"All The Best"

 2.5.22

One more for this evening... I was sort of looking for another horse to use for teaching riding lessons. That sounds as though the ones I had in the past had been all used up and sold. Not so.

I only would buy a horse when I absolutely saw a big need for it.   A pal of mine mentioned that she'd seen a nice smaller App mare for sale in a horse paper. I called and lo n' behold- the mare was located in Illinois! She was older, in foal, and had bloodlines like crazy.  Top, foundation lineage- almost regal in heritage. The owner was super- she sent me photos, and a short video of this mare, and wrote over and over again how marvelous this little mare was. She was great on trails, had been to the Appaloosa Worlds twice in youth classes- western pleasure, English pleasure- even some little 'jumps'. It seems they had purchased a stallion that was too close in genetics to this mare and she was for sale...

 I discussed it with the husband and as usual, he said that if I thought it was a good horse- go for it.  I put $500 down and we tried to figure out a good weekend to drive out to pick her up.

 We decided on the weekend in the middle of September that year, It turns out it was the first weekend after 9/11 hit... We decided it would be alright and headed out towards Illinois. I took my American Bulldog, Petey, along with us as I didn't want to put him in a kennel for the weekend and it was also a good way to get him used to riding in the truck.

We had an uneventful trip out, but it was a huge event! Every overpass we went under, there were American flags (from small ones being waved to HUGE ones hung or held so all could see). There were flags waving from the back of pick up trucks, out the windows of cars and motorcycles!  Oh- the bikes... Burly tattooed guys riding in large groups, lights flashing, and yes, American flags on each one. It was just wonderful to see it all! Most of the exits had flags hanging below each marker.  All of the interstates were all but covered w/ American Flags, signs of support, and caring for those that died when the Twin Towers were destroyed. Sadly, I had not thought to bring a camera- we were driving to pick up a horse and I'd already seen what she was like. It wasn't long before I wished I had.

We arrived pretty much on time and I realized that place was not as I'd been led to believe. Old buildings- trying their best to fall down. Very little in the way of manure pick up and pieces of binder twine used to hold wire fencing together. The horses all looked terrific though, which gave me hope. I saw a gorgeous colored colt in a sort of stall- and was told that it was " Alli's" foal from the year before. Omg- he was Beautiful!! She took me to see the stallion that Alli had been bred to- and I was not happy. He was pony-sized, black w/ a big blanket. I was told that he'd been starved as a youngster and had been stunted.  Nodding, I thought- okay, that makes sense. He was a sweetie - personality-wise.  :)  

I asked where the mare was and the owner pointed to a raggedy thin brown mare with one eye standing in the muck.  Oh lordy- what did I buy!!?? I walked over to her and realized her right eye was completely gone and had been stitched together properly. She wasn't shy around me at all, which was great. This little mare- even with the crud on her, shaggy winter coat leftovers, a badly trimmed set of hooves, and one eye would look much better once she was in Maryland. She was incredibly sweet too. I got horse snuggles, and 'kisses' on my shirt plus she began 'telling' me about who she was and had been at one time. I was falling in love with her even before she had a halter on. I told her 'Come on, old mare' and she followed right behind me. In fact, I imagine I'd not have needed a halter to load her. I put a fly mask on her so if something flew in our trailer, her eyes, um, eye... would be protected. We did the money thing, I got her papers signed over to me and the 'in foal' forms, and off we went.

 Petey had been wanting to get out to do his afternoon walk but I didn't feel comfortable letting him out until we were quite a distance away. Wow, was he ever grateful!! He was such a wonderful puppy the whole trip- ate his food, drank weird-tasting water, and did his bathroom things - I was very proud of him! 

We stopped a few times on the trip home and Alli was such a good traveler I wasn't concerned about her having problems.  When we'd take a break to let her rest, I'd get some water for her, and open the trailer door only to be greeted by a soft nicker... 

 I was in love, no doubt about it. For almost 20 years, I'd raised, trained, and shown Appaloosa horses and Alli once again had opened my heart up to those spotty-bodied horses.

Cleo and the Cat

 2.5.22

For what seems like forever, Cleo has been the self-assigned cat nanny. She keeps a close eye on Simone - why? I haven't a clue but I guess she wants to know where Simone is every second so Simone doesn't " do wrong things"???? Simone doesn't do wrong things except threaten to attack my brother-in-law... She's a friendly, happy little cat. I imagine out of sheer boredom, she now chases Cleo, when Cleo is a PITA. A lot of "rules" from such a small cat!

In order to keep Cleo from making my happy little cat crazy, I throw a tennis ball of her choice constantly... Like every 30 minutes. Once we 'take a break' - she drops that ball on my foot so we can once again play 'fetch'. These balls are quite slimy as you can guess. Right now, Cleo is sitting in the doorway, holding her front paw up, looking like Lassie as best she can. Also, to get my attention, yes, once again we can have a rip-snorting game of fetch. Seems Cleo is the fetch mentality Border Collie and not the herding type.

This morning, I was begged into yet another game of fetch and while I want it to be a fun game, I hate making her 'waaaaait' to go after that ball. What happens is she'll come dashing back to wherever I threw it from, slimy ball in mouth, drop it, and nearly before I've even picked it up, she's galloping off to where she *thinks* I will throw it.

I picked the slimy ball up and threw it down the hallway. Cleo was 3/4 of the way down when it landed right on her back and balanced there! She knew it had landed somewhere. One quick turn and it fell off. She was mighty surprised to have a delayed landing for sure. She grabbed at it and lost it twice...Once again, she came galloping back to me, happy as can be. It
landed on her head, her butt, off to one side and she was so busy watching "up" that she didn't see it one time I gave it a mighty roll and it stopped under her tummy as she was waiting to see it land.

 

This is Cleo waiting for Simone to stop 'hiding' under the bed. Little did she know that Simone wasn't there.

                                 

                                 Simone, my Attack Cat, happily ignoring me

Carriage Tales # ?

 2/4/22

 In the time I had my carriage business up n' running, many times things went off without a 'hitch'...(hahaha) Then there were times when they just wouldn't, no matter what.

I got a call one time from a gentleman who wanted to hire us for his daughter's wedding. It was supposed to be a surprise to both the bride-to-be and her fiancé. We got all things settled and paid for and since it was just in a week, I began cleaning. Carriages don't stay clean nor do horses. The dad's horse of choice was Dixie... since they were 'black'- he knew that his daughter would be thrilled to have a black horse take them to the church. I thought it was a marvelous choice as most times brides want a 'white' horse. We arrived on time- looking almost brand new, and sparkly.  I pulled right up to the end of the driveway and waited. And waited... and waited. My co-pilot wondered out loud if I'd written the address down correctly. I was positive I was right because it had been put on the contract also. (And I always made sure to have the correct one with me)

 It must have been a good 20 minutes before we saw a sign of life inside that little house. It was the dad coming out to greet us. At about the same time, he got to the carriage, and a very swanky Limo pulled up behind us... Hmmmm. The driver got out - oh wow, in a tuxedo also, and asked if the bride was ready?

Dad looked very confused and rushed off into the house. As we chatted with the driver, we learned that the bride's mom had hired him to deliver her daughter to the church as well.  

Oh, dear.

We waited patiently and wondered how in the heck this would get solved, plus it was getting closer to 3PM- wedding time. Mom AND Dad rushed out of the house yelling at each other about the bit of disaster while I tried my best to hide. They didn't know ' just WHAT to Dooooo" about it all. Both had been paid and were there, ready to accomplish the job and none of us was about to volunteer for a solution. That was up to the parents...

All of a sudden, in a flurry of silk, georgette, mile-long veil, and sparkles, the bride appears. She stopped and began laughing.  Seems she had TWO methods to help her get to "the church on time" She was laughing so hard; we began to wonder if she'd finally lost her marbles over it all. She walks up to Dixie (remember her?) and rubs her forehead, telling her how beautiful she is, and then back to us. She asked- before either Dad or Mom could explain- just what was going on. I explained and ended with "Here we are".  Then she walked back to the Limo driver and talked with him for a few minutes. She ended by chatting with her parents. Once all was understood- that both Dad AND Mom had secret surprises but failed to let each other know, she announced that because we had taken the time to get a beautiful black horse, and she'd ridden in Limos before, that our carriage would be her choice. Also- because it was her parents who didn't communicate well, would the Limo driver be willing to come to their reception as an apology?  He happily nodded that it all would be fine with him.

The rest of the bridal party had shown up by then, and everyone climbed into the carriage with the bride being last. Well, it turns out she had wanted a 'southern plantation' sort of wedding. The giant gorgeous hat, frilly white dress, (that was Gorgeous by the way!), long white gloves, and oh sheeesh- hoops.

When she got her veil gathered up and, on her lap, and when she sat down?  Let's just say those hoops in her dress worked well in holding it up and out. The bridesmaids etc started laughing so hard and we didn't quite know what to do. My copilot quickly turned around as he realized it wasn't smart to keep looking at the undersides of a hooped wedding gown.

At this point, with all the craziness, Dixie was more than ready to get moving and was prancing in place. I handed the lines over, climbed down from the box seat, and went back to the bride. By now, she wasn't seeing this as funny as before. I told her that those hoops were bendable and if her sisters (Bridesmaids) would kind of hold the hoops down, all would be fantastic.  I had no idea if it'd work or not, but at this point, it just had to.

The hoops were squished down, her sisters held them down by holding the bottom of her gown, and off we went. The traffic police had waited for us, thank goodness, and we crossed the 4-lane highway safely.  Our bride was back to being happy again, waving at the people in the cars, laughing with her sisters and her dad. Life was grand once again.

We arrived at the church steps 35 minutes late but you know what? It was fine with everyone. They dashed up those steps to the front double doors, but before she left, the bride took the time to come thank us for being so patient and wonderful. She threw that mile-long veil over her shoulder and dashed off to be married. Just a few minutes afterward? That beautiful swanky Limo pulled in, parked and the driver came over to see how it all went.  I just smiled and said it had gone perfectly!