Whew! What a trip!!

A couple months ago, Sandy - Skippy's prior owner, emailed and asked if I would like to take Louie, Skippys almost 6 year old son on a free trial/lease as life changes for her are leaving her short on time to spend with the horses, and she's living 2 1/2 hours from the horses now as it is. I told her I needed to give it a little thought and talk to Vince about it. I had just gotten Buddy and just wasn't sure how Vince would feel about the whole thing. Now, in all honesty, I *think* I talked to Vince about it but I've pulled the "don't you remember??" crap with Vince so many times, that I honestly couldn't remember if I did but Meg and Tosh told me that I DID because we ALL were surprised that he was agreeable to it!! But STILL, I held off giving an answer until I had REALLY thought about it - I have to admit that although I loved having the babies last year, and I DO love the barn chores and my animals, I'm down to only 3 of my own - one of which is hopefully going to live with Meg and I have discovered how much more enjoyable a smaller number of horses is not to mention how much LESS feed/hay I go thru!! At this time last year, I had 7 horses I believe....that's a lot of hay!! Heck, just going from 6 to 4 has cut my hay bill noticably!!

Anyway! I finally told Sandy, YES! I want to take him on a 6 month free trial/lease and see what happens. Louie was born on Sandy's farm and Sandy loves this boy so this was a hard decision for her to make, but she really can only have one horse right now and her other horse is a 26 year old that she's had since he was born so she had to make a tough decision.

Everyone who knows me, knows that patience is NOT my strong point. I am not a patient person....not at all. So having to make the decision and then wait 2 weeks to go get him was killer to me. Throw in the whole horse trailer saga, the very un-cooperative Maine/New Hampshire weather and it's been a stressful couple weeks.

Vince got home at 4:30am Wednesday morning, and although he did know that I was going to get Louie, he wasn't happy about it. He says that I didn't talk to him about it before making the plans - now that goes back to the first paragraph LOL - So Wednesday we went and visited with Dad and we went and spent some time with Judy and Tosh at the daycare - well then there was some arguing over whether he was going with me or not, whether I was going at all etc etc. I pulled the horse trailer out of it's spot and one of the tires was flat.....this tire has a leak, only leaks when it's parked a certain way and has never leaked so it's TOTALLY flat before...is it an omen??

So Thursday morning, get up, kids off to school, run to Tru Value for a can of "fix a flat" - realize that DAMN it is FREEZING!! I started to put the stuff in the tire (just unscrewed the valve stem cover lol) and remember - you have to immediately drive after you put this stuff in, better wait until I'm ready to get in the truck and go - so find out from Vince if he's going, staying or ?? :) He was up and dressed or at least moving in that direction but was still barely speaking to me....great...should be a FUN trip 4 hours each direction huh??

He put the fix a flat in the tire while I filled a hay bag and threw the other horses some hay. Hopped in the truck and away we go!! I had wanted to leave at 7:30 but it was closer to 8:30 when we left. Stopped at Irvings to put air in the tire, which was an ordeal in and of itself!! The tire was SO low that it wasn't registering on the pressure gauge!! Each round of air was 3 minutes worth of air for 75 cents, it cost $3 to get completely situated with the air!! The trip down Rt 3 was bumpy but uneventful. We stopped at Toby's to get something to eat and sadly got into an argument so I went to the truck and left him to wait for his sandwich. The rest of the trip down Rt 3 was in relative silence. We hopped onto 95 in Augusta and things were going ok. I noticed that the truck seemed to be "floating" while we were behind a big truck....I was white knuckling it - and Vince was swearing about going to get horses in the winter and me doing things without talking to him first. When we went thru the first toll booth I got away from the big truck and the truck started handling fine so obviously it's the whole air/drag/blah blah blah - SO! Avoid following too closely to big trucks, A-OK by me!!

We were making good time, and got off 95 in Gray. Gas was getting low so I pulled into the first gas station - only to find that ALL pumps were out of service - dangit. So get back on the road and start looking for another gas station. Wasn't horribly hard to find one, but it WAS hard to get into. I pulled far enough into the lot so that we were out of the road and Vince hopped out to try to manuever the truck while I went in the store. I fixed the handle on the escape door, which is broken and I'm surprised I haven't lost it yet!! Walked past the spare tire (this is important LOL) and into the store. When I came out, I again walked past the spare tire and got in the truck...Vince just looked at me. "Oh sorry do you want me to drive still??" :) LOL He said I was "real slick" and that I just used the tight quarters at the gas pump as an excuse to make him drive!! NOT true!! But he drove the rest of the way YAY!

We were driving along, minding our business - me keeping my mouth shut because no matter what I said, the conversation kept turning back to "this is why I don't like to take the trailer anywhere in the winter"..."Honey aren't the trees pretty" "uh huh but the roads are awful this is why I don't like moving horses in the winter" LOL Anyway, we were on a particularly bumpy part of the road by Sebago Lake. The road itself isn't narrow, but there is fence on one side and big snow banks on the other side. We're bumping along and I happen to look in the side mirror just in time to see the spare tire go FLYING off the side of the trailer, bounce at the car behind us and disappear.....as calmly as possible I said "UM the spare tire just FLEW off the trailer" Oh great!! One more reason to add to the list of "why we do not move horses in the winter" LOL There was NO place for us to pull off immediately, so we had to wait until we got to a turn out on the side - we pulled over and were turning around when the car that had been behind us pulled up next to us. They were very nice and said that the tire didn't hit them or anyone else but it was on the OTHER side of the road in the snow!! Great! Thanks! So we went back but again, had to find a place to turn around and again head back south. We pulled off on the side with the 4ways on and I checked out the "HOW" of the situation, while Vince walked across the road and then literally had to wade thru the snow to get the tire. Have I mentioned how much I love my husband??

We again got on the road and were doing great until the handy dandy "TomTom" told us to take a right onto a road other than what google maps said but we all know how road signs can be!! So we went with it. The road was narrow, COVERED in holes, frost heaves, bumps...you name it, it was there!!! More ammunition for the "why we don't haul horses in the winter" campaign!! Literally 3mph was TOO fast!! *sigh*

FINALLY get to the end, and what's there?? Rt 25 which was the road that we were supposed to turn onto instead of the goat trail we'd just come across!! GOOD!! That means we don't have to go back that way!! YAY!! From there it was less than a mile and we turned up the farm drive. Long driveway thru the trees that opens up to white vinyl 3 rail fencing.....first thing out of my mouth was "Poor Lou, he's going to be in redneck hell compared to this place" :) We pulled up towards the barns and were greeted by a teary eyed Sandy.

We made small talk and she took me to reintroduce me to Louie. He's a lot bigger than his momma, but he is startlingly similar in looks!! They have the same facial marking one one side and the same Belly spot although Lou's is bigger - but overall Louie has more white too. He's very beefy too!! He's half arab and that made me think he would be more refined but if it's possible, he's refined and beefy!! So we talked about our agreement and signed papers and all that stuff and then Sandy loaded me up with his blankets, brushes, bridles - even his saddle!!! Then came the loading part. He walked right up to the trailer but wasn't about to get ON the stupid thing!! Sandy pulled while I "encouraged" from the back, that didn't work, so we switched places. Still no dice. Sandy went and got some grain, that got him up on the ramp but he put his head up and bonked his nose on the trailer ceiling so backed out again.

At one point, Sandy had the rope and ducked under the chest bar. Lou was half in the trailer and pulled back real quick and jerked Sandy's head into the metal chest bar. I thought for sure he'd knocked her out!!! It took her a minute but she got back up and we ended up giving Vince the lead rope!! He'd just said "I'm not the horse person" LOL Sandy got behind Lou with the lunge whip and just "wiggled" it at his hind feet and after a couple minutes he got right in the trailer and that was that!! He did get a little fidgety so we said our good byes, Sandy and I hugged and I promised we'd keep in touch, LOTS of pictures and an open door to welcome her anytime, and we were off. Once we got going, Lou settled right down. We had a VERY uneventful ride home!

When we got home, Vince and I talked about how to go about unloading Lou - didn't want him to go flying backwards out of the trailer, he needed to do it in a calm manner. He backed most of the way out calmly and when he started to speed up, a firm "whoa babe you're alright" was all it took and he stopped with his front feet on the ramp and was perfectly calm. We walked up and down the driveway to get his legs back under him. We got to the barn door and he planted his feet..didn't want to go in, but just giving him a second and he walked right on in, right into his stall and was perfectly happy!!

YAY!! He even let me stand on a stool in his stall to change the light bulb. He sniffed noses with his half brother and just seemed to settle in almost instantly!! Friday he got to go out alone and explore the boundaries. He walked into the electric wire once....and that once was all it took!! :) Today he got to go out with Buddy and although there was a small squabble at first, where Buddy thought he'd "show him" - he got his butt put in place and that was that. So I turned Rowdy out too and the brothers stick together! Whether they know they're brothers or not, they did hang together and Rowdy asserted himself with Buddy which he's never done before. The 3 boys are so at peace with each other now/already that there was no squabbling over who would be coming in first, they all just stood there - I grabbed Lou first, Vince grabbed Rowdy and Buddy just stood patiently (another first, he's usually pretty....er, um assertive!)

Lou has won Vince over....Vince is a non lover of arabs to begin with, but he and Lou made friends tonight and hopefully all continues to work well!! I'm excited for my first ride on him!!