Month: August 2018

The original title for this post was “Singlehandedly Keeping Amazon in Business”, but then I realized that it isn’t JUST Amazon boxes that are taking up half of my dining room and providing Grem with endless If-I-Fits-I-Sits opportunities.

I ordered a bunch of random crap from Amazon for the new trailer. I mentioned most of it last week, like the hanging mirror and the wall gripper thingies and the rug. I was not totally honest with you guys. The full list is actually something more like:

• rug
• wall gripper thingies (2)
• hanging mirror
• cross tie rings (2)
• hanging organizer
• USB rechargable fans (3, on 2 different orders. Approximately one bajillion people have asked me for the link to these so here ya go.)
• wheel chocks (2)
• expanding hose
• twin air mattress
• carabiner clips
• bungee cord assortment
• trailer ties (2)
• folding step stool
• trailer decals
• heavy duty outdoor velcro (2)

And Tik Maynard’s new book. Not for the trailer, but… just because I wanted it, ok? Tik is an eventer. Tik is cool. Buy Tik’s book.

Anyway… as most of you know, the thing about Amazon is that pretty much everything ships separately. Or at least it seems like pretty much everything I ordered did. A couple days after I placed the order, boxes started showing up in groups (side note, what do you call a group of boxes? A flock? A herd? A murder?). One afternoon I drove up the street, saw the poor mailman parked in my driveway, digging boxes out of his truck and making a pile. It was 105 degrees out, he seemed less than thrilled. I was a wee bit embarrassed. He’s gotta be wondering wtf I’m doing and why I can’t stay off of Amazon. I feel a need to put a big “I’M SO SORRY” sign on my front door.

I also placed a Riding Warehouse order, for a hitch cover (recommended to me by aforementioned FatBuckskin) and another gallon of fly spray. Of course, I didn’t realize until after the fact that the fly spray was backordered, so guess what got split into two separate shipments? At least those are the UPS guy and not the mailman… spread some of the misery around.

And then stupid Dover got me (again) with their stupid summer sale (again) because who passes up a wool dress sheet for their dog for $4.50?? Ok, lots of people probably. But not me. I have an old JRT that gets cold easily and will look fancy AF in this thing. In the winter. Which is like 5 months away. And lasts all of 6 weeks in Texas. Details.

But ya know, in order to make that purchase worthwhile I had to throw a few other things in, right? And it’s possible that I have a minor show shirt addiction problem, especially if said shirt is a kind of unique Horseware design. And $8.99. I will totally wear this.

Plus I’ve been hemming and hawing over the idea of nameplate bracelets for a long time but didn’t really love the padded halter looking ones. This simple braided one is more my style (it looks very similar to a bracelet I bought in downtown Austin that says “Badass Motherf*cker”… without the star part… because if you put the f word on a bracelet I will probably buy it, it’s my favorite word.), especially at $7.50 a pop.

But then I had to order nameplates for them right? But not from Dover, because they were $11-15 each. So I snuck over to Haltertags.com and ordered two nameplates for $12. I pick the weirdest possible ways to pinch pennies, I know. Jewelry is not one of the things I want to spend money on, so spending less than $14 a piece on the bracelets makes me happier.

The saddle racks for the trailer are almost here (again, sorry mailman) and then the packages should start to slow down a bit, barring some Amazon stragglers.

Oh, and the Nathe bit that I snagged on eBay because somehow I used to have 2 Nathes and now I have none. They’re my favorite “baby bit”, so I definitely need another in my arsenal. It’s en route.

Then there’s that Ogilvy order that I placed in May and completely forgot about until my friend asked me a shipping question pertaining to it. That one should be extra fun to open because I legit don’t even remember what I ordered anymore. Pretty sure it was an all-navy dressage half pad and then a new cover for the jump half pad, but I definitely do not remember what colors I got. Surprise!

And there may or may not be some new Lund stuff coming too. And some Majyk Equipe. Ahem.

So… what do y’all get your mailman for Christmas, because I might owe him BIGLY after this little spree…

Newsflash, y’all: this kid can be a real punk when he wants to be. At least for a few minutes at a time, anyway.

I have to give him credit too, his moments of punkiness are 100% calculated and planned. Presto is not a reactionary horse in the least, he is a plotter and a planner, a mischievous little semi-deviant who sees himself as a bonafide rebel with a rad punk rock hairdo and an overactive sideeye. But on the inside, he’s 0% committed to being a Bad Horse. He’s easily swayed by his desire for snacks, and easily intimidated by authority, so usually all it takes to get him back in line is a growl or a swift correction. He is all bark, no bite. All hat, no cattle. All foam, no beer. Or I guess in this case: all mohawk, no… piercings?

I’m pretty convinced that he spends most of his free time brainstorming new schemes. You can usually tell when he thinks he’s struck gold, because he’ll have a particular little gleam in his eyes when I go get him. When I see that I’m always like “oh boy, here we go, what bright idea have you come up with today?”. Except his ideas are never bright. He thinks they are… right up until Reckoning time when I put the kibosh on that shit real quick. He’s just so bad at being bad.

The latest in his string of bright ideas has been experimenting with various turdly ideas during ponying. Clearly he’s gotten a little too comfortable with the routine, if he’s graduated into being a punk about it. When things are genuinely new, scary, or interesting, he’s usually a golden child. But we’ve been ponying a lot more lately, 3-4 days a week for 40ish minutes at a time. These are forward, marching walks out through the fields, up and down our hills. Presto used to have a hard time matching Henry’s pace, but as he’s gotten a bit stronger, his walk has gotten bigger and more forward too. Now that he’s not struggling to keep up, he’s got a little less to keep his brain occupied. We all know what that means.

The first bright idea was the Must Eat Now day. On that particular afternoon he spent the first half of our ponying session trying all myriad of ways to get snacks. The first attempt was just your standard plant-feet-and-yank-head-down approach, for which he got a swift smack on the butt and a series of extremely dirty looks from Henry, who does not take kindly to having his hacks interrupted by shenanigans. That having failed, Presto next tried to randomly exit stage right, throwing himself into the bushes and grabbing desperately at whatever greenery ended up near his mouth before I could reel him back in. One quick jungle extraction later, he spent the next 10 minutes plodding along politely, clearly pouting about his failure. And since his bottom lip is very square and juts out a good inch beyond his top lip, it’s extra amusing when he pouts.

Then out of nowhere he just completely disappeared from beside me and I looked back to see him fling himself down on one knee, grab a huge bite of grass, and pop back up again, all in one swift motion. Honestly, it was kind of impressive from a sheer athleticism and cleverness standpoint. So naughty, but really crafty. You gotta admire that. Of course, it can’t be tolerated either, so we spent a few minutes moving his feet (while I chuckled a lot more than I should have, probably) and reminding him that ponying time is business time, after which he promptly gave up and hasn’t tried it again since. He’s SO not dedicated to his rebellions, it’s actually kind of pathetic.

After another few near-perfect ponying sessions, he’d come up with his next scheme. This time he spent the first five minutes constantly trying to reach over and bite Henry. That in itself isn’t new, he usually manages to summon up the courage for a little nip at least once or twice per session. This time, though, it was constant. The end of my lead rope turned into a whacker, and every time that naughty little nose pointed our way he got a nice wallop. Of course, not being totally new to this game, he would quickly nip at Henry and then leap to the right or duck down to avoid the wallop. That was a new one. Granted, all I had to do was increase the range of my wallop, which really seemed to have him stumped. HOW WAS I STILL ABLE TO NAIL HIM, DESPITE HIS AMAZING ACROBATIC ESCAPES?

Baby horses are really stupid, guys. It’s hilarious.

So again, that game ended after a few minutes, and Presto trudged along looking defeated once more. I have no doubt that sometime in the next couple weeks when I go to get him, the gleam will be back and he’ll roll out his newest brightest idea. I also have no doubt that it won’t really be that bright, and we’ll go through the motions all over again. He is nothing if not entertaining.