Spending Spree

Nothing like a ride looming in the not so distant future to make you get your ducks in a row. And to make your hubby question you when he looks at the bank account. Sorry Honey, but things needed bought. Fortunately for him the spending spree was pretty much limited to items under $30. For now anyway.

First on my agenda is getting the trailer fixed. I really like being able to tie Gemmie on the side with the tack room door and right now that is laying somewhere at the trial head in Clemson. Never having broken something quite so expensive before, I reached out to Facebook for advice and ideas of how to fix it. After looking through lots of suggestions I decided to go with these bad boys:

Galvanized steel tie rings. $2.50 a piece. I ordered 8 total. One will replace the broken tie ring for Gem. I will then add another one above it as well as two on the roof line to both sides. This will give me 4 tie spots on both sides of the trailer so that I should never have to tie anything to the same ring as my horse again. If she loses her marbles again and pulls free of the trailer at least nothing will be chasing her next time.

The very helpful gentleman on FB even went so far as to recommend the hardware to attach them with:

:

Self taping screws from Advanced Autoparts. I followed the link, but was immediately confused. The picture showed three sizes and a price of just over $2, but beyond that I couldn't tell if I got all three for that price or what. I put it in my cart to see if there was a next step to select size, but it didn't so I assume I would get one of each length. I don't need all three however. In fact, I don't even know what size I actually do need. Given that I figure it is prudent to just wait on the hardware until the actual rings show up and then head to the local store to figure it out. I know that they shouldn't go all the way through the wall, so I need to be careful on the length. I will need 32 total.

Since we will be working on the trailer anyway, I thought it is high time to finish up the interior a bit more. Last summer we added the door groom organizer and it has made my life so much easier. The tack room part of the trailer is small, so anything I can do to get stuff off the ground and neatly in its place is lovely. The other issue is that the trailer is aluminum and fiberglass. This makes it super light to pull and decreases the risk of rust and such, but makes modifications a headache. In order to hang the groom organizer we had to first attach pieces of wood (stained a lovely shade of red) to span the aluminum struts and attach the organizer to the wood. Not a big ordeal, but makes me more aware of what all I can work with.

The latest annoyance in the tack area are her saddle pads and blankets. Right now they are just thrown on top of the saddles, but they then tend to fall off during transit and I worry about them getting ruined. Plus, her light weight rain sheet isn't even in the trailer due to no room. This needs remedied.

The tack room has one completely free wall that is 42" across with a vertical aluminum strut at each end from floor to ceiling and another one midway up that is horizontal. Adding a blanket bar or two would be really nice, but they top out at 36" and are quite expensive for a one blanket holder. Instead I found this beauty:

Schneider has these lovely blanket bags which claim to hold a heavy weight or 2 mediums or numerous sheets. Reviews are all positive and state that it holds much more. At around $20, I figured
it was a great deal and put a nice red one in my cart. I looked at the monogram options, but monograming is also $20 and I refuse to pay as much for her name as I did for the bag. This will go along the horizontal strut at the midway point of the wall and will hold her fleece cooler and light weight rain sheet. This winter I plan to get her a medium weight and a fly sheet for at rides, so those can all neatly fit in there as well. This won't solve my saddle pad issue, but I have another idea for that for in the future. Small steps at a time.

Next up...boots. I need these pre WV and want to get them early enough to get some good conditioning miles in first. That means another Fit Kit.

With zero skills in measuring a hoof myself plus awesome skills at finding a barefoot trimmer who can't be bothered to measure a hoof for a client, I don't think attempting it again is in my favor. At only $12 a kit I think it is more prudent to just go ahead and order two kits. The lady at Easycare finds it strange but laughs anyway as I place my order for a size 1 Fit Kit (sizes 0.5, 1, 1.5) and a size 00.5 Fit Kit (sizes 00, 00.5 and 0). This given me 6 chances for success and if none of these fit then I know that the gloves won't work for her. Either trying Epics or Renegades would be next up.

All in all each item was under $30 and most were under $20 so I didn't break the bank which is a bonus. I have a few more ideas to finish up the interior tack room area and make it all better organized and cleaner, but they all won't get done this summer. These should get me through WV nicely.

I will post pics once I get everything hooked up and ready to use as well as my round two with the
gloves.

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