Things just never go right...

Saturday the 25th was our second LD ride.  The Spirit of Texas Endurance ride at the LBJ Grasslands.

Now, since I've gotten the horses AND gotten a trailer, the LBJ Grasslands was one of my "Want to visit to ride" destinations.  How wonderful for me that the stars aligned to have an endurance ride at a location I wanted to ride at!!

Ohhhhh Universe.  Why do you mock me?!

The week leading up to that weekend, I had plans.  Every single day of the week was planned in an attempt to ease the transition for me to make the trip to the ride nice and smooth.

Funny thing about plans.  Mine always seem to never go smoothly.

So, that's how I found myself on Sunday before the ride using the PVC prep and cement to prepare my portable corral panels.  Oh, what a non-surprise, I was short a length for my 5th panel.  Fine, I'll make do with 4 instead of 5.  Except Joe went and grabbed the size I needed for my 5th panel on Monday and completed it for me.

Monday, ran to the barn to do a very light session with Strider.  Between the weather forecast, and Joe being out of town starting Wednesday, I knew I needed to try and work Strider at LEAST once more before our ride.

I also needed to do this as I had re-rigged my saddle, and I know, I know, I KNOW you simply DO.NOT.CHANGE.ANYTHING. right before a ride.

I don't recommend anyone do this. 

Now that I've said that; re-rigging my saddle worked wonderfully.

I bought a (used) Toklat saddle pad that's grippy on the bottom, 2 60" long latigos and a 30" roper style cinch.  And this all seems to have pretty much solved the issue I battle with saddle slip.  The pad grabs, and having the back of the saddle snugged down helps as well.  And it seems to work well on Strider.  I also did a quick step-stool/mounting block "stand STILL damn horse!!" lesson.  Saddle stayed put, and Strider eventually figured out that it was easier to just stand there with a foot cocked than to move away from my step stool (this lesson did NOT translate to our ride on Saturday with all the other horses trotting up and down and warming up right by our campsite).

Took him to the arena and we lunged for about 15 minutes in the saddle, then I decided to mount up.  And this was the real test of my saddle since mounting is when it always slips because I can't pull my fat ass into the saddle. 

Stayed put!!  YAY!!!! 

So I rode Strider around at a gait and a canter for about 10 minutes and called it a good solution.

Tuesday.  OHHHH Tuesday.  You were not a friend of mine.

The plan:
Take the truck to work, swing my Tractor Supply after work (which meant getting to the barn later) to get the 35 gallon water tank and the hay bale I needed, more treats and some VitaCalm.  I was hoping to get some wax crayons, but they didn't have any.  Ugh.

Did manage to get in and out and run to the barn.

The plan was to hitch the truck and trailer and do a trailer loading lesson and maybe one more gentle workout since it would be the last time before our ride.

NONE of that went right.  NONE of it.

Well, not entirely true I suppose.

I get to the barn and go to hitch up to the trailer.  After the million and one itty-bitty adjustments to get the ball under the neck (I want a wheel for my trailer SOOOO badly!), I started cranking down to drop the hitch on to the truck.  Crank down.  And down.  Down more.  Uhm, leg's all the way retracted, and I'm still over the ball.  WTF?!

Then I realized that it was because I keep a very LARGE block of wood to rest the leg on, and so now the entire trailer's hitch is sitting on this block, and unable to go any lower to drop on the ball.  Oh lovely.  Now what do I do?!

Thankfully, Joe came out with the hydralic jack we have, cranked the hitch up, we removed the wood and slowly lowered the hitch on to the ball of the trailer.

Sadly, this all ate in to my trailer loading session time. 

Not.  Good.  Because there wasn't another single opportunity for me to get to the barn before Friday morning to practice.  We had thunderstorms predicted (which we got), which meant I couldn't get the trailer back down in to the valley the barn is in (it's a gravel road in and out for the trailers). 

The sun was quickly fading, but I decided, well, I'm calm right here, right now.  Let's just see where we're at.

Let me back up for JUST a moment.

I have a 2 horse straight load trailer.

I've tried to get Strider to load.  Usually this involves removing the divider in my trailer, opening both back doors and me getting inside the trailer while someone gets behind him and wacks him on the butt with a carrot stick to get him in. 

I've taken him to a few places, but it's always taken someone else to help me get him in.  One time I actually allowed someone else to try and load him, but he outwitted them (they'd make him back up fast-fast-fast, so he learned he'd just stop further and further away from the trailer.  I did mention he's a Jerkhorse, right?).

I have NEVER successfully loaded my horse alone.  EVER. 

So, back to the present attempt at trailer loading.

I have a long cotton lunge line, so I used the center dividing pole in my trailer as a guide to keep Strider's head straight, and I stayed outside of the trailer so I could tap his butt to get him in.

He acted terrified and tried to dance around the side of the trailer.

"OH NOOOOO!!!  I'm so SKEEEERED!!!!"

Jerkhorse.

I just kept his head pointed forward and tapped his butt.

In less than 2 minutes, he loaded up.

I cannot express my shock and delight.

Figured it was a fluke, but I let him take a break, scratched him, praised him, then had him back off.

Then I loaded him again.

Gave him a break.

And loaded again.

We slowly yo-yo'd in and out of that trailer about 5 or 6 times before I was convinced my horse could load and WOULD load with just me there.

And with that, I turned him lose with a promise to see him Friday morning and headed home.

After I got home, Joe and I finished drilling holes in my panels, then headed for bed.

Wednesday evening saw me racing home after work to grab Kaylee so we could do some shopping for the weekend.

The water tank doesn't come with a hose attachment.  I needed one.  I also needed a few things from Home Depot and I needed some groceries, which she and I grabbed.

I got her to bed around 10 pm, then started trying to get the hose attachment on my water tank so I could get it loaded and filled with water the next day.

I wrestled with it.  I fought with it.  I'd fill it up a little bit to see a slow drip of water.  No good.  I didn't dare risk my precious water to a slow leak.  Tried again.  Same problem.  And again.  STILL same problem.  Around and around and around I tried to fix it. 

I failed.

And I gave up after midnight.  I still needed to pack and get ready and now I was in a tizzy about not having enough water.

Thankfully our friend's husband came over on Thursday evening and got it done.  So I was able to load my saddles and non-food items in to the trailer Thursday evening.

You're exhausted reading this?  Imagine how I felt actually doing it!!  And we haven't even gotten on the road yet!!