Life is Crazy

Q: Why was the hubby spending his entire evening reading through a 34 page guide to vetting horses last night?

A: Because life is amazing :)

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I hemmed and hawed about reaching out to the horse community around here. For months I delayed doing it. Life is crazy busy as it is and I feared I would be that person who always says no when she is invited to something. Everyone has that friend. The one who complains about never getting invited to stuff and missing out yet every time you invite them they say no. I didn't want to be that person. But reality struck that I had no friends and was bored riding alone and so I put on my big girl panties and put a plea out to the internet and found some friends. I am sure glad I did.

Wednesday morning started like any other morning. I don't start work until 11:30 (I work later to offer evening appointments for after school or after work) and we enjoy a family breakfast at Cracker Barrel every Wednesday morning. The hubs has worked the last two weekends and I was happy that he finally had one off this weekend.

Back into the minivan I looked at my phone and noticed a message from T. From there on out the day got very interesting.

Apparently there is a ride and tie event going on at the local trails Fri and Sat. I knew of this event, but the hubby originally was working this weekend and I had put it out of my mind. Unfortunately, the ride vet had something come up and couldn't be present on Saturday. Calling around to all local horse vets resulted in nothing and they were on the verge of cancelling the event. I'm not sure how T got involved (she probably knows the vet and she is registered for the 15 mile event Saturday) but she remembered that the hubby was a vet and asked if he would be at all interested in doing it.

Now a normal person would say no. He hasn't worked on horses in 10 years. And while he has completed a ride and tie event he knows absolutely nothing about the rules. And the idea of spending you first weekend off in forever at a trail head in the sun watching other people compete for 10 hours isn't all that high on most people's list of fun things to do.

But I've never claimed the hubby was normal and instead of saying no he agreed to talk to the ride vet and figure out some stuff. She called him and he agreed to do it with the understanding that he does not have a horse truck full of medication and such and could not provide treatment. She agreed.

Not wanting to come across as completely ignorant he feigned knowledge of the event and then promptly went online to find a manual. He found one 34 pages long and that is how he ended up spending his Wednesday evening cramming for a practical exam this Saturday.

It will be hysterical as he has to determine the pulse rate, if a horse is fit to continue and even pick the best conditioned horse.

Not to be out done my own brain started turning.

I immediately texted S and asked if she would be up for the ride and tie on Gemmie (remember her mare is out until the farrier comes to visit).

You know you have found an awesome friend when you text them on a Wednesday night asking if they want to do the ride and tie when neither of you have run in forever, she has never participated before and she has never ridden your horse before and her answer is "the most important question is what colors do we wear?"

Ha!!!

At first she opted for the 4 mile beginner event. Neither of us are runners and so that would be the smartest plan. Or smartest outside of just not doing it at all. But by the end of the conversation she said she wanted to do the 8 mile! Awesome!!!

So that's the plan. We have entered the 8 mile ride and tie for Saturday. I have only done 1 other one and we were the only participants so we just made it up as we went. This is an official event hosted by the Ride and Tie Association, so I'm sure we will have to figure out the rules a bit.

I will supply the horse. I need to go buy a tie rope, but I know how I want to set it up so I can do that Friday. Fortunately, we have the same size head so we will share my helmet and not have to run with it. She has saddle packs and we will hook that onto my saddle for water for us. Beyond that we will make it up as we go along and hopefully by the end of 8 miles we will figure out what works.

I can't wait!!!!