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!!!