Thursday, February 26, 2015

Putting the Cart Before The Horse. Literally.

My new wheels
So I just looked at the date and it's been an age and a day since my last post. Yikes.  Guess there's a
lot to catch up on.  So let me get started...

I still don't own a horse.  Just haven't found the right one. That being said, I've been super fortunate to be able to ride a horse named Presidential, who I call Mooch.  Mooch was coming off an injury and needed to have an easier job than his previous gig as a Big Eq horse, and I get to ride him until for a while until he goes back to that job.  Sadly, I don't have the bank account to keep him, but I'm enjoying the heck out of him while I have him.  He's a big ol' love bug, and wants to be best friends with everyone he sees.  I baby talk the heck out of him, which is something I never did with Sug, but it works with him and he seems to like it.  I think he really wants to be a Momma's boy, and he has an endearing tendency to take the the cuff of my sleeve into his mouth and suck on it.

The kids are still riding Tiki, the lovely grey boy we lease from my trainer.  He's wonderful, so full of personality and smart enough to do calculus.  He's quirky: He'll jump anything you put in front of him if you put him to the middle of it, but he's petrified of cavaletti.  I love that he has all the buttons, but that he's not push button, so the kids do really need to ride him.  Here's some video from the kids' first show on him.  I think you'll be able to see why he's such a treasure.

Noah and Tiki

Sophie and Tiki

So, the big news...I bought a trailer.  Yep.  You read that right.  I bought a trailer.  Didn't have a horse of my own or a truck to pull the trailer with, but I bought a trailer. When I told my good friend Tara, she laughed and said, "You literally put the cart before the horse!" I hadn't looked at it that way until she said it, but yep, that's what I'd done.

I now had a trailer, and needed something to pull it with.  Off I went to find something big enough to pull a trailer, yet functional enough to work as my business vehicle and my mom-mobile as I ferry the kids to and fro.  Managed to find a used SUV that fit the bill, and now all I need to do is take it to a trailer dealer to kit it up few things and I should be in business.  Well, at least in business enough to learn how to drive the thing.  Which should prove to be interesting.

I have to admit I'm a bit nervous about the whole thing, but determined as well.  This was something I always wanted to do when I had Sug, as I wanted to have the ability take off and do clinics and trail paces or just go wherever we wanted to whenever we wanted to.  I have wonderful friends who were happy to trailer me when they could, but you know, sometimes schedules don't align and it wasn't fair to them to bum a ride all the time. I suppose I could have gone with using a shipper, butI really just wanted to be 100% independent. Hence the trailer. I regret that I didn't do it when I had Sug, so I am doing it now.

Which basically means that if you're on the roads in NJ, well, you might just want to be extra careful around any horse trailers you run across. Just saying.