The Adventure Continues.........Tulsa Day One

The Adventure Begins

I had to laugh when the alarm woke me in the morning. Between my lack of sleep and poor lighting inside the trailer, the cleaning I did was not all that good. Sitting up on a narrow ledge right over my head four poop balls were perched rather precariously.

That darn ledge has been a frustration to me ever since I bought this trailer. Funny, though, once the "spot" is taken those darn balls will sit there until they're nearly mummified. The second I clean it off some horse is always making another deposit there. It's like some unwritten rule there must be poo in that spot. Now even as the horse trailer doubled as my room, here it was still decked out with horse poop.

As I tried to get up out of bed, I struggled with the air mattress swallowing me up. Seems like it was another victim of my lack of sleep. There was barely enough air in it to keep me up off the trailer deck let alone add any support. What air there was displaced immediately as I tried to move causing me to roll.

It reminded me of those days back when I had a water bed struggling to get my feet to the floor. I never did like that water bed precisely for that reason.

I couldn't help but wonder what other tasks I'd complete the night before in this half *ssed manner. I sure hoped I'd taken better care of my horses than I had myself. There was only one way to know and that was to get my b*tt to the barn. It was time to do a thorough check of the horses and get all their stuff moved in.

The first thing I planned to do when I got to the horses' stalls was check Gypcy's water. She had looked like she was going to drink when I'd hung the bucket the night before but I wanted to be sure she was finally drinking.

When I reached the stalls all three horses were laying down. Even the sound of my footfalls on the barn floor didn't rouse any of them. Normally they'd have all been up yelling for breakfast but after this long trip, they definitely needed some down time.

I checked Gypcy's water only to find the filly had drank less than half her bucket of water. With as long as she'd gone without drinking, this just wasn't enough.

I threw all three horses hay before beginning to unload the horse trailer. First I wanted to get out the big tubs I normally use to water my horses and my hoses. I figured this more familiar container would be less intimidating to Gypcy. If using that didn't get her water consumption up where I thought it should be, I'd try electrolytes.

I'd packed the horse trailer putting the things I'd need first in at the very last. That meant those tubs as well as the horses' blankets had been the very last items put in. The problem with this plan, I hadn't considered how I'd fill these tubs, the hoses were buried..........and I do mean buried. I figured it would take less time to scrounge hoses in the barn than get mine dug out.

When I got back to the stalls, our neighbors at the end of the aisle were in the process of watering their horses. That gave me the opportunity to borrow their hoses to get my big tubs filled.

That darn Gypcy, as spooky as she is, could hardly wait for the hose to fill her water tub. Despite spooking to the point the filly was nearly on her tiptoes, she was trying to drink before even the bottom of that tub was covered with water. If I'd had any doubt her problem the whole darned trip had been about the bucket itself, it was certainly gone now. All the silly filly wanted was the container she knew.

Even at that I planned to monitor her intake. Four days with very little if any water, I knew she must be dehydrated. Just drinking her normal amounts of water wouldn't be enough to get her re-hydrated. She'd need to drink a lot more water than that for me to be sure we were out of the woods.

By the time I gotten all the water tubs filled, Jesse and his crew had arrived. They were unloading their rig from the farthest door in the building because Jesse didn't think it was polite to be dragging his stuff through barn aisles already inhabited by other trainers.

Because I was stabled with Jesse, I figured I should go by his rules. But I have to tell you the hike it took to get to my rig made the whole job take twice as long. Between that added distance and being dog tired, I think it took me half the day to get all of my stuff unloaded.

Part of the reason for that could be attributed to my little wheel barrel. Once Jesse was done with his big one, I borrowed it despite the fact it had low tires.

It was on one of my trips down the center barn aisle with that wheel barrow that I met a young woman from Tennessee. She saw the low tires and offered to pump them up for me. Little did I know at this time, this gesture would change some aspects of my trip.

The only reason unloading didn't take me all day was because I shared some setup stuff with Jesse. I had purchased my own tack room but offered it to Jesse to use as a feed room if I could share his other rooms (tack room, ready room and dressing room). Since Jesse had all the set-up for those rooms, I only needed to add a few hooks for my things and got to leave the rest of that stuff in my horse trailer.

It probably would have been better if we'd discussed this plan ahead of time. Then I could have saved myself dragging all this extra "crap" two-thirds of the way across the country for no reason.

I think Jesse's crew was running on low gear, just like me. It took us most of the day to get the set-up entirely finished. The portion of the day that was left after the task was done went to resting. The plan was not to work any horses at least until the following day.

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

Tulsa Day One Continued......

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