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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Project...and product review Cashel Organizer

Gem rides around in an Eclipse 2 horse straight load aluminum trailer. Is it absolutely perfect? No. But I actually really like the trailer and it fit all our needs at the time of purchase. I have no plans on selling it ever and after owning it for 3 years it was about time to personalize it a bit.

My only real issue with the trailer is that the tack area is also the walk through/emergency door for loading the horses. It is a decent size, but most things were stored in a large muck bucket on the floor and I tended to trip over or step on items. The last straw was two weeks ago when I tried to open the trailer vents (with the trailer being so ridiculously tall, I have to stand on something to do this) and stepped down and tripped landing on top of my brand new bottle of fly spray squishing the bottle and popping the top off. Fortunately, I was able to attach the nozzle of a different bottle to pry this one back into a straight position and get it working again. But I had had enough.

Enter the Cashel full door groom organizer:

I had ordered it with the new chaps, but had run into a small complication with using it and so it sat in the trailer being useless and taking up yet more essential floor space.

What was the complication? The trailer is aluminum to cut down on both the annoyance of dealing with rust creating steel as well as weight. That's fine. But the door and walls themselves are fiberglass (I think...well they are something other than metal of any sort) and that limited the ability to hang the above contraption since the width from aluminum post to aluminum post was too wide and the length was too long. I really wanted it on the door and low enough that I could reach everything from the ground.

We needed to do something to safely hang the unit and so we stopped at Lowes and picked up some pieces of wood to go from end to end of the door at whatever height I wanted. Then the hardware for the organizer could be hung onto these and voila!

So we got the wood, but it was boring wood. I happened to walk past some decorative wood meant for something I suppose...maybe a railing or something. Anyway...much to the hubby's annoyance I grabbed a piece of that too to make it look prettier. Then...having pretty on the brain...I looked at staining options. Everything I have horse related is red and black. There was one staining option that was red looking and so I grabbed a can and headed to the paint department to get it mixed up.

I chose Antique Red because it was a little darker looking and in 5 minutes they had it ready. The person didn't offer to open the can and I was already taking too long for a quick 10 minute stop (30 minutes later :) so I grabbed it and headed to the check out. You can guess where this is going, right? It was 5 pm Saturday night and I wanted it stained and dry by morning. I got everything ready and opened up my can to see....purple stain. Umm? It wasn't even anywhere close to being red or reddish or pink or any shade/hue close to red on the color wheel. Darnnit!

Back to the store I went worried they wouldn't take it back. But they did without a question and I grabbed another can of base and headed to the paint department. I chose a new color (China Red) in case the other color recipe was messed up and I ended with purple again. The guy (same one as last time) handed it to me and I asked him to open it this time. It was red!!

Back home and I put W to bed and headed out to stain the wood. It really didn't turn out quite "red" more of a terracotta color, but it is red enough for me.

Sunday morning I had the hubby drill holes into the aluminum (ick...I guess the trailer is ours now!!) and he hung the board up across the width of the trailer door at a height reachable for me from the ground. He then tacked on the pretty top boards (the picture we have it crappy but it has a vine and leaf pattern running the length of it) and then the hardware for the organizer.

It works perfect!!! I holds all my fly spray bottles, grooming brushes, belly balm, hoof pick, her ear bonnet, etc... There are two hooks as well and I used these to hang our bits up off the floor. The plastic zipper pouch velcros on/off and I put my AERC card and coggins papers in there. That way I can just grab it and go to the vet in keeping it all organized.

I am sooo happy with it. The trailer looks so much better and everything is super easy to reach. I can't wait to really use it. Next time I make it to the barn I will grab better picks!

Trailer Loading 101

If you recall, last weekend Gem and I had a difference in opinion when it came to the importance of getting into the trailer. She won. Not good.

Saturday was D-day. I headed out to the barn around 10 am and planned to spend the entire day if it was needed to make her understand that while I appreciate the fact that she has an opinion, in this case it doesn't matter.

I tied two 20' lunge lines together (although I really only needed one), hooked it to her halter, up through her side of the trailer, around the center divider and back out to me. I grabbed a borrowed dressage whip and started tap tap tap on her big brown (and shiny :) buttocks. She stood there and took it. I thought we were in for a loooong day.

Apparently the tap tap tap is pretty annoying because it didn't take long for her to react by rearing up and scooting off to stand beside the trailer. The lunge line got snagged on the hinge of the back trailer window and this ticked her off. I unhooked it and led her back to facing the trailer. Tap tap tap. She reared again and again ended up beside the trailer. I unhooked the snagged up line and brought her to face it again.

Eventually I gave up on bringing her around. The rope prevented her from ever facing away from the trailer and kept a constant pull toward it, so I didn't care really where she stood. I didn't appreciate the rearing though and so when she did that she got a whack. Any forward motion or really any hint of forward motion and she was told she was good and given a break. But if she refused to moved when asked, it started again.

40 minutes later and she was on the trailer!

She stayed put for about 3-4 minutes while I told her how awesome she was and gave her treats which she refused out of principle. Back out and I walked her around and headed back to the trailer.

Nope. Wouldn't get on. This time it only took 10 minutes before she gave in and got on the trailer. I did this for 2 hours until she got on with only a lead rope and no whip.

Lunch break then an hour later I returned.

You should have seen the look she gave me in the pasture when I went to get her! It was priceless. But she stood there and let me drag her back out. She loaded just fine the first time, but not the second and so she got hooked back up and we started again. But she went on just fine in the end and all was well when I left her.

Sunday I went out alone with my big girl panties on and hooked up the trailer, grabbed Gem and she loaded great. No whip. No ropes. She walked right on.

After the ride she had attitude. I'm not sure why she is worse to come home. You would think she would want to get her butt home and be put back out. I just don't get it. So I gave her two chances. Nope. I hooked the lunge ropes back up and by the time I walked over to grab the end she decided it wasn't worth it and just walked on by herself. Good girl!!!

I know we aren't perfect and she will fight again, but at least now I have the tools to out do her.