Look What The Trailer Fairy Brought Us!

What, you didn't know there was a trailer fairy around dropping off AWESOME horse trailers at deserving peoples homes? Haha, if only, right? Well my fairy comes in the form of my parents! Lets start over!

So my mom and I have tossed around the idea of buying a trailer for a few years. We had one when I lived with them, but sold it with my QH mare I had to get rid of when I got married. My mom calls me out of the blue the beginning of last week and says, "well I've decided since your dad is buying stuff for him, I'm going to by myself something!" And proceeds to tell me to find her a horse trailer. A three or so horse slant, nice looking trailer, no more then 4k. I was pretty excited! Who doesn't like spending other peoples money on things they will get to use? NO ONE! I scoured the internet and came up with a nice (or so I thought) one in TN, right over the Alabama line, so only about an hour and half from us. It's at a trailer lot so she also has several others. Long story short we end up all traipsing up there this past Saturday.

Thank goodness I brought them along instead of just taking money. I went up there to look at a 1991 Jackson 3 horse slant steel trailer, priced at $3995, and came home with a $11,500 aluminum FOUR horse! I know, how the heck does that happen? Well for one thing, the Jackson was a pile of you know what. Its amazing what a picture can miss! (Not to mean misleading saleswomen, sigh) Anyway it was a rust bucket so we moved along to look at the line of MUCH nicer trailers. It took us a while, (the frequent bouts of snow blizzards didnt help!) but we finally decided on the Featherlite pictured above. Its GORGEAOUUUSSS! Here are some more pics:

Love how each stall has a front and rear window, and a top air vent

Rear collapsible tack

Front dressing/tack room

Gooseneck for storage, bed?

So we really liked how most of the other trailers had the dressing rooms converted into mini living quarters. So we will probably do the same to this one somewhere down the line. Do we need it? No, do we want it? Heck, yes! We found one online that is a very similar model to this one with a really nicely done interior that we might model it after.

Thank you mommy and daddy!! We also get to keep it at our place until further notice ;). I can't wait to load my big boy up in it and go somewhere to ride! It is a little overkill for just one horse of course, but this spring hopefully we will be filling the sucker up to go trail riding! Cisco, the BIL's horse (Stormy), my moms (Daisy), and hopefully the FIL will finally find him one! (BTW, went to look at another gelding yesterday, ugh, another big no)

Thats all for now! Will def keep you updated on the changes we do!

I'm leaving you with a picture of my Chloe; I'd say she is the love of my life, but she ties with her daddy, so she is ONE of the loves of my life! Just blessed.

Settling Cisco In

Rocking some boots with the fur

Fun, fun day with my Cisco boy Sunday! Came home from church and ate a little lunch, let little girl take her nap, then we hoofed it over to the grandparents! Thats little Chlo on the right, how much cuter can you get?? Not much, friends.

Cisco and Stormy were chilling right by the front of the house so I grabbed a lead rope, a step stool for Chloe, and a chair to set my bucket of grooming tools on. I sat Chloe on the chair and told her to stay put while I got the monster out. Then I parked Cisco in front of her chair and set up her step stool (its a mini sort of scaffold thing the FIL got for Christmas, pretty neat!) right next to him. I thought he might give it the hairy eyeball, but he barely sniffed it. I plopped Chlo up there and a brushing we went! She likes the mane brush so she did that while I used the soft brush. Her interest waned pretty quick though so I put her down and she spent most of her time playing with the cowboy magic bottle and spraying anything in reach down, lol.

My little helper

We had to be back at church for a singing that night, so I just planned on grooming him. After I gave him a good rub down I tackled his chestnuts. They were pretty long and gross looking. As I tried to peel on them they came off in puzzle pieces, instead of a long strip! Weird! So that took awhile, but he was so good and just stood there. I know some horses pick their feet up a lot when you do that. Really the whole time we were messing with him he just stood there with a foot cocked and head down, sweet guy.

After I got his chestnuts looking good I braided his mane over, hopefully it will start deciding to stay on the right side! Some of it does, but most of it hangs out on the other side. As I was doing that I noticed he has a lot of crest up there that flops around, I'm hoping as he loses some weight that will go down too. He is definitely an easy keeper. Also, looking at the picture I probably should have braided it quite a bit tighter up top, oh well, I will have to redo it in a few days anywho!

So after that I worked on his backing with a wiggle of the lead rope and then some lateral flexion. He remembered a little of it, but still wanted to lean on me a bit. Then he thought he was supposed to be moving so we had to work through that. By the time I was done he was doing pretty good. And I started looking at that big fluffy back, oh yeah, gotta jump on! I had the little BIL bring me another lead rope and stood him next to the mini scaffold and hopped up! He didn't even bat an eye, although he did move right off, lol, how embarrassing if I had slid off right then! But I manged to gather myself and just let him walk on. Um, anyone else out there rode a gaited horse bareback?? HARD. They move so lateral that I was sliding off every other stride! Thank goodness for those braids, lol, I grabbed one and got my bearings a little. We were also traveling in a pretty much constant circle, so that didn't help.

Maybe its just him, I don't know, but he does have a very long and low ambling stride. Aside from that I had a great time! He just strode along with his big head hanging, except when we went by the patch of green grass, lol, then he thought he needed to stop for a snack. Our woahs weren't the best in the halter, but not surprising.

After I had my fun I jumped off and did some more flexion with him. Then I decided it would be fun to try to teach him to park out. I had loaded up my pocket with cracked corn so every time I stepped forward when I tapped his fetlock I gave him a bite. He was VERY happy about that! He even started watching my pocket, lol, he knew where it was! Well that didn't go too well, he would move his front foot but his back would usually come up too. Then he was so excited about the grain he would get frustrated and try to paw. So I got a few good moves and left it at and tossed him back in with his girlfriend, who definitely missed him, lol.

So good time by all!! Stay tuned for more, hopefully I will get a real ride in soon.