Daniela who has been riding endurance for several years, and her mentor Dom who is a great endurance rider. So even if Fadzki is a bit slow and annoying (I will try not to go into how annoying I find it that I have to control exactly where he puts his feet because he is a scatterbrain), I will get a lot out of the deal.

 

I WILL go for a ride this weekend! Even if Daniela has to cancel because of the rain and I have to ride Lucy bareback. I will ride!!!!