smellshorsey

How We Proved that a Hay Net in the Trailer is Dangerous

Have you ever noticed that if you don't know something is dangerous, you can get away with doing it. Once you know, God holds you accountable.

I have used hay nets for years. About a year ago I heard that you should switch to hay bags because horses sometimes got tangled up in hay nets and the results could be B-A-D. So, I only used my hay nets for when the horse was tied to the outside of the trailer. Inside the trailer I used a hay bag.

Except that Lucy didn't like the hay bag. The opening didn't open exactly where her dainty nose sits. So she'd toss it like a punching bag before giving up and then it was just in her way.

Today when we were going to a show, and running late, of course, Lily put in a hay net instead of the hay bag into the trailer. With my knowledge and permission.

We loaded Lucy, who was upset to be going to the show without her boyfriends, but she was the one who needed schooling and never goes anywhere. She pawed and banged around in the trailer, so without wasting any time, I pulled out. She kept pawing. Then she quit. The weight in the trailer felt odd, and sometimes I felt like it was pulling funny. But I kept going.

Nearly an hour later we got to the show grounds and went to unload -- only to find Lucy standing on three legs in the trailer with one leg very seriously snarled up in the hay net! This was a heavy duty hay net, too. She was trembling from the exhaustion of standing on three legs while being trailered. A friend turned up with a knife and painstakingly cut Lucy loose rope by rope.

To my infinite gratitude, Lucy stood quietly until cut free. Then, after she quit trembling and her veins weren't standing out under her thin TB skin, Lily warmed her up and the horse seemed fine. They had a good day at the show, with Lucy making some mistakes but being a willing and even interested competitor. She enjoyed going somewhere.

Until it was time to go home. I don't blame her one bit -- she decided that the trailer is an evil, scary place and she wasn't getting on it. Ever.

We did what we had to do, which ranged from getting dragged all over to tempting her with the Bucket of Earthly Delights to getting out the lunge whip and holding it in a very visible place but not striking her (though I am not against force, we just didn't get to that). She suddenly and with no warning hopped it. I gave her lots of time with the Bucket of Earthly Delights.

The hay net is in the trash can. And I thank the Lord that my horse had enough strength and balance to stand on three legs on that journey, and also had enough sense to not panic. The what ifs are playing vividly in my mind. What if she had fallen? What if she had broken something?

So very many ways to make mistakes. Just when I thought I'd made them all.

Thank God it turned out all right.

Our New Trailer Meets Our WMD

I love our new trailer. So does Paul, my husband. But as far as our new trailer is concerned, he's a WMD.

Within the first 24 hours he managed to pop a window out and dent the front. Boy was he mad. He was convinced that I did it because he couldn't possibly have done it, but I assured him that there were no overhanging things on the Interstate, and the horse couldn't very well break out the front window when there is a small tackroom between the horse compartment and the trailer front.

I solved the mystery when I took the trailer to get repaired. After parking the trailer at the dealer's, I opened the Yukon hatchback door. Guess what? The corner of the door was crushed in. Turns out Paul had opened the back of the Yukon so he could see better when he parked the trailer. The corner of the hatch lid/door poked the trailer window out -- and dented the front. The trailer dealer thought it was very funny -- especially in light of the fact that Paul had negotiated a lower trailer price and here the dealer was going to get that money back in repairs.

So then Paul took the trailer the next weekend, a blustery, windy day. He left the trailer door open while he was working (landscaping his office, I think.) The wind blew the steel trailer loading door open with such force that it temporarily bent around the door stop and smashed a rear light. It seems impossible when you open and shut the door -- there's a dent where the door bent that one time, but the door sprung back into shape. And it's not going anywhere near that trailer light under normal conditions.

If Paul hadn't been the one to buy the trailer, I might not let him use it, and I still might revoke his privileges, because the NEXT time he used it (third time, right?) he scraped up the paint in several places, letting metal things dangle against the paint on the inside, scraping the fenders by driving through small openings, and brushing up under a tree and scratching the top.

The trailer can withstand all the abuse the horses throw at it. But not my husband. I told him he should think about using the old trailer from now on.

Invite Us Somewhere -- We're All Smiles

Yes, there's a photo missing. I hate Adobe Photoshop. I tell it where to save photos, and then those photos are not there. I save them again and it says that there are already those very files in that very place. But that's a big fat lie. I have been struggling with this for a couple of months. If the photo had been where PhotoShop and my computer said it is and I was able to upload it to this blog, you would have seen Paul and Lily smiling and squinting at the sun. In the background would be a shiny, new, white K&K trailer. Buddy (the horse) is the only one not smiling, and he'll have to get over it. He does have plenty of hay and a fly mask on to keep out bugs, since it's slant-load, stock-style trailer. And it's gorgeous.

A picture would be worth a thousand words. But enough about that.

What does the new trailer mean to me? Freedom! Yes indeed, now we can go places without me worrying excessively. The lights will work all the time. It has breakaway brakes. It pulls great. It's not as old as me. We'll be going to trail rides, Pony Club meetings and rallies, little shows. Invite us somewhere! We'll be there.

But oops! Within the first 24 hours we managed to break a window out. This seems impossible, but I think Paul did it when parking under a tree with low-hanging limbs. The good thing is that we've gone ahead and boogered the new trailer up. Now we can relax and enjoy it. (The window will get fixed tomorrow when I take the Yukon to get the brake operating thingie installed. Apparently vehicles that come with a trailer package don't have the brake controls installed -- they've just got heavier radiators, transmissions, light connections, that sort of thing. Who knew?)

I should be above caring so much for material things. I should be a non-material girl. I should be happy just to be here when the sun rises.

And I am. But I'm even happier to see it rise on that shiny, new, SAFE trailer. Allelulia amen.

Pony Club Rating in the Cold, Cold Rain

I haven't been blogging because I've been spending the past two weekends at Pony Club things. Last weekend was Lily's rating day. Rating days are expensive, so Pony Clubs don't have them but once or twice a year. The clubs have to pay for the raters to come, so our club combined with the one in Aiken for our rating day to cut costs.

And once you've got it all scheduled, you go ahead and have it -- no matter what the weather. So we went to Aiken last weekend for one miserable, cold wet day. The temperature hovered between 37 and 44. The rain poured.

One drenched mother said, "They ought not even test them and should let all of us go home. No kid would have shown up in this weather if they weren't sure they were going to pass."

Alas, they didn't shortchange any phase of the testing. We left home at 8:30 a.m. and got home at 6:00 p.m. Lily passed her rating and even said she had fun but had never been so cold.

It's warm today and raining. There was a horse show. We didn't go. I stayed in bed and was so grateful to be warm and dry with nowhere to rush to. Lily's working on her science project.

She decided to postpone her birthday celebration and go to Pony Club Quiz Rally next month instead. She's making new friends at Pony Club and told me, "Mom, if you go hang out with the other mothers, you'll probably make friends, too."

On the next warm, dry day, I will.

$17 Away from a New Trailer

Lily is $17 away from earning a new trailer. She found a $20 in a drawer and tried to give it to Paul, but he said she had to earn it. She'll have the opportunity to do so this weekend and it won't be too soon for me. (She doesn't have to earn the total price, just a portion. It's been a hard, slow slog of menial construction work, drudgery and splinters. Good for the soul and an eye-opener that physical work is hard so keep studying.)

She sure better work it out before we start going to Pony Club rallies. The old trailer is sound but needs a lot of work. It's steel and is rusting so badly that the horse can almost see sky. The new one will have a small tack/dressing room which will mean we don't have to haul stuff in Paul's Yukon. Once you put hay in a car, it's there forever. Even if you wrap it in a drop cloth. Diamonds aren't forever. Hay is.

The almost sad part is that for all of Lily's work, she's not getting the trailer she wants. She wanted an aluminum Gore, Trail-et or Sundowner. There's a huge difference in price between a steel trailer and an aluminum one. In fact, I don't understand how they can ask that kind of money for an aluminum trailer that doesn't even have an engine in it. I can get a new Toyota (motorized, air conditioned, music system, etc.) for less than I can get an aluminum trailer. Something is wrong with this picture.

We've looked at used aluminums and it's impressive how they hold their value. But not quite impressive enough to spring for one.

Right now the front-runner is a semi-custom K&K steel trailer (made by Bee) that is made of galvanized steel. They swear it won't rust if the paint is knocked off, but it will rust if gouged. We're considering the stock-type trailer with some of the options on the enclosed trailer, pictured below. It won't be soon enough for me -- or the next Pony Club meeting.

Remember to Breathe

Here's a photo of Lily practicing a leg wrap on a friend at last Saturday's Pony Club meeting in Aiken.

I think we're all holding our breath. The national news makes me go fetal, and I don't dare open anything from my 401K. So I've turned off the news. The sun still shines. The horses aren't worried. And really, now, you can't live if you're not breathing.

Lily learned this lesson the hard way on Saturday at Pony Club. She had a great clinic with Richard Lamb, who told her group that they were all really good at one thing: not breathing. So he had them count (he also suggested singing but didn't get any takers) out loud while then went through a gymnastic and then over some jumps.

You could watch them all relax as they counted. The horses relaxed. The kids relaxed. The parents relaxed. Just remember to keep breathing. And counting or singing (I would have made them sing Christmas carols but I wasn't in charge).

All was well until they were winding up. Lily and Buddy approached a jump. Lily had quit counting -- and breathing. Buddy hesitated, then overjumped it. When they landed, Lily's weight was on her hands (on his neck) and knees (somewhere on his back/sides) and she was stiff from holding her breath. She was not relaxed, counting, breathing and going with the horse. To her surprise, and mine, she wasn't able to recover and instead, after several strides on an increasingly stiff and alarmed horse, she fell. It would have been a nothing fall, but she landed almost tangled up with him and as Buddy turned to gallop away, his hoof kicked her. It wasn't an intentional kick, but he hit her calf. Fortunately she had on tall boots. Even more fortunately, nothing was broken. She really hurt and needed ace bandages and crutches for a few days, but is okay now.

Richard Lamb was very kind and consoling. But he did happen to mention that it wouldn't have happened if she'd been breathing.

Sounds so simple. Just breathe. A good lesson for every situation.

The Trailer Was Shaking

Oh, to know how a horse's little mind works. I feel bad about this story.

We had Buddy all loaded in the trailer and were driving down our street on the way to Lily's weekly riding lesson at a farm 15 minutes away (in the South distance is measured in time, not miles) when I saw our silly dog, Parker, in my rear view window. His Invisible Fence collar must need a new battery because he had left the yard and was following us down the road. He's so sweet and so dumb.

So I stopped (no need to pull over on our street) and Lily got out to take Parker back home. I stayed in the Yukon. Suddenly, the Yukon started shaking. There was no banging or weight-shifting from the trailer, so I didn't see how the shaking was Buddy. He wasn't moving around or making noise. But there was something going on back there. I would almost swear the trailer was trembling. I got out to check.

Poor Buddy! He WAS trembling -- shaking all over. He glanced back at me and the whites of his eyes were showing. I petted his rump and spoke reassuringly. What was the deal? We had just stopped in the road. Then he started whinnying for Lucy. A panicked whinny. And he was still trembling.

The whole trailer was shaking. No banging. Just shaking. Lily got back and I said, "Look at your horse. He's trembling all over." It was a terrible sight.

"Is he colicking?" she asked.

"He just pooped before getting in the trailer, so I don't think so," I said. "Let's get moving and see if he'll stop," I said, figuring that if he wasn't okay (and what could suddenly be so wrong? He was fine when being groomed and loaded. He was better than fine) we could come right back.

We got back in the truck and started again. I went back over in my mind what had happened. Then it dawned on me. You probably could have seen the light bulb appear above my head. Lily had yelled at Parker, the dog, for following us. When the dog knew he was in trouble (he's very submissive), he started running back home. Lily yelled at him to stay home and not to get in the road again. She followed him all the way to his dog bed on the porch and told him to stay there.

Lily must have started yelling at the dog as soon as she got out of the truck. Buddy thought he was the one in trouble!

We do not beat our horses, though we do not always speak in a polite, quiet tone. Especially when Lucy tries to push her way into Buddy's stall because he gets more food than she does.

Poor Buddy. He didn't know what he had done. He didn't know Lily wasn't yelling at him. He had no where to go to get away, standing in the trailer like the good boy he is. So he just started trembling.

I've never seen him tremble before.

When we got where we were going Buddy was eating hay and all fine. Still, before we unloaded Lily got in the trailer with Buddy for some sweet talk, treats and much scratching of his favorite places so that he would forgive her (he already had) and wouldn't think the trailer was a place where you had a reason to tremble.

Poor, sweet Buddy.

When the lesson was over he hopped right back in. Whew!

Buddy's great. He doesn't walk into the trailer and he doesn't charge in. He hops with a controlled enthusiasm. I'd hate for that to ever change.

Lily's First Foxhunt

I had my camera. It's probably still in the truck. Lily went on her first fox hunt yesterday and I didn't take a single picture.

However, I do think I did everything else, from taking cookies and hot chocolate for the other Pony Clubbers to getting us there on time, even if we had to load the horse in the dark, and even had all my stuff for writing my novel with me. I'm doing NaNoWriMo, and yesterday was the first day. I managed to write over 1,000 words while waiting for Lily and Buddy, and then I got the rest of my goal when I got home.

Lily went cubbing (fox hunting with young hounds before the official opening of the hunt season, which is on Thanksgiving Day). Neither she nor Buddy had been before. They didn't think it was fast enough but would like to go again.

We had some teenager-related issues the night before. I had told her to get everything ready by Thursday, as I don't like to do a mad scramble the night before an early morning. I told her that the cubbing attire was "informal," meaning she should wear her tall boots, show coat (the only one she owns), a ratcatcher shirt and her one choker with a stock pin. She thought informal meant casual.

Finally I said, "informal" means cocktail dress. "Formal" means ball gown. You have to dress up for this."

"Why?" my teenager-living-dangerously asked.

"Because fox hunting is very traditional," I said.

"That's stupid," she said.

"I'm sorry. That's the way it is. You're supposed to dress in a certain way."

"Will they let me ride if I don't?" she asked.

"Probably," I said. "But they'll think you're a hick." I couldn't think of what else to say. Our culture has gotten so far away from the notion of what it appropriate. Even church is casual dress. That's fine -- if that's all you have or if that's how you most feel worshipful, and I'm glad I can wear pants.

Back to the fox hunt. Now, she'd given Buddy a bath, had cleaned him as if getting ready for Madison Square Gardens. He was dressed in his scary lycra stuff under his blanket (and my vote was that it was too cold for a bath, but I was not polled until after the bath). But she was completely neglecting herself.

This is the girl who can spend hours trying on the right nearly identical T-shirts for school. Of course she couldn't find her choker. And she brought the riding jacket she outgrew two years ago, not the one we got her for last Christmas that fits. Fortunately, we were able to borrow a jacket. And I think at least she "gets it."

For those of you who think hunting is cruel, all I can say is that I have hunted with the Camden Hunt off and on for decades and I was never, ever on a hunt where they caught anything. Not one cricket. No fox. Just some hairnets left snagged in trees, some of them mine.  I am happy about this no-catch thing, as I have no quarrel with the fox.

I waited in the club house (cold!) and worked on my novel. I went outside to warm up by walking around in the sunshine, and was surprised to see a friend of mine back early. Her horse had caught his hind shoe crossing the railroad tracks and had fallen! My friend and her horse were miraculously all right. Very scary. The horse somehow caught his shoe on the tracks, and when he tried to pull his foot free, he fell, tearing off his shoe and throwing his rider into the crush-and-run. They were both very lucky.

She did have the presence of mind to tell me how Lily and Buddy were doing. She said, "Well, of course Buddy started bucking but Lily rode through that. They're doing fine and having lots of fun."

It's a good thing Buddy is cute and not mean. I guess I'd buck if I could and if I felt so very, very good about being out on a cold morning with the hounds working in the distance.

They crossed the train tracks more than once. One time when they were about to cross a freight train came by. Lily said that Buddy was "mildly interested."

That's one good thing about having F-16s roar over your pasture on a regular basis. A train is nothing compared to that. But you never have to worry about tripping over their contrails.

Maybe next time Lily goes hunting Lucy (my out-of-shape TB) and I will go. After I finish my novel, I just might aim for that.

Shopping for a Horse Trailer in a Bad Economy

First, the good news. A couple of years ago I developed a near-phobia about hauling horses in a trailer. I've done it since I was 15 when I would drive myself to riding lessons and have to be sure I got home before dark, when my daytime-only license expired. I had no cell phone and didn't know how to back the trailer. It all worked out just fine.

But over the years, trailering began to cause me anxiety. Maybe it was from the time I almost lost a wheel on the towing vehicle because the tire dealer had rung off the lug nuts when they put on new tires. Maybe it's from all the stories about people I know or know of who had horses fall through trailer floors. (That's a total of two people and three horses. The people lived. The horses were destroyed on the spot.) And then the stories about the people you DON'T know.

I actually went to counseling about this because if I was going to do what I wanted to do with horses, I needed to get a grip over this. (If you don't like to fly, you can take a Xanax and konk out in the back of the plane.  If you're flying the plane or driving the trailer, this is a bad strategy.) Over time, I've gotten where trailering is once again routine.

Now the bad news. I took our trailer in on Monday for yearly servicing before the first Pony Club meeting this coming Saturday. The shop called. Major safety problems. Correction will cost more than the trailer is worth. (Yes, it's a rusty old, no-name trailer, which is probably one reason for my earlier anxiety.)

A week or two ago Paul struck a deal with Lily that if she earned $500, he would buy her a new trailer. She has not been able to make a dent in this amount in the past two weeks and I suspect that it will be very difficult for a 13-year-old who has few babysitting opportunities out where we live to make that much money for a long, long time. (She has saved up that much and more over the years in the bank, but Paul won't allow her to use it. Some lesson he's trying to teach her about working for what you want, except I think she feels like she already earned that money.... Sometimes it is hard not to knock your husband upside the head but we do try not to contradict each other or let her play us off each other.)

So, unless she can catch a ride to Pony Club this weekend, I don't think she'll be going. Major disappointment.

Paul wants to take her in the present trailer, saying it can make one more trip. Lily refuses to put her horse in something that may be unsafe. I'm with her.

I would think, with the price of gas and market turmoil, that there would be recent model, good trailers for sale at good prices. Where are they? At the barn where Lily takes lessons the doctors and lawyers are buying fancier, bigger trailers, so I guess that for many horse owners, even if things aren't as good as they were, they're still good.

Paul's business is actually thriving and growing, but part of why he's done well is that he is not attracted to $12,000 horse trailers. Or $6,000 horse trailers. Or $3,000 horse trailers. Or anything that costs money. See a trend here?

Anyway, we're looking for horse trailers. Lily and I want a 2-horse bumper pull with a small dressing room (I don't want to be hauling some monstrous trailer -- just a small compartment you can step into and keep your tack, hay, etc.). That's all she and I can agree on.

She wants an enclosed trailer. I think those are often dark, uninviting and hot. I want an open, stock-type trailer (only the upper half of the walls -- not the whole side). Horses like to get in those, and in S.C., horses are more likely to get overheated in a trailer than to get cold (plus there are always blankets and plexiglass panels we can add). Lily and I can't even agree on the color.

And we've got Paul nowhere near on board. I've brought it up several times only to have him go fetal.

I'm leaving for the weekend. I'm going to the beach with college buddies, leaving Paul and Lily at home to figure out how to get to Pony Club. I think it will be a fine thing for daughter and father to butt heads on this one. And I'm trying to arrange a ride for Buddy to go to Pony Club but no luck so far.

I'm liking a Calico trailer (never heard of that brand before) that's a slant-load and has a removable partition between the "dressing room" and the rest of the trailer. That means you can take all the barriers out of it and use it to haul lots of hay. The downside is that urine can run under the partition and into the "dressing room." It is really the bare minimum, no frills trailer. It's the silver trailer pictured.
Not a thing of wondrous beauty. I'm past needing wondrous beauty. Not something for somebody who wants to be envied at the country club. However, this trailer will do the job, and that in itself is a thing of wondrous beauty.

Lily wants what I'd really like but am adult enough to do without. I think. Here's a photo:
It's a Gore walk-through with dressing room. A real dressing room. Padded everything and a ramp. And aluminum, too. It's over twice the price of the Calico. Maybe three times.

In the meantime, I'm looking at ads for used trailers and deals at dealerships where trailer sales are slow.

One trailer dealer in S.C. offers 17-YEAR financing on their trailers. That makes me feel dead. Can you imagine paying for a trailer for 17 years?

It would be foolish, in my mind, to finance something that will not increase in value and will not generate income. That makes the choices easier and brings me back to the Calico. Now. All I have to do is get Lily to quit saying she hates it and to get Paul to uncurl from fetal position.

You have to pay to live.

How Did They Haul Horses in the 1930s?

I'm working on a fiction piece and find that I need to know how they hauled horses in the 1930s. Did they  have horse trailers? Or was it all boxes built on the back of trucks?

I probably need to check out "Seabiscuit" again. I remember he rode in his own railroad car but this is different because in my fiction this is not a valuable horse and his owners are struggling in the Depression. However, it's possible that they could still own and be using something from better times.

I asked my father, who was around then, how they hauled horses and was surprised that he not only didn't know, but he didn't make something up. Must have been tired.

Thanks!