Moved, past tense

We did it!

I packed the trailer


And the truck


loaded the critters, and headed to California.

Getting through the Ag Inspection Station was a huge relief. I had to pull off and go in the building and get my papers stamped. Not a big deal, but I got the shakes a bit when we were cleared to go.

Truckee was cloudy


So was Donner


Traffic was light, and my rig did great up the pass.


I had to stop at the Gold Run rest area to pee and shake some more. There was a ton of construction for about 40 miles on the west side of the Sierras - one lane downgrades, massive machinery jackhammering out the old asphalt, pouring new cement, etc. Transmission braking is a wonderful thing - I hardly had to hit the brake pedal at all.

Anyway, Gold Run. Dixie was not so thrilled that I didn't let her out.


Then on to Dixon, just west of Davis, CA. I meant to stop at a different fruit stand in Davis, but I did that thing where you drive really slowly right past your stop staring off at it asking yourself "is that my stop or is it the next one hmmm oh shit yep that was it." But Dixon was ok too.


I went in the fruit stand and bought some cherries and carrots, then came out and led Dixie around and fed her carrots and grass for 20 minutes. Then back in the actual gas station to pee, and finally, eventually, back on the road.


So I had an ancient little Garmin car GPS and two GPS apps on my iPhone, and ALL THREE insisted that the best way to get to Portola Valley was to take 80 over the Bay Bridge then 101 through the city, down to 280.

I thought this was a terrible idea. I wanted to cry every time I thought about getting over the Bay Bridge with a trailer. I didn't care how long it took, I decided to go the long way around.

Last chance to decide: Berkeley right before the Bay Bridge.


I went down 880 to the hopefully less scary Dumbarton bridge. I was really planning on going all the way down to San Jose and catching the very end of 280 and coming back up, but by the time I got to Dumbarton I was too tired to add the extra 75 miles or so, and I didn't really care if we did die on the bridge.

I had hit the point of maximum stress. Finally, all my rational and irrational worries were melting away, because my brain had run completely out of freaking-out hormones. It was kind of peaceful.

I pulled up to the Dumbarton toll booth - in one of the Fastrack lanes, because I have a Fastrack - and sort of dimly wondered if the trailer would fit through the automated toll booth. I glanced at my mirrors and decided it probably would just barely fit, slowed down to about 5 mph, and squeezed through with maybe 2" to spare on either side. In retrospect, when towing, one should probably use the far right toll booth with the box trucks.

It was a long approach to a fairly short bridge. I saw a cool car of some kind:


Once we made it over the Bay, the GPS's stopped insisting that we turn around and go back up to 80 and actually routed me through Palo Alto with very little fuss. I met the barn owner and we turned Dixie out for a few minutes in an arena. The BO has had pasture introductions go wrong before, so she wanted to see how Dixie acted at first - I knew Dixie would be fine, but I didn't even try to convince the BO. Everybody says their precious Snookums-pony is an angel, and it's almost never true.

So Dixie rolled in the empty arena, then looked around at the other horses walking and being ridden around outside. We got bored watching her do nothing, so we took her down to her pasture and turned her out.



That was mercifully boring too. The paint gelding came up first, then the two solid geldings, then eventually the oldest mare. There was a little bit of squealing. And I wouldn't even go so far as to say Dixie struck at them with her front leg, it was more of a foot-stamp. Good girl. Very good girl.

All those stops (Ag Station, Gold Run, Dixon) killed my time. 262 miles in 6 hours - that's a 43 mph average, instead of my usual one-stop-only 68 mph average. This is possibly the only thing in this whole post that's applicable to endurance - I drove about 5 mph slower than normal, but I lost 20 mph on my total average because I stopped three times and dithered around at Dixon. Knock a decimal place off, and you can see how crucial it is to get in and out of vet checks ON TIME - a 6.8 mph easy endurance ride could turn into a 4.3 mph barely-made-cutoff ride with just a little extra time in holds.

I dropped the trailer at the barn and went off to see our new house for the very first time. It's absolutely lovely. G was doing that thing where he kept telling me everything he thought I'd hate about it and I was pretty freaked out about it, but it's perfect. Well. There's ghastly blue carpet everywhere, including both sets of stairs, but other than that it's perfect.

The cats and Cers settled right in like they've always been here. Our movers showed up on-time to unload the pods. Nothing was broken. I had to swap out the 3-prong dryer plug for a 4-prong plug, but even my precious W&D work fine.

And now I'm sick. I feel like I have the flu, actually - periodic fevers and body aches and a sore throat, but no sneezing or coughing. I'm glad I held it together til I got moved, and I'm pretty sure I'm just sick from all that stress. I feel pretty spacey and I'm just plunking along alternating unpacking a couple boxes at a time and then resting.

So there's your update. Not one of my best posts, but you know we made it safe and sound.

Oh and yesterday, I went out and rode for maybe half an hour. Hoping I feel better tomorrow and I can go out again. Dixie says it's fine with her if I leave her in that pasture for the rest of her life ;)

Never let them tell you that they're all the same*

The One Point Five Year Plan is coming to a close. As you may or may not know, because I talk about it all the time but in indirect ways, last December my husband took a job in San Francisco, with the ultimate goal of moving me + the four-leggers + all the stuff out there in 12-18 months. Now, the 18 months is at an end and we (the Nevada part of the collective) are making the Great Leap Westward.

My dashing husband has arranged the house on the other end of the trip. This was no small feat, and I'm not downplaying his involvement - but if he wanted to tell The Internet about his life, he'd have a blog. I have:

Fought down my Zen desire to throw away all our stuff, and instead neatly packed it.


Arranged for shipping containers.


Loaded one of the containers.


Hired Big Dudes to load the rest of the containers.


Consolidated and packed all my Horse Stuff.
This is a "mobile tool carrier" from Home Depot, and it's also a sweet tack trunk.


The bottom has electrolytes and psyllium. Middle has vitamins/random crap. Upper has trimming tools / more random crap.


Done necessary truck and trailer maintenance and upgrades.
The truck needed its SHOCKINGLY EXPENSIVE 30k mile service. The trailer needed some minor Dixie-clysm repairs, plus a new spare tire mount. Remember when I made a cabinet? That killed the tack room spare tire mount, so I needed a new one.


Gotten the cats, dog, and horse UTD on vaccinations and health stuff.
Post-vaccinations.

^^ Ok, not post-vax, that's just how he likes to sleep in the bathroom. FOR REALS, post-sedation for tooth floating:

Not so good at walking.

Arranged for a reroof of the house. Pix forthcoming. SEE? I don't ALWAYS do it myself!!

Cleaned most of the house (minus the room I'm living in, the kitchen, and the bathroom I'm showering in).

Arranged for Horse Living Quarters (at the barn I liked the most, in Portola Valley!)

Washed the horse's nasty mane, and took a video that's too large to wirelessly transfer, and will be the subject of a future post.

Let no less than three sets of strangers potential renters tour the house in various states of horrible disarray.

Tomorrow is T-1 Day. All I need to do is clean the bathroom and kitchen, pick up the last couple weeks of dog poo, hook up the trailer, take the last of the recycling to the dump, load cram all the stuff in the barn into the trailer, return the cable modem, pick up my Coggins and health certificate for Dixie, pre-load the truck, clean the kitchen and bathroom, and sleep peacefully. Then Friday I can feed Dixie, trap the cats, finish loading the truck and trailer, and roar over Donner and into San Francisco with everything I own. Piece of cake.

(Wish me luck!!)

*Going to California, Led Zeppelin

A new adventure!

So Dixie is moving to Lemmon Valley at the beginning of the month. She'll have her own pen with a three-sided shelter, and I supply the feed, so she can have all the hay she will eat, yay! It's a couple blocks from BLM land, and a couple miles from the arena - I can ride in the arena when I want to work on dressagey stuff. There's two rides in the summer nearby. It'll be fun; I'm looking forward to exploring the new area with her.

She's on the trailer!

I know, it's been forever since I posted. It took weeks for me to find a ride for Dixie. Totally nervewracking. Last week I thought I had something lined up, but I really didn't want to jump the gun and start cheering. Tonight at 11:30 eastern, she got on a trailer. She'll be here some time Tuesday!

Tuesday is also the day we're moving into our real apartment. We've been chilling out in a furnished temporary place til now. Tuesday morning we're going to load our clothes and personal stuff back in our suitcases, head over to the new apartment, make sure the electricity's on, and wait for the moving van and the cable tv people. Once the strangers are out of the new place and it's just a sea of boxes, I'll come back over here and load the cats back in Cat Hell and grab the dog and bring them to the new place.

Aaand some time in the middle of that I need to take off, go borrow the BO's trailer, and meet Dixie. Dixie is coming FIRST CLASS, yall, in a 8'x8' box stall in a custom semi. The semi can't turn around at the BO's ranch, and the BO is going to be at work, so I'll need to hook up the trailer and meet the shipper in a big parking lot down the street.

It's gonna be an exciting day for sure. More later!

Western states

So Kansas was a nightmare. The cats howled all night in Wichita, then they howled all day through Kansas. We dosed them pretty heavily with Benadryl and they STILL wouldn't shut up and they're VERY lucky they didn't get ditched on the side of the road in Kansas. But eventually we made it into Colorado and into the Rockies.

Highlights of the Kansas pictures include: many roadside attractions, canola, sunflowers, fake palm trees, and a gate to close the interstate when blizzards come through.

Colorado was lovely. Denver is a gorgeous city (but way too overbuilt for me to live there). I got pictures of a 50s roadside diner with free wifi, gorgeous clouds, a stunning sunset, and a happy Cersei in a dog park.

Wyoming is a stunningly beautiful state. We stopped at the top of a range of mountains that had a monument to Lincoln and a monument to the fellow who pushed to build a transcontinental highway through there. I got some nice macro photos of lichen and tiny alpine flowers and hard-luck scraggly trees. Then we roared on through the Rockies, where I finally got pics of those enormous wind turbines and a tunnel through a mountain and more clouds.

Oshit

Well I almost fucked up but fixed it in the nick of time.

Monday I called the vet to give them my CC# for the Coggins/health cert charges. The receptionist got my name, card number, CCV number, address, etc. Today I realized that the paperwork should not go to me but should go to the barn! I called back and yay, the Coggins hasn't come back from the lab yet. Crisis narrowly averted. Can you imagine how horrible it would be if the Coggins went to my Ohio address and got forwarded to Reno while we were still on the road?

I talked to the shipping broker today - he's waiting for his actual shipper to give him a date. Hopefully I'll get a date on Monday. If not, it'll suck but I trust my current BO to take good care of Dixie and get her loaded whenever.

The people-shippers are packing and loading our stuff on Tuesday, so we're heading out Tuesday. Wednesday and Thurs we'll spend in Memphis, then Fri in Witchita, Sat in Denver, Sun in Salt Lake, and Monday in Reno. I think. Plans subject to change!

One thing

Here's one thing you might not know about me:

We might be moving to Reno, Nevada!

Husband's interview went very well, and we're both pretty hopeful that he gets an offer. The co. said it'd be 2-3 weeks before they let him know, so we just have to hang in there a couple more weeks.

If not Reno, the next two most likely offers are Cleveland, OH, or DC area (NoVA). Both of those are nice places to live and I'm sure there's nice horse bloggers and pretty parks and stuff, but I'm way more amped about Nevada. Husband is too!

In horse news - earlier this week, I bathed Dixie til we both lost patience with the whole exercise, and she didn't look much better after than before. Then I fussed over her mane and tail and combed them out. As soon as I turned her out, she had a very satisfying roll in the dirt. Sigh. Today I went and brushed her til she shined (mud/manure spots and all), then rode for a bit. She was pretty good, but I think she's coming in to heat so she wants to roll every single time we halt.

Mostly moved!

Well I've had the most productive two days of my life!

We got to Columbus about 1:30 yesterday, signed the lease, dropped the pets in one room, and went to Walmart. We ended up spending like $300 on stuff - two Brita pitchers cause the water's awful, two torchiere lamps cause there's no ceiling lights in this joint, an entertainment center that was on sale, etc. Then we came home and Graham started putting together the entertainment center while I unloaded enough crap from the U-haul to get the bed assembled. I crashed hard almost as soon as the bed was ready.

Today I got up, drank some coffee (out of the only glass I could find, a plastic cup), put on a lot of clothes, and started carrying in boxes. I religiously carried in crap for a couple hours, til our friend came over, then he helped me carry in the recliner and the big antique cedar thing. Then we all hung out and found homes for things. We got the living room set up, with only two boxes of random stuff to sort through. I got most of the kitchen set up. We got the hanging-up clothes hung up, and we rebuilt the little cubes that the folding clothes live in. None of the folding clothes got unpacked but whatever.

Then another of Graham's friends came over and the guys were all talking cryptography and I was laboriously hanging my enormous framed map of the world ca. 1960. First I hung it from one picture hanger, centered over the fireplace. It creaked a little so I took that down (and cut my finger and bled on the wall!) I measured some and knocked a bunch of nail holes in the walls finding the studs (on 24" centers, not 16") and measured some more and got two nails at the perfect height to center the map. Then I made a slacker man get up and help me hang it. We hung it.

I yelled at the other guys. "Hey yall need to shut up and admire this lovely map of the world - it has the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on it! - before it falls down and kills us all." Everybody stopped and we stared at it for fifteen seconds, tops, before - you guessed it - it fell down.

I cannot stress enough that it's not actually my fault. The screws holding the brackets on the back tore out of the frame, ripping part of the frame completely in half. I was SO MAD and SO AMUSED all at the same time.

Graham hung Tinky Winky on the middle hanger over the fireplace til we figure out something to do with the ruined space.


Also Cersei decided to try to nap in a cat bed. It's a little too small. :(



I visited my horses too - love the facility, horses look great, going to ride tomorrow so more about them tomorrow!

In transit

I am at a Drury Inn in Terre Haute, Indiana. It is quite nice. The bed is super soft and Cersei's sacked out next to me. Graham is taking a bath. We're both so tired we've lost about 50 IQ points each. Thus the short sentences.

I get all zen and philosophical whenever I travel, either a move or just a road trip. Usually I (like every normal person in the world) am pretty self centered - I go about my day and interact with people but I am always thinking about me and what I am going to do in my own life next. I mean, I'm a nice Southerner, so I ask about people I interact with and am interested in what's going on with them, but I think primarily about me.

When I get on the road, I realize that I'm just a stranger passing through everybody else's life. I'm an outsider. Nobody on the road in whatever random state I'm in knows me. None of the little towns I pass by are "mine." I don't think about how my grandfather used to farm that hill over there, or how I got WASTED at that bar when I was a teenager, or how I went to middle school with the bank teller. I'm just a stranger, watching little bits of other people's usually predictable lives.

We stopped at a truck stop near Sikeston, MO, and while we were in line to buy beef jerky I was watching one of the underage teenage cashiers who had just gone on her lunch break flirting with some skeezy looking 50ish trucker. Ugh. Not my life. Not my place in the world.

Later, we were sagging so we got Starbucks somewhere in Illinois. Two pretty-boy, gelled hair, metrosexual baristas were happy to give me an extra cup of water for my dog. They were pretty nice, but I kept feeling like I was just a scene in their lives, just a memory they'd probably forget entirely in a couple of weeks.

And all the houses beside all the interstates in America. Entire lives lived. Glimpses of a pretty yards with pretty houses. A dirt yard with a pickup and a dog kennel. Little farmsteads, with big barns and big houses and little silos. A modest clapboard house, with carefully laid out "Horsekeeping on a small acreage" hot-tape paddocks for the two happy looking horses. A sprawling compound, with a big professional sign advertising Puppies For Sale!! and an adjoining mud paddock with a mud-covered pony.

Other people's lives. I am nobody's life right now. Everything we own is zipping down the highway at 65 miles an hour. Except my horses! The new barn called and said they arrived safe and sound, walked around the arena and were drinking and eating hay. Yay. I have horses. I have a new chapter of life waiting for me, tomorrow.

They're on the road!

The nice fellow from Triple H met us at the truck stop and my brave horses are headed to Ohio. They looked pretty weirded out about the whole thing, but I'm quite sure I'm projecting. I have been a nervous wreck all day and I am only slightly less nervous now.



Off to say goodbye to my parents, then finish cleaning. Tomorrow we pack and drive!

Horses are shipping tomorrow!

The shipper is on the way, with a stop in Arkansas. He should be here some time tomorrow. Then I have to put my best loved, psycho, fragile, half-ton mammals on a trailer and wave goodbye. Arrrgh!

Graham is picking up the U-Haul trailer tomorrow. We've got almost everything packed or thrown out, except for the electronics basically. I'll load a bit of the trailer tomorrow, then we'll get up early Wednesday, finish packing the trailer, put the cats in the dog crate and load them in Graham's backseat, make a space in my truck for Cersei, and ROLL. We're going to try to make Terre Haute IN that night, then we'll have a short drive to Columbus on Thursday.

Anyway, I'll probably post something tomorrow re: drowning in boxes, then I'll be back online Friday. It's almost over, wooo!

Horse Treats

Tonight is the "oh holy shit I'm about to move to OHIO" night. Cause I'm about to move to OHIO. Holy shit. I shall be a redneck in King Arthur's court. Ack.

The other day I decided to use up some stuff from the kitchen and made a big batch of horse treats. Extensive testing has allowed me to say that I have made the world's best horse treats. I just made another batch tonight! Here's how you too can make them:

Preheat oven to 350.

Dump some uncooked oatmeal in a bowl. I used about 1 or 1.5 cups of Quaker Old Fashioned Oats but I don't think it matters too much if you use instant or steel cut or whatever. Add some salt - a teaspoon or two. Add some baking powder*, about a teaspoon or so. Beat in two eggs and about 4 ounces of molasses. You will have nasty looking gloop.

Now start adding flour, a heaping spoonful at a time. When it gets hard to stir, start using your hands to knead in more flour until you end up with a Play-dough consistency. I probably used 1.5 or 2 cups of flour - quite a bit. You will have really unattractive brown clay now.

Put some foil or parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Do you want lots of little treats or fewer large treats? Roll your dough into skinny or fat snakes, and pinch off little balls or slice off fat cookies. Stick them on the foil as close together as you want, and bake for 10-12 minutes. They're done when they're puffed up a bit and the edges are browner and they don't feel squishy. While the first sheet is baking, spread out another piece of foil and get the second sheet ready. I end up with three trays of treats, and I make tiny little treats for clicker training.

• *Use baking powder. Baking soda requires an acid to activate it, and this recipe doesn't have anything acidic. You could use baking soda and cream of tartar, but if you don't have any baking powder on hand you're not likely to have cream of tartar in your cupboard either. In that case you could omit the leavening; horses probably don't mind dense treats.

Anyway, everybody loves these little things, and they're waaaaay cheaper than Real Horse Treats or name brand cereal. I've been working with Dixie for about a week now, doing c/t for her to stand nicely while I brush her. (Yes, I am such a fantastic horsewoman that after a year, I couldn't even brush my horse without a temper tantrum. Sigh.) I haven't even refined her behavior enough to ask for "pretty ears" while I brush her, but she's already figured out that just standing still while I groom her gets treats. Today I was out of the homemade treats, so I gave her some hay in the bed of my truck and she still stood remarkably still while I curried a bunch of loose hair off of her. YAY!

Health certs, and time to say goodbye

Welp, I think everything's lined up. The shipper is coming next week - they're taking a horse from CA to TN, and they'll pick my guys up then. I don't know exactly when yet but there's only so much I can worry about :) I had the local vet (well, a timid new young vet at the local practice) come do the health certificates on Champ and Dixie today. Kind of a waste of $70 but I suppose it's important.

I am going to put Silky to sleep. I'm pretty sure it's time. She's losing weight, because she's not eating, because (as I understand it) the fluid is building up in her abdomen and making her feel full. And she's started laying down a lot. She just seems very very tired. I don't think she would survive the trip to Ohio, and I don't want to leave her here to suffer.

It sure sucks though. :(

The mating call of the Terror Bird

Yeah, I did it again. Earlier this week I mentioned to someone how Champ is completely bombproof, so today he proved me wrong.

I've been (of course) super busy with all the little stuff to arrange to move. Today was the first day I actually got to spend time with my horses. At least it was a lovely day, about 60 and overcast when I went out.

I saddled my reluctant gelding and we moseyed away down the trail. All was going pretty well until the mating cry of the terror bird, when he spun 180 degrees and tried to bolt. I spun him back around and he JIGGED down the trail. He actually jigged! He never jigs; it's entirely too much work, but damn if he didn't do it today.

In case you were wondering, Terror Birds sound a lot like ducks or something. I don't know much about birdcalls, but no NORMAL bird could've freaked out my dearest Champ like that.

Anyway, we rode everywhere I wanted to go and made it back safe. Then I worked with Dixie a bit - picking up feet and letting me groom her without dancing around like I am stabbing her. She did very well!

Moving:
Found a new barn, very near where we're going to get an apartment, reasonable rates. Found (thanks Paige!) a shipper, waiting to hear back when they can fit me in. Got a crapload of boxes and all of our nonessential stuff is already boxed. (Not that most of it ever got UNBOXED, but whatever.) U-haul is reserved, for what that's worth.

Tomorrow or Monday I'll get health certs and rabies shots for the horses. The vet recommended Benadryl instead of Valium for the cats, and god knows I always have benadryl on hand. I need to meet up with Stephen and dispose of the rest of the stuff in our shared ministorage. He said he'll build me a box for the tv, too - we don't have the original box for the TV, and it's a big ole widescreen LCD HD TV. Hard to pack it without scratching it or breaking the whateveritis that makes the pixels light up. And tomorrow my new spare tire winch thing should come in, so I can install that and get the damn spare tire out of the bed of my truck. FINALLY.

I think I am going to cancel my lesson on Sunday. I haven't done jack with Dixie and I don't know if I even have time to ride her tomorrow or Saturday. My mind isn't really on dressage right now.

On the road again

We're going to be a band of goddamn gypsies for sure. He's starting work up there on the 16th, so we'll probably head up on the 11th or 12th. We just found out, officially 100% for sure, today - so we went straight out and traded the BWM for a truck. A proper truck, an '09 F150 XLT with the (supposedly) awesome new tow package.

Now I can't sleep, wondering how to make this all work.

Anyway, having two trucks means we can definitely rent a 6x12 U-haul. Is that cool or pitiful, that all our belongings will fit in a 6x12 and the insides of two trucks? I'm inclined to think it's cool... but kinda sad.

I still don't know if I'm going to haul her myself or pay a shipper. He's checking in with work to see if horse hauling is a "moving expense," but I still don't know if I want to let somebody else haul my precious horse. But dear god I don't know if I want to do it myself either.

Can't sleep. Can't stop worrying.

Also my dressage instructor yelled at me for not riding Dixie at all last week. :o He's right, though, she needs consistent work to build muscles, etc. I'm going to haul her out to the main barn and ride her four days this week. That's my goal.

And pack. To move. Oh god. Can't sleep.

Lemonade, dammit, lemonade!

Looks like we're going to move to Ohio. Specifically, east or southeast suburbs of Columbus. It'll be an adventure for sure!

Longer term, lawyerly, I should be able to just take the one-day Ohio essay exams and get admitted to their bar. And it's a much bigger market, I should be able to find work.

Short term - oh shit! Lots of logistics. Where will I board the horse(s)? Where will we live? Will I bring up just Dixie at first, or will it be cheaper/more sensible to bring up both Champ and Dixie? (I'm pretty sure I'm going to leave Silky retired in Mississippi.)

Things I need to figure out:

What do I need to move a horse to Ohio? Coggins, obviously, but what kind of health cert will keep me out of trouble as I travel between states and settle in to Ohio?

How am I going to move the horses? Pro shipping company, borrow a trailer from a friend, or bribe a friend into hauling for me?

What's the best location for us? Ideally, I'd have field board with a run-in and hay, some type of arena access, an on-site trainer as good for me as Hardy, and ride-to trails. I'll settle for field board with no shelter and residential/country roads to ride on.

On top of those questions, I'll need to rent a trailer, pack, shove three cats and a dog in two vehicles, and move. Oh and there's that fucking ministorage unit that STILL has half of our furniture - I need to Do Something with the antiques in it, sell or move the books in it, and toss or move the other junk.

Anyway, I welcome suggestions / advice from yall.

Move completed!

Sometimes they're just angel horses.

I got to my uncle's around 7:30. Drove around their field til I found the horses, then slipped a halter on each one just in case. I saddled up Champ, hooked a lead rope to Dixie (cause she was the closest), and ponied over to the gate. Champ was not thrilled but he didn't kick Dixie's head in. Dixie was not thrilled but she didn't try to bolt. We got to the gate and I noticed that both Poppy and Silky had followed us, curious about this new bizarre game.

I opened the gate, walked both horses through, and left the gate open while I remounted. I got the horses moving again, then leaned over and unclipped the lead from Dixie. Dixie and Poppy were both wide-eyed at being in a different field and were too busy staying as close as possible the Great Leader Champ to even notice ropes or the lack thereof. Silky was shadowing along about 25 yards behind us. We uneventfully made our way through that field and into the corral field.

I called the two young dingbat horses as I turned Champ into the corral. But they are dingbats, so they missed the gate and got confused and ran up and down the outside of the corral fence. Then Silky appeared, like an old and dignified matriarch, and walked right through the gate into the corral with me and Champ. The two dingbats bolted in right behind her, just bubbling over with excitement about how this amazing day had progressed so far. I hopped off Champ, untacked him, and slipped out of the corral and shut the gate.

Then I walked back to my truck.

It really is a long way. And you know what? I haven't tromped around meadows early in the morning for a very long time, so I forgot about the dew. My feet got soaked. Worn out wet boots, soaked holey socks, and soaked-to-the-knees jeans. Yuck. Cersei and I eventually got back to the truck, though, and we drove over, picked up the tack where I'd left it outside of the corral, and drove to the house.

We checked in with my uncle, set up a game plan, and drove out to the highway to wait for Bill. He showed up, right on time. My cousin (the second hauler, for Poppy) was also on time. We all convoyed back to the corral, I started grabbing horses, and we got them loaded like we were just walking them into stalls. It was picture-perfect loading. (No credit to me, my horses came to me loading well and I've just never traumatized them about trailers.) Everybody convoyed on over to the new field.

My feet, snugly wrapped in sodden cotton and soaked leather, felt like I'd dipped them in pure poison ivy juice. Seriously, yall, waterboarding is probably horrible and most definitely torture. But wet booted feet? I'd tell an interrogator all my deepest darkest secrets AND spit on a picture of my momma if he'd just dry my poor soaked feet off. :(

I tried to ignore my tortured feet as we got the horses unloaded into the round pen in the middle of the pasture. My guys got to get reunited with Poppy and get their legs back on terra firma. Champ didn't like the looks of the already resident horses, so there was a bit of fence-charging and squealing. Champ, of course, looked really truly angry and hateful - ears back, every bit of his body language warning the other mares that he was about to go postal and KILL them. The mares squealed and pawed and generally looked just as evil right back at him. Then Poppy wanted some of that action, so he charged at the mares on the other side of the fence. It was a spectacular threat display - he had the arched neck, the impulsion, the sliding stop at the fence - but he'd forgotten to pin his ears. He looked like an intensely curious retard-horse instead of an intensely dominant wild herd stallion. Sigh. I've been watching Poppy for what, over a year now? and I'm quite certain that there is not a dominant bone in his body. He started off being pretty socially awkward, and he's slowly learned how to boss other horses around by watching and copying Champ's movements. But he's copying, so sometimes he forgets things. Like pinning his ears. Sigh.

Then I realized that my feet STILL ITCHED. Enough is enough. I drove into town and went to the dollar store. I purchased a pair of super-cheap hiking shoes and a bag of socks, peeled off the ruins of my boots and socks, and carefully dried my pale white prunefeet before wrapping them in new footwear.

With happy feet, I went back out and let my guys out of the round pen. They stuck together as a herd, exploring near the round pen for a bit. They pranced up to the other horses, Champ and a mare squealed and pawed at each other, then my horses spun away and trotted off. It was breathtaking. I hope they enjoy exploring :)

Tomorrow I'm going to do some exploring of my own - Champ or Dixie on the trails, then maybe I'll see how Poppy feels about the Aussie and actual WORK. I'll post tomorrow night, unless Poppy kills me or I'm too tired.

Movin on up (to the east side)

(Note: I wrote this last weekend, but after I got halfway through I saved it and just came back to it now. Half of what I wrote was not post-worthy so this is the "condensed" version...)

I figured it was about time to make plans to move the horses off of their "summer heaven." After all, my uncle is being amazingly nice by letting them stay there, and now that I'm done with the bar I don't want to overstay my welcome. I figured we'd be talking about it soon, and I was right.

I had every intention of riding Sunday morning. I thought about it the night before and got myself pretty psyched up to RIIIIDE. But then I got out to their field and it was like 95 degrees with about 95% humidity and all my resolve just melted away. I grabbed a brush, stuck a few horse cookies in my pocket, and walked down to the pond so Cersei could avoid heatstroke by swimming. All the horses followed me, kind of halfway greedy and halfway curious. I brushed everybody, even the spotted one - she's definitely more curious and less afraid these days. Yay.

After I was completely out of cookies, and everybody'd been brushed, and Cersei dragged herself out of the water, I started walking back to the truck. They all followed. Awww. I know that they're just hoping for magical cookies, but it's still endearing. Which is good; they definitely need to endear themselves to me now that they're expensive again!

I spent almost two hours visiting with my uncle. It's odd, he's never been particularly friendly to me. But as I got older, I realized that he's just a really taciturn fellow. My dad prodded me into asking him if I could put my horses on his land for the summer, and my dad prodded me to actually talk to him.

I'm pretty confident in saying that my uncle and I quite like each other. We're fairly smart, in slightly different ways, and we have the same core beliefs. I really look forward to talking to him almost as much as I look forward to seeing my cookie monsters! I am going to have to take the time to go visit him like twice a month after the horses leave.

Anyway, he asked when I was thinking about leaving, and I said at the end of the month if that was ok with him? He said that'd be fine; they usually plant that particular pasture in a winter grass crop in September so it'd work out great.

Once I left I decided to start the ball rolling on moving the horses. I'd been considering Hillside Stables for a couple of months - it has field board, a dressage instructor, a covered arena, and it's fairly close to my parents' house. Things like "an instructor" and "a covered arena" are not common in Mississippi - I mean, it's not one-of-a-kind, but "real" instructors aren't lurking everywhere down here.

I talked to the barn manager, who seems like someone I can get along with quite well. Field board, at the place on Polk Lane, is $125/horse/mo, and that's completely reasonable. Full care board at the main stable is - I can't remember - $325 or $350, and that's also reasonable.

Here's my dilemma (and I have a few weeks to settle on a decision):

Do I field board the Walkers and stall board Poppy, while taking a lesson a week to learn dressage? Or do I field board all four for a month or so, while I learn SOMETHING about how to ride dressage, then move Poppy to the arena facility?

Update part
I am going to put all four on field board. It's more affordable, of course. I know it's more risky - what if I just lazy on out again and don't actually ride the two challenging horses? But OTOH, it's pretty dumb for me to pay 3x as much to board a horse on whom I can't actually take effective lessons.*

*I rewrote that sentence twice. It's either "wrong," grammatically, because I dangle a participle ("a horse that I can't take lessons on") or it's "right" ("a horse on whom I cannot take lessons") and clunky. Read it whichever way you prefer, please.

ANYWAY, I am taking a dressage lesson on a school horse on Sunday. We shall see how it goes. If I enjoy lessons, I'll think about putting Poppy in the barn and committing to working with him like 4x a week. If not - well, I still plan to get a good saddle for Pops and working him all fall (October-December). By the end of the year, I should know if I want to keep him or try to sell him as a "prospect" to a good home.

I hate to think of selling him. I hate to think of one day waking up and realizing I have a 15 yo green broke draft gelding, who is generally good for nothing. I love to think about me having a great time riding him, or some other person having a great time riding him. It's very tough. I've got a lot of sympathy, but no magical words of wisdom for Beckz. :(

The end is in sight!

Ok, I've taken three finals and I have one more, plus a paper to edit and turn in, and then I'll be DONE FOREVER with law school. (Unless I failed a class and have to take summer school, oh god please no pleasepleaseplease...)

I'm aiming to get my paper finished and emailed in tomorrow. Then Wednesday I'll learn Family Law, Thursday I take the last exam, Friday I move the horses and Graham comes to town, and Sunday I graduate. The funny thing? I'm really not looking forward to moving the horses. I'm going to miss them. Going to feed has been the one constant in my life for almost two years. They'll be having the times of their lives, in a lovely pasture full of grass. They aren't really far away, as these things go - an hour isn't a big deal. But it's not something I can do every day.

And they're all going to Como. Today Jody told me (in front of witnesses!) that I can take Quinn with the others. I almost cried, I was so shocked and overjoyed. I still owe money on her and I didn't think Jody would want me taking her to another state... but she's gonna let me. I'm giving the papers (which aren't in my name yet anyway) back along with a signed agreement, and I get to take her!

It's definitely best for the horse. I was so sad about having to leave Quinn in Memphis, because she's just now really becoming part of the herd. If she stayed in Memphis, she'd be on the outside of Jen's herd for a couple of months, then have to leave them and come back to me and learn to get along with my hateful bunch again.

Surely tomorrow I'll remember to take pics. Quinn's bay flank spots are like 50% roan - she's a gorgeous mare. And Poppy's big and black, Champ's fugly, and Silky is old but elegant.

I took Fugly and Cersei for a short ride today. The horses are fighting off a nasty upper respiratory thing that's ripping through the barn, so I didn't go far or fast. Mainly we'd wander 50 yards, then graze, then wander, then graze. I let Champ canter on the way back, just a bit, just because cantering on a sunny day in a green field is like flying.

Oh, sweet internet, how I missed you!

Yep, it took the Apple store a *week* to fix my computer. I'm not mad at them - they were shorthanded - but I sure did miss the internet. With no TV and no books (the books are in storage, and the computer doubles as a TV), it was a very long week. I mean, I needed to study - and I did - but there wasn't anything to do in that winding-down period at night.

The kittens died sometime Wednesday night. I'd been giving them antibiotics, and it really looked like they were starting to improve. They were actually playing a little before I went to sleep that night! But they must've crashed that night because they were dead in the morning.

They were really sick. And really small for their age. I keep thinking if I'd taken them sooner they might have made it. But I didn't really want to pull them off their mom and hand-raise them. I keep telling myself that I can't save them all.

In less morbid news, I've arranged to have Champ, Silky, and Poppy hauled down to Como on the 1st. I don't want to pay a dime more in stall rent than I have to. I can't take Quinn til I finish paying for her, but hopefully she'll only have to stay in Frayser for another month. Jen is going to take care of her for me.

The new (crazy) barn owner decided Sunday that Cersei can't come to the barn off-leash anymore, so I'm just not taking her to the barn anymore. It really sucks that she can't play with Sam and burn off all that energy, but it would suck worse to bring her out there and tell her she couldn't play with him.

Wanda's Belgian keeps beating up the other horses in the big pasture. Somebody, presumably him, cornered Jen's 2 year old TWH and beat the snot out of her. Wanda was told that she couldn't turn the Belgian out with the other horses anymore. Today she told Jen that one of the kids told her that it was actually Poppy and Champ who beat up the little TWH - through the fence, magically. Maybe they did, I don't actually know. I doubt it.

All I know is that I'm counting the days til I can leave that place behind.

Sorry for the grim post! I'm off to watch the new Dr. Who episode.