Counting Down Continues........

As the count down continues I am still working on plans for the actual trip. I'd originally figured I'd be traveling with Angie and Richard but since Angie decided not to show and Richard didn't find a full load of horses to haul, neither of them will be going. Now I'm scrambling to find someone to caravan with to Tulsa. All attempts to find someone on this side of the state have been unsuccessful.

I can go to Santa Rosa to meet up with Jesse Saldana. That has been my fall back plan all along. However, after talking with Jesse yesterday I found he's planning on driving straight through to Tulsa. I'm not sure if this old body of mine can handle a 1700 mile drive without any sleep. I either need to find another driver to make the trip with me or I'll be making the trek to Tulsa by myself. Any of my blogging buddies interested in making the trip??

Originally today's plans were to work horses today and then kick into high gear finished up my body clipping and packing. Since I got behind a day with that spinning head stuff, I had to scale those plans down just a bit.

I did take Legs and Rhet over to Richards for pre-body clipping baths. While I was there I worked Legs not once but twice. I worked him when we first arrived then let him hang out while I bathed Rhet.

This is the first time I've attempted to bathe Rhet without help. I figured he's had enough experience with the process he'd probably be ok. If I remember correctly Rhet has been in the wash rack a couple of times to be rinsed off and that experience would help too.

Rhet went into the wash rack just fine. It was when the water got turned on and had much stronger force than he's used to that his eyes bugged out of his head. However, the colt hung in there pretty well and I managed to get him clean without a major incident. Considering Rhet's history I thought this was pretty darn good.

I bundled him up with double coolers to put the colt back into the trailer. Rhet has a history of trashing coolers. I'll be I could have paid half of his entries for nationals with the money it's taken to replace all the coolers he's trashed/so I used all my tricks to wrap him up tight in a manner that should protect these coolers.

With Rhet safe and snug in the horse trailer I went back to work Legs for the second time. The stallion wasn't happy about this second round of work. He tried to bite me as I was putting his bridle on. It wasn't a vicious kind of attack.........more a "Hey! don't you know we've done this already!" kind of thing. Legs clearly has a opinion about having to work more than once in the same day.........but with nationals coming we have serious work to do.

Despite his resistance to a second round of schooling, Legs went to work the minute I threw my leg over his back. Of course, the horse let out one deep sigh to further impress his point he'd done his job for the day. Still he went back to work with a great attitude and gave me exactly what I asked. If only I have another month......maybe two...........we'd really be ready for Tulsa.

After his workout, I took Legs back to the trailer to untack. Then I headed him back towards the barn and Legs put on the brakes. The horse turned his head to look at me with this puzzled look clearly stating, "Not again!" I had to remind him that I had asked him to move before he began the walk back to the barn. I think the horse was actually relieved when we headed into the wash rack. Poor Legs...............I'm pretty sure he hadn't counted on the colt water.........made even colder because he was bath number two.

Once back home and with Legs and Rhet back drying in their stalls, I got Gypcy out to see if I could get her body clip finished today. She did pretty well except for the backs of her ears and the very top of her head. The filly wigged out and tried to escape. In the process she stepped on my, not once, but twice. I now sport a pretty nasty bruise in the middle of my left cannon bone.............oh, that's right........I'm not a horse............it's my shin.

Despite all my precautions bundling up Rhet when I went to remove the coolers the colt had managed to put a hind hoof through a corner of one cooler. I guess I should consider myself lucky that he didn't hurt himself or trash both coolers in the process.

While I've been working on the final details for the horses and myself, Dave's been working on my horse trailer and truck making sure every thing's ready for my trip. After installing a new collar on the truck, the lights on the horse trailer have decided not to work. There's been lots of strange words emanating from that area as he tries to find the gremlin responsible for this.

At the rate the work is progressing it's probably a good thing that I won't be going to work horses this week. There's just too much piled up here to get done before it's time to leave. I'd like to say that's taken some of the pressure off Dave but I think he's feeling the weight of my pending departure as much as I am. Here's crossing fingers that we both get through tomorrow's list of tasks with no overflow left for the following day. We're running out of time.

To be continued................


Still Counting Down

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