Today, the old barn where Benny lived was ready for a new occupant.
No, Puff, not you.
The Brenderup was cleaned out and hitched up.
No, Tucker, not you.
Dad and I hit the road down to the barn.
Yes, it’s a Brenderup. It’s almost twenty years old and still in great shape.
We loaded up the stuff first, which was more than I thought it would be. How does horse stuff just…accumulate like that? And six bales of hay plus a net full to keep him busy.
So then I went out and got the boy.
Yes, that’s the pasture, even after rain this week. We have a drought all over the state.
It’s been a really long time since I did wraps (if I ever did in the first place; I honestly can’t remember.) Yes, I use quilts, not boots. The one set of boots we had seemed to come off Benny, while the quilts were still good and I have quite a few.
I think I did a pretty good job, actually.
Lucky was not all that enthused about loading, but with Dad on the lead and me tapping his butt with a dressage whip (okay, it verged on ‘smacking’ a couple times until it finally got his front feet ON the ramp) he finally managed to step in. He’s probably jumped fences and lifted his back legs less than he did going up SCARY RAMP. But he went in.
Maybe he’s bigger than I think, as he actually does a pretty good job lenghtwise filling up the B’up. THIS is why he didn’t like the idea of loading in the BO’s two-horse even for practice…
Lucky, once in, didn’t seem overly perturbed.
A little curious, maybe.
We had the windows cracked and the hatch on the ramp down so he wouldn’t get too hot.
Lots of head room and he could even see out the window.
It was a pretty long drive, but fortunately the temperature today was lower than it has been and he felt good about emptying his hay net by the time we arrived.
The welcoming committee was waiting….
After some walking around and cramming his mouth with all the green grass he could grab, I put him inside so he’d be out of the way while we unloaded hay and stuff and discombobulated the cats and dogs.
As you can see, he likes the shavings, and demonstrating he’s athletic or at least coordinated enough to roll in his stall.
Tomorrow I should have the photos from Mom’s camera, featuring the Dogs and a few prettier shots of Lucky arriving! And maybe some pictures of him turned out on green grass.
Jul 22, 2012 @ 05:39:25
I love getting your updates about him — and he looks great! Lucky guy (pun intended!) to have ended up with you.
Jul 22, 2012 @ 10:35:30
You should have seen him with his “pasturemates” this morning–my dogs are a little vague on horses (oddly enough for Puff, who grew up with Saddlebreds) and were hanging out in the field as if he wasn’t there. Puff even walked right under him. (He is just lucky that Lucky and Chico, the next-door neighbor at my house, are VERY blase horses who just ignore the crazy dogs.) And Kitty, the only barn cat old enough to remember horses, is so fed up with him trotting up to the barn door while she’s trying to lie there. He stops well short, but she doesn’t seem confident of that!
And of course the big question–who’s going to be a barn mate? Dad has to build the second stall (Benny kicked the middle and only other functional stall apart one night and Dad’s never gotten around to putting in a new wall and door) but I saw him looking at Michigan CANTER listings last night…though I said, I would bet money if I went over to Mount Pleasant Meadows (about fifteen minutes away) with $500 cash and a trailer I’d be beating offers off with a stick.