Day 14
Hayley had me pick Royal’s feet and put his boots on him. I wasn’t thrilled because the boots annoy me, but she said to think of it as acquiring a new skill. So yeah, I now know how to put that particular type of boot on a horse, but, given the choice, I would personally pick something that is more aesthetically pleasing and comfortable-looking. After that party I used Thrushbuster on Cayenne for the first time. I want to state for the record that almost feel like I should go into detail about the experience, because something about it puts me into Barn Hours Write-Up mode. There is nothing interesting to say about it.
I then started stall cleaning, finishing Roulette and Zoe and starting on Royal before Hayley came into the barn with a special favor to ask. I wasn’t sure it was wise to trust me with such a task (and I’m not sure why she asked me specifically) but I agreed anyway and headed to Brittney’s office to get directions to the feed store. I was to fetch 15 bags of Senior feed on DEFHR’s tab (which was good because the total was about $280). The experience went fine, nobody died, and, although I did miss the on-ramp to 70E on my way back, I felt like a real horseperson doing real horseperson stuff.
When Evie and I got ready to prepare the PM feed (for some reason nobody did it yesterday), Hayley noticed that the sweet feed was moldy. Apparently people had been refilling the freezer whenever the feed got low instead of when it was empty, which resulted in the feed at the bottom never coming out. So instead of preparing the PM feed, Evie and Hayley scooped out the freezer and had Don (volunteer) drag it outside so they could wash it with Sabrina and Kara. Meanwhile I tallied up how much of each feed we use on a daily basis for future reference.
At some point after I finished my figures it was lunch time. We couldn’t rotate lunches today because we were scheduled for another session with Sara, this time on evaluating a new, unknown horse. She showed us how to get a horse used to having his feet handled, how to teach him about respecting personal space, and gave us tips for lunging and saddle breaking. Wall-E is still fairly green and hasn’t been ridden since coming to DEFHR, but he picked up lungeline work very easily and didn’t mind having the saddle on him. Next week we’re supposed to learning about trailer loading, which doesn’t sound like much to most horse people. I’m excited, though, because it’s actually something that I have virtually nil experience with.
The buckets were already set out and started for tomorrow’s AM feed, so I finished filling the buckets and adding the supplements to them while everyone else was consulting the meds sheet and grooming horses.
After work I decided that I needed to go grocery shopping again, but I stupidly thought I’d take another stab at finding the local WalMart. You guys know how in Ohio, our WalMarts are extremely pretentious, sprawling themselves across massive parking lots that are clearly visible if not from space then at least from the nearest intersection? Well, Marylanders like their WalMarts to be hidden and virtually inaccessible to the non-local. I ultimately failed in my quest and dragged myself back to Woodbine to shop again at Food Lion. I saved about six dollars with my Brittney-provided Food Lion MVP card and bought no overtly unhealthy food. Yay me!
I’m going to go downstairs and get a drink of my wonderful and healthy Simply Orange orange juice before I go to bed.

♥
SM