Well hello there, long time no update (for me anyway). Last week was absolutely ridiculous… that’s all there really is to say about that.

The t!ny h0use was originally supposed to get picked up last Monday, then they called me the Thursday before and asked if they could pick it up early. It wasn’t totally packed up and unhooked yet so I told them the earliest it would be ready was Saturday and they said that was fine. So I basically put everything else on hold and my dad came out to help me get it everything in bins, the fans down, appliances strapped up, furniture wrapped, etc on Friday, only for them to call afterward and be like jk we’re gonna pick it up Monday like originally planned.

Annoying, but at least everything was packed up now. Granted, it was now no longer livable. The barn owners had already graciously offered to let me take over their guest bedroom in the time between the t!ny leaving and when we actually leave with the horses, so I basically just ended up moving over there a few days early. And, bonus, their house comes with very fluffy malamutes.

Mina is a bit scared of them, which is fair considering they’re 3x her size, but luckily I thought to bring the baby gate. Mina likes to stand on the bed (the safe place, clearly) while Obi stands in the doorway and wonders why she won’t come out and play with him. It’s working out just fine though… Mina comes outside when we’re outside, and when she’s inside she just sleeps on the bed. Not much different from her normal routine really.

Anyway, last Monday a driver did indeed show up to pick up the house, but… he did not have the right hitch on his semi. Which was extremely frustrating considering that a few days before I had spent a half hour on the phone with both the broker and the dispatch, making sure they knew that it wasn’t a standard 5th wheel hitch, and sending them both a lot of photos of the hitch. I felt bad for the driver mostly… he showed up, hung around for a bit waiting for his dispatch to get back to him with instructions, and then left. He never came back, and the broker called to tell me he had another driver booked to come pick it up that evening. A few hours later that driver called and said he wouldn’t make it before dark (oversize loads can’t be on the road after dark) so he was going to come pick it up first thing the next morning instead. Which was fine, but like… I’d already spent weeks being anxious about moving this tiny house and imagining all the things that could go wrong, and here we were with some of them starting to come to fruition. I was stressing.

The next morning the new driver shows up, and once again he does not have the right hitch. It was closer to the right hitch, but still… not the right hitch. He also didn’t have a jack, flags, flashers, a light bar, or any kind of oversize load banners. I am not shitting you. He did have an escort car with him, and that lady had one extra oversize banner, but… he didn’t have what they needed to legally get it on the road. Which was VERY FRUSTRATING considering the specs of the load are included in the job. He knew all that before he came. It’s quite possible that I was on the phone yelling at two different people all before 7am. I hate yelling. Especially on the phone.

At that point though I was either going to get the damn house on the road or set on fire, one of the two, so I was like screw it Mr. Driver, while you’re fixing the hitch issue tell me where to get the oversize shit and I’ll just go buy it my fucking self. He called the closest truck stop and they had everything, so off I drove to spend $200 buying this guy’s oversize load shit that he already should have had.

The house did eventually make it out of here around noon, SIX HOURS after the driver first arrived, and I spent more of my own dollars to make it happen, but… it left. I just really needed that thing to go because it was stressing me out to the point where I couldn’t sleep and was pretty sure I was getting an ulcer.

Of course, I thought that the house leaving would be a weight off my shoulders but it really just opened a whole new set of anxiety flood gates. The night it left I for some reason panicked in the middle of the night thinking that it wouldn’t be able to fit in the gate at the Florida farm (I had already checked that, I dunno why I forgot and freaked out) and laid awake all night in a panicky sweat about it until I could get someone to confirm the gate width the next day. A couple days later the broker sent me a fairly unhinged text (like… are 25 exclamation marks and all caps necessary?) telling me that the driver was having issues with the tires and had 3 blowouts. Which… uh, yeah, not surprising. Look at that thing. And it’s being hauled 1000 miles across some particularly shitty Southern backroads because it’s too tall for any highways or main roads. Also, Mr. Broker who’s job title is literally Logistics Coordinator, is this not your job to handle? Is this not what we paid you for? Why am I getting batshit text messages about something I cannot do anything about?

Anyway. The t!ny did finally make it to Florida yesterday afternoon. At least it’s done. I do feel a bit better about everything now, with that huge worry taken care of. Partially at least, because it still has to be blocked and leveled and anchored and all that stuff. Still, moving it was nothing but a spectacular pain in the ass and 0/10 would not recommend undertaking that particular experience.

Last Wednesday Hillary and I drove up to Midland to pick up Presto and bring him back home. We had quite an adventure up at Michelle’s (even though we were only there for like 15 hours) so I’ll post more about that later this week. But indeed, the Noodle has landed and though he’s been a massive pain in the ass so far (what else is new) I do love having him back. I missed his big dumb face. I’m slightly panicked at having 3 horses to deal with on my own in Florida but… we’ll figure it out.

In between all this I’ve been busy getting all the breeding data prepped for Kentucky. A friend has an “in” with the organizers and John Kyle said he was interested in having the data, so I possibly went extra-crazy with it and triple checked everything in an attempt to make it as thorough and correct as possible. Hillary took my spreadsheets and is pulling the most important data over into easier-to-read-for-commentators PDF’s with our Breed.Ride.Compete. branding so that we can email those over. Our Patrons already have access to the documents for the 4* and the 5* posted to Patreon. I’ve also written an article for EN in collaboration with RRP, a very TB-centric LRK3DE article, that I think will be running Tuesday or Wednesday. I’ll link to it when it’s up.

I also made a couple more BRC swag items for myself to wear this week in Kentucky. Gotta represent. We’ll be there Thursday and are staying on the campground (Patrons, you’ve gotten an invite to a Happy Hour on Saturday at our camper! Check the facebook group!) and while this trip is largely for “business”, I’m really excited to get back to Kentucky. The timing of this whole thing is… uh… not the best, considering we’re literally about to move, but still. I can’t wait. And really I haven’t even had time yet to think about Kentucky because I was so busy with everything else, but now that I can finally devote some brainpower to it, I’m just ready to be there. Bring on the bluegrass.

We get back from Kentucky on the 2nd, pack everything up for the horses on the 3rd, and then officially leave for Florida on the 4th, so time is ticking. Hard to believe we’re so close now. It’s a little overwhelming because even though I’ve managed to mostly take care of things here, there’s going to be even more to do when we get there. Trying not to think about that part yet…

Tomorrow I’ll give you more updates on what the horses have been up to. I’ll do my best to draft a post for this Friday too so that we don’t miss Foal Friday. Beyond that I’m not really sure how much I’ll be blogging or when, but I’ll try my best to get some regular updates for you along the way.