Crazy Busy

It’s been a crazy past few days. I’m not sure that I can even keep track of everything that’s happened and that’s on the calendar still.

On Saturday, I got up at 2am so that I could meet Gentle Spirits Horse Sanctuary and Rescue and head to St. Paul Minnesota for the Unwanted Horse Summit. The Summit was interesting although lacked a few “wants” like true statistics but it was nice to meet fellow horse enthusiasts who are concerned about the plight of the horse. I did get a bit of reading material and will thumb through all of that when I have more than about 10 minutes to put my feet up. We decided that we would make the trip to St. Paul a flying trip and headed home after the Summit. I rolled in at midnight and fed the horses. I’d double fed them the night before but they were none to pleased with having to wait that long for me.

With daylight savings time kicking my butt, I did get to “sleep in” thanks to Mike and my son. I think we all slept in. But then I had to roll out of bed and get ready for drill team practice. After the Tri State Horse Expo this weekend, I’m going to switch to Maverick so that I can start promoting Sanctuary horses (I haven’t ridden Maverick enough lately to feel comfortable riding in front of a large crowd). So off to practice we went.

I had to haul butt home after practice so that I could be ready when the farrier showed up. Of course, he showed up a little early, so I had to call the herd in and scramble to get everyone I needed out of the pen. We ended up doing just my personal horses although Ivan is in desperate need of a trim as well. I’m figuring after all the hubbub from this past week, I’ll get the farrier out next week to take care of some of the others. We were able to get Zeke, King, and Rain done and they are now set for the next few weeks.

Mike left Monday morning for training out of town so it was just me, my Garrett, and the herd for the next three days. Monday evening rolled around, and we headed to a Saddle Club meeting. It’s not Sanctuary related but it is nice to talk “horse” with others.

Tuesday after work, I had to scramble and get ready for drill team practice with the other team. We hauled in to where they are hosting the Tri State Horse Expo. Luckily Zeke has been there before and is a pro at it. I’d really like to haul Maverick in and get him accustomed to the noise and commotion but we’ll see how it goes.

Last night (Wed), Mike got home from training and we decided that we’d better do some prep work for this coming weekend. I’ll be running ragged this entire weekend for the Tri State Horse Expo and won’t be home much. I wanted to make sure that I keep the horses happy and full. I locked them out of the pasture so now they are going to be more antsy than before.

I haven’t had much time to do any cleaning in the pens so Mike got in with the tractor and cleaned the drylot up. Luckily Mike had worked on the tractor a few weekends ago and got it running like it’s supposed to. It’s a very old farm tractor (I think from the 50s). There’s no power steering and actually no power anything so Mike has to really work for it when he’s cleaning up the drylot. But once the drylot was prepped and ready, we backed the flatbed up with the round bales and pulled two bales off. Thanks to Tom Jass for donating these round bales, I now don’t have to stress about making sure everyone is fed (at least for this week). Tom donated three nice round bales and I know the horses were happy to dive into the bale.

While Mike was cleaning the drylot out, I’d run some of the horses into the barn and the others were haltered. I had to move Maverick a couple of times because he got bored and was starting to dismantle his lead rope. That horse has the uncanny knack of getting himself untied. He plays with everything and chews on everything. I need to start working with him more to keep him occupied (and too tired to do anything but nap when we aren’t working).

We did get one feeder ring over one of the bales and threw the cinch net over the second bale (we didn’t want to wade through the mud to get to the other hay ring). I think the horses were disappointed that they had to work on a round bale instead of get fed their alfalfa hay mix. They’ve been rather disgruntled with me for the past week while I worked on the normal hay. Two bales of alfalfa hay mix and they are mad that I’m feeding them straight hay instead.

I’m hoping that the two round bales will hold out until Sunday, after all the commotion is over with for the Tri State Horse Expo. Hopefully there won’t be too many late nights as I’ve been rather exhausted these past few days, what with running around and making sure I get everything taken care of.

Tonight we have practice with the drill team and I’m taking Friday off so that I can see the Tri State Horse Expo, since it’ll be the only time I actually get to see any activities over the four day event. I need to clean the horses up on Friday, get rid of their whiskers and maybe trim up some of their “beard” and bridle path. I don’t want to go in with scuzzy horses.

But it’ll be hard to not have scuzzy horses.  It’s supposed to be in the 60s today and tomorrow in the 50s. So the blankets came off and I’m sure to have a brown horse instead of a white horse for the performance this weekend. I perform with both drill teams this weekend so I’ll be hopping from one to the other all weekend. It’s a little stressful but all my own doing. I love this time of year because of the Expo. It’s my horse fix to get me really geared up for the riding season.

Here’s to a smooth sailing rest of the week and weekend.