July 08, 2006

My Glamorous Life (for Spunky)

Since Spunky seems to think I'm leading some sort of glamorous life of luxury down here in the South... ;) I thought I'd detail my day today.

2:45 AM : alarm rings, Michelle gets up
3:15 AM : I give up on sleeping in until 3:30 AM
4:00 AM : leave house
4:20 AM : arrive at farm
5:00 AM : leave farm, with horse in tow
7:00 AM : arrive at 4H District competition
7 AM - 12:30 PM : Show dad duty, consisting mostly of lifting heavy stuff and taking pictures, with a little manure clean up thrown in for good measure.
12:30 PM - 2:30 PM : Tow horse back to farm.
2:30 - 3:00 : clean and park trailer, fall asleep in chair waiting for Delaney to get her post show stuff done. (tack stowed, horse cleaned, etc)
3:30 PM : Arrive at home - unload truck, clean coolers, etc
3:45 PM - lay down for a 15 minute nap - fail to fall asleep
4:00 PM: Give up on nap and check email.

update
4:30-ish: Fell asleep at desk. Woke up by wife at 4:45 PM.

Tomorrow will be a repeat, except that the show is local so the commute will be 15 minutes instead of 2 hours.

For those of you with horse crazy little girls...this type of schedule is not the exception, it's the rule. Even for a local show that starts at 830AM you'll want to be there 90 minutes before your first event to have time to warm up the horse and rider, get dressed, etc. Horse shows generally start with the youngest competitors first, so your 10 year old will be doing this to you frequently. Get used to it ;)

We are not particularly hardcore about this either. 1 or 2 local shows a month, with a trip thrown in to 4H Districts and State, is a very typical show schedule for a young rider. We haven't even contemplated multi-day shows, and living out of a horse trailer on the weekends.

Sharing your weekend residence with an equine friend that poops 40 lbs per day may be my daughter's idea of glamor, but not mine :)

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Comments

Multi day shows (regular events in this family) = buying some kind of RV. Your choices are all expensive, btw.

1. Stock trailer with living quarters - these start at around $20K and only sleep 4 - lucky you. You'll need a bigger truck.

2. Truck camper. You'll have to trade in your new rig on a pickup - with a back seat (What I told you to buy IN THE FIRST PLACE)

3. Big expensive RV pulling horse trailer. $$$$$

4. Haul two rigs to shows - one with the horse, one pulling a camp trailer. A pop up is a good choice, you can pull it with your existing rig since you're quickly going to need to buy a bigger one to pull your bigger trailer when you buy another horse - you'll soon find that one horse in multi classes doesn't cut it.

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Tell me how soon to invest in Nutrena, Ford, and Alumaweld.

Posted by: Doc at July 8, 2006 05:04 PM

Have to say, am intensely relieved that last pony bucked and scared normally unscarable Dd. She even refused to get on a Shetland today. Is this pretty mean of me, or just sensible?

Posted by: Carlotta at July 8, 2006 05:32 PM

I'm glad your enjoying this Doc :)

Posted by: COD at July 8, 2006 07:33 PM

Just sounds like a lot of horsing around to me ;)

Posted by: Spunky at July 8, 2006 08:48 PM

I wanted to think of something funny myself, but today, as usual, I just come off sounding like the south end of a north bound horse.

Posted by: sam at July 9, 2006 11:35 AM

Boy, it brings back memories.

When I was a kid, our solution for multiday shows was to take the horse truck (rebuilt basic box outfited for hauling horses and stock) which could hold about 5 horses, clean the floor and sweep out every last bit, and put up cots to sleep in. We'd also hang a blanket over the end of the box.

A little rough, but workable. Another choice might be to get a tent?

Posted by: Meg L. at July 10, 2006 12:30 AM

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