It’s Just Been One of Those Years This Week

I have a ride this weekend. This is normally a stressful thing for me. For the entire week before a ride, I'm freaking out. I have no real reason to freak out. It really doesn't take much to pick up and leave for a ride. After all, the trailer is my tack room and all my camping gear is stored in my truck. All I have to do is fill the water tank, load up hay and bran and beet pulp, and get my clothes and food together. Easy, really. Couldn't hardly be simpler. And yet, the week before a ride, I am as stressed as I can be.



And now, there's this week. Because of all the rain and wind last week, I got behind on work. The real kicker was the horrible sinus headache I developed on the one day I could have worked last week. I expect that, had I tried to get under a horse to shoe it, I would have puked on the foot instead. Normally I take the week before an endurance ride off. This helps reduce the stress level. Unfortunately, I got way behind due to the weather. So, instead, I've been working. And I'll be working tomorrow (Thursday), too. Hoss and I need to leave as early as possible on Friday morning. The compromise is that I'm only working a half day. However, considering my luck so far this week, it'll probably turn in to an all day sort of thing.



This has been a week of not much going my way. My plan to get ready for the ride has been to get things done in the evenings. So far, this plan has not worked. I'm beginning to feel like the universe is conspiring against me.



Monday I scheduled a passel of trims to get done on my own. This would lighten my load for the rest of the week. But, it turned out I needed to work in getting the Jeep to my daughter at my mom's house. So, my husband drove the Jeep down while I made my way in that direction via one trim in a rather unlikely location. I made it to my mom's house about 1pm. I spent some time talking to my mom, then my husband and I left so I could take him home and head off to the rest of my trims for the day. We stopped at a local favorite taco shop for some lunch. In a cruel twist of fate, I ordered something that they evidently had to go out back and kill to prepare for me. It took nearly half an hour to get our food! We finally ate, and left as quickly as we could. The result of this was that, by the time we got back home, I realized I was out of time. I need to leave from our house by 5pm in order to make it to bell choir rehearsal. So, rather than get the trims out of the way, I fed and cleaned and took care of all the animals before leaving. By the time I get home from bells, it's time to shower and go to bed. Ugh. One day lost.



Tuesday I had work scheduled. I had a full day planned, we'd just get under everything until we had to quit from exhaustion. Well, it turned out my assistant had to take his daughter to a doctor's appointment that morning. Normally her mother does these things, but she wound up taking an extra shift at work, and it fell to her father. It wasn't supposed to take long, just in and out. Unfortunately, things did not go according to plan, and we didn't get started on work until 10:30am. To complicate matters further, the wind was brutal! Under most circumstances I would've called it a day. But, I was behind, and I needed to get caught up before we got any further behind. So we got to work. We got four horses shod and a few trims done.



After finally arriving home, I started feeding and cleaning the pasture. We had been kitten-sitting some friends' kitty, and they had arrived home and would like their kitten back. So I needed to drive down to take their kitty back to them. It's very difficult to drive up to our house, especially if you have to do it after dark. There are few street signs and no lights and dirt roads. So I was happy to driving down and meet them. Unfortunately, this took up the rest of my evening. No ride prep occurring this night, either.



Wednesday was yet more work. The wind was worse up in the mountains, so I had scheduled horses living at lower elevations so we wouldn't blow away. We also had a reconstruction to do on a horse with part of its hoof missing. Reconstructions can take a long time. There's a great deal of prep work that goes into it, and you have to stand around and wait for the stuff to cure before you can finish the job. Fortunately the reconstruction went well, the horse was immediately happier, but it took us longer than I'd've liked. At the next stop, there is no shade. This gets us moving pretty quickly, but it was inordinately bad this day. It was really, really hot. Beyond normal summer hot. We went through a lot of Gatorade! The last stop has shade, for which we were eternally grateful.



Between the reconstruction and the next stop, we had stopped for lunch. When we got to lunch, I realized I'd left my phone in the back of the truck. I wasn't too worried about it. Some days I'd like to leave it in a water trough anyway. So it wasn't until we got to the next stop that I got the messages. One of my dogs, Mac, had gotten into something and was in severe distress. He vomited blood and was hacking and coughing and choking. This alarmed my husband and our roommate quite a bit. They tossed him in a car and rushed him to the vet. I got the message when we got to our stop and unloaded the truck. Now, by this time, my phone was just about out of battery. I had forgotten to grab my charger on the way out of the house. Still, I had to call the vet and find out what was going on. I called them, and let my husband and roommate know that I'd spoken to the vet.



By the time all was said and done, I had to drive down and pick the dog up from the vet before going home. It turned out he'd managed somehow to lacerate the roof of his mouth pretty badly. I suspect he'd done it with a stick. He's one of those dogs that likes to throw sticks up in the air and catch them on their way back down. I imagine he tossed one up, and it came down in such a way as to jab the roof of his mouth. This particular dog is a bit of a wuss. The least little thing causes him to cry and whimper like a big baby! Sixty pounds of pure muscle and he screeches like you're killing him if you even look at him in displeasure. Not that the injury isn't significant. It was badly swollen and bled like crazy, which prompted the vomiting. He's now on pretty heavy drugs to control the pain and swelling. Long story short, though, another evening, down the tubes.



And now we come to today, Thursday. Having not gotten nearly enough done on Tuesday and Wednesday, it was once more out to get some horses done. I tried to schedule more of a half day than a full one, so that I'd have time to get stuff together. Ha. Keep dreaming! We didn't get done until 3pm. Later than I'd hoped, but not too late.



After dropping off my assistant, I headed on out to get some grocery shopping done for the ride. I also needed to replace the charger for the rechargeable air pump. Since I like to sleep off the ground, this was really important to me. I needed to go to Radio Shack to accomplish this task. There are no Radio Shacks particularly close by. The nearest one is something to the tune of 25 miles or more from home. But still, I headed out and took my air pump in to get the new charger. When I walked in, a couple was in the process was purchasing a new cell phone. Fabulous. That's one of those transactions that take forever. I wandered around the store, air pump in hand, checking out what else they had. I ended up picking up a miniature pocket weather station (it's so cute) and a book light (now that I'm home, I see the old one, right in plain sight, that I thought I'd lost). I was still wandering around the store a good twenty minutes later when another employee came out from the back and helped me find the right charger. Then I was stuck still waiting for the cell phone purchase to be finished! Finally, after I was in the store for close to forty-five minutes, the second employee sort of pushed the other fellow out of the way, rang me up, and sent me on my way.



I got home near dark. I got the horses fed, but the pasture didn't get cleaned. I haven't cleaned it since Tuesday. This means I will have to clean it tomorrow morning before I leave. But, I did get some stuff done in preparation for leaving tomorrow. I got my bag packed. I got the truck cleaned out, which was interesting. I suppose someday I may need ten ratchet tie downs all at once. All I need to do in the morning is get Hoss's food together, hook up the trailer, and get the heck out of here. We'll have to stop for a few more groceries for me and gas for the truck, but with any luck at all, we'll be out by 10am. And now, my bitchfest is over!