Carrie's Trailer Daze

 Monday (10/5) we woke up at dark o'clock.

Carrie and Laura were trailering Ernie to Virginia Tech for surgery. 

Laura decided it was time to de-nerve him in the front. She'd struggled with the decision for weeks if not months. He'd been on pain medications for years and it was a quality of life issue.

With two horse women there wasn't much for me to do except document and provide moral support.

Carrie did have me run up and open the gate.

And I had the joy of doing all the morning horse chores once they left, too!

Their trip was uneventful. The techs came outside to get Ernie. Carrie and Laura had to remain outside as a COVID precaution, so they said their farewells in the parking lot.

Tuesday, Carrie shipped out later. This time, it was Huck. I didn't get many pictures, because I was hands on and helping.

Carrie started Huck's training, but it was time for him to go to a trainer who'd work with him more on riding. We weren't the best fit for that and we needed to make room for Nibs to come home. It was simply the right time for him to go.

This time Loki helped me open the gate.

Huck was a shorter jaunt than Virginia Tech. The new barn was within an hour one way.

What those pictures don't show if that Carrie discovered a nail in the rearmost driver's side tire on the trailer. She was worried about it, but after some pressure tests I convinced her it was fine to drive on for now.

It was, but when Carrie tried to check the other tires after she got back one of the tire stems broke! "This is a trade-in!" she said.

Of course, I was teaching class and unaware as this happened. Carrie took the trailer to the tire place that bought the Volvo and they fixed the tire stem and switched the nail tire with the spare. It was already said and done by the time I heard of it.

And the trailer trips weren't even done! Wednesday, Carrie and Laura were off to Virginia Tech again. The brought Ernie back bandaged up, but frisky.

Really frisky.

I heard them unloading near the end of my Honors Geometry class. The notes and most of the work were done, but I have kids who stay on for help.

"What's that noise?" I said. "Oh, it's my wife and our boarder unloading the horse that had surgery. Wait a minute...where's his lead rope? Did they let him off without..."

"Sorry kids, gotta go! Loose horse!"

I ditched my class and ran outside. Ernie ran straight for the mares' field to greet everyone. The ladies herded him and I sprinted to close the front gate. Ernie foolishly ran into the barn to greet Maddie and was captured quickly. 

I got back to my class half out of breath. "So that...was exciting...Where...were we?"

It was an opportune week for Carrie's new truck tags to arrive.

It'd be nice if the trailer and truck worked to help pay themselves off. Carrie almost had a paid gig trailering a horse to Lexington recently, but it fell through. Everything this week was pro-bono (though I think Laura paid for gas). 

While Carrie was done hauling the trailer for the week, she had a different driving project on Thursday. That crop duster dusted our arena with seeds. And they were growing.

Rather than weed the whole arena by hand, Carrie raked it with the gator. I took a peek at her progress in a lull between my afternoon classes!

I would have had Shane solo and been trying to teach the first three days of the week, so it was great that he was at Nana and Pop's! Nana had a funny story to tell about how well he paid attention, but that's a different post.