BIG Change

Yes, we're alive.

And please pardon if there are discrepancies in verb tenses here-I had meant to post this in the gist of everything, and had originally written it in the present, but then our modem in South FL died, and was never able to post! So I have changed everything to past tense.

Man, a lot has changed since the last time I posted. I've been absent because we've been so busy! We have MOVED, y'all! We moved far, far away to a land of 4 seasons and ice and snow in the winters...Washington, DC!

Our lease on the townhouse was up in November. We had to move, and when we were done calculating what our student loan payments were going to be once they were all in full repayment (some of them are on interest-only repayment at the time), we were not going to be able to afford living in South FL at all. Everything is (ridiculously!) expensive there: horse keeping, rent, gas, utilities, groceries, car insurance. It's almost equivalent to living in, say, Boston or San Francisco. Except no one gets paid Boston or San Fran salaries!! So the plan was: either move somewhere where everything was WAY cheaper and we got paid the same, or go somewhere where everything else is the same, but we got paid more. The big question: how do we get out of South FL? Because it is really hard to save for a big cross-country move when you barely make enough to pay for month-to-month bills.

We first looked into joining the Air Force so they'd pay for our relocation (not kidding. Yes, we were that desperate! Charles would have been working with the medics as an AF RN, which had a whole lot of perks) but they didn't pay that much to warrant dealing with deployments, and anyway, it turned out that with Charles's current asthma (he has re-developed it after 6 years of living in South FL, land of eternal pollen and mold), they would never take him. I wasn't going to join if he didn't. So then we heard about travel nursing, which we have been researching extensively for the last year. The good companies pay for part of your relocation, and you make a lot more money per hour, plus you can choose between free housing with utilities paid, or a nice stipend to live where you choose. Assignments are short (3-4 months) but if you are able to choose an area where there are a lot of travel nursing positions available on a consistent basis, you can stay in the same area and bounce around from one hospital to the other with your same travel company, and/or from one travel company to another, or both. Or just take advantage of the fact that you're there and apply for a job directly with the hospital of your choice.

I had not posted about it here, because literally every week our plans changed. Originally, we wanted to go to Houston, TX. Then it was San Antonio, TX. Then it was Massachussetts. Then NY. Then South Carolina. Then North Carolina. We considered New Hampshire. Then Virginia Beach. We liked Virginia Beach best. So Charles got his VA RN license, and I started the process to switch from being a FL CVT to a VA LVT (licensed vet tech-you have to be licensed to work in VA, but once you're licensed, you're set to work anywhere except California (for CA you need to take the state exam too, one of the hardest in the country), as it is worth more than being certified, even though the requisites and fees for being licensed vs certified are similar.) At this point, Charles signed up with 5 (FIVE!) different travel nurse companies, in the hopes that A job would show up with one of them. Then there were no jobs popping up in Virginia Beach-they were popping up in the Falls Church area of Northern VA. And then it was south Maryland. And then DC. Lots of jobs in DC. Which we thought was incredibly silly, considering the place is so tiny and isn't really a state. By the time Charles actually started interviewing over the phone, all of his interviews were with DC. One hospital in particular liked him so much that they immediately called the travel company afterwards and said, "We want him!" So in a 24 hour period, we went from not knowing where the hell we were going to end up, to "Oh boy, we only have 2.5 weeks to pack all of our shit!" Plus Charles's paperwork, because now he had to get his RN license with DC, but the travel company helped him get that expedited.

By now, I knew every barn from Texas all the way up to New York where I would keep Lily. *lol* Of course I had an especially long list of barns in the North VA area that I liked, including one in the DC metro area of Maryland that was my #1 choice if we ended up in DC. I called as soon as Charles signed his contract, and it turned out they had a stall available. I was tremendously impressed with the barn manager-she not only asked pertinent questions about Lily's routine and diet, she asked about my riding interests and goals, gave me an overview of how their barn works, and went on to recommend good areas to live in around DC, and the best animal hospitals to work at. This was exactly the kind of care I was looking for, not just for Lily but for myself. I mailed my deposit check right away to hold the stall, and contacted the hauler I had already narrowed my choices down to, and set the ship date (I was soooo happy I had done all of this research in advance!). Lily's destination was all set within another 24 hours. Us, however, still didn't know where exactly we would be living-all we knew is that it was going to be somewhere in a 30 minute radius from Georgetown. (Because rent in Georgetown itself is absolutely exhorbitant-ridiculous)

The last 2 weeks in FL were a flurry of activity-continuing Lily's treatments (she was back in regular work, time permitting), and doing the monumental work of packing our house. We had expanded our belongings from one-bedroom capacity to 2-bedroom townhouse, and now we had to really, really downsize again-the apartment where we would initially be living would be furnished, so we were downsizing to only what we were willing to pay storage for. It's both an exciting and emotional process. I hate throwing out things that are still useful, and things that have significance or were given to us by loved ones. Then there were other things, nice things, that I scrounged to buy so we wouldn't be living like kids in a college dorm anymore. Case in point: our 2 chocolate brown 6' tall bookshelves. They were solid wood-not the cheap laminate stuff. I painstakingly saved up the money to buy them to hold all of our books in one place (Charles and I are both bibliophiles), and put them together myself. I loved those things, and was dreading the thought of having to leave them behind, never mind throwing them out...Luckily, one of the girls from work, who came to pick up our platform bed for her new apartment, thought the same way, and not only did she take my book cases with her-she found them a home.

The cats were having a ball with the chaos in the house-boxes EVERYWHERE for them to climb onto and into, and packing material for them to play with. Judy was nice enough to find me 20 file storage boxes at work that were super handy, and I brought some home from the hospital, too. The living room looked like a bomb went off, between the enormous pile of clean clothes on the papasan, suitcases waiting, a combination of empty and full boxes everywhere, and our important papers spread out over the dining table. We have a lot of warm clothes that we had obviously not needed in 6 years-I'd been washing ALL OF IT, at once, and hoping I could pull off an Undetectable Extension Charm to somehow be able to magically fit all of our belongings in our predetermined limited space.

And then there were the horsey preparations. Lily needed a monumental amount of vaccines-7 total!! The vet gave the first 4, and I gave the other 3 the following week. She was due for her core vaccines (flu, rabies, tetanus, Eastern/Western and West Nile), plus Potomac Horse Fever and rhino, the first required up north (DC is right next to the Potomac River, the namesake for the disease, so duh), and the second was required by the barn I'd be boarding her at. I'd been in a cold sweat over the stupid vaccines because I just hate vaccinating in general; I always fret no matter which animal is receiving the shots. As it was, Dr. G gave her the first 4 vaccines (rhino, Potomac, intranasal flu, and tetanus), and left me the other 3 for me to give the following week (rabies, Eastern/Western, West Nile). Lily did have an initial small vaccine reaction, and I'm guessing it was to the rhino, the most reactive of all the vaccines she received. I gave her 2 grams of bute the day of her vaccinations, but even so, the next day I found her looking sleepy in her stall and not having eaten much all day. I put her on the crossties and took her temperature, and she was at 102.9. If you didn't know her well, though, you never would have been able to tell she had a fever. She just seemed calmer than usual, but she was still alert and paying attention to her surroundings. It was a warm afternoon anyway, so I hosed her down, which almost sent her into a full-on nap, put her in front of the fan and put her ice boots on, and let her doze while I mucked her stall. I re-took her temperature after 30 minutes, and it had only dropped to 102.7. Yup, she definitely had a fever. I put in a quick call to my vet, as I thought her temperature was pretty high, but he didn't seem particularly concerned and said to give her another 2 grams of bute and give her until the next day. Lily would not eat the bute powder mixed with grain like she normally does, so, with permission from Diana, I gave her 2 grams of Bali's bute paste. Lily HATED this. She took it well, but 5 minutes later, after finishing cleaning her water buckets, I discovered her drooling and rubbing her face on her knees. I fed everyone and put Lily in her stall. She went for her hay and tried to eat, to my relief, but she made faces, as everything still tasted like the bute paste. She pawed angrily at the hay, tried it again, made more faces, then ran outside. We had turned Willy out in the paddock next to Lily's, and I saw her try to eat grass. Same result-the grass tasted like bute too, which frustrated her. She pawed at the ground, ran back into her stall and whinnied at me. This made me burst into laughter. The poor creature was definitely hungry after all, but everything tasted like the yucky medicine still in her mouth. I searched for a 60ml syringe to rinse out her mouth, but couldn't find the one I used to have, so I went and got her a carrot and some of Mark's apple horse treats that she loves. I found her back outside by Willy's paddock, and offered her the carrot first. She took it, chomped on it, then methodically spat out every single piece one by one. I offered her a cookie. She gave me a dirty look (I swear! *lol* "Mom, why you do this? Everything tastes like medicine!") but obliged by daintily taking the treat with her lips. ("Oh alright!...") She chewed on it exaggeratedly, then I saw her ears go forward and she swallowed. She willingly took the second treat I offered, then started nuzzling at the grass and some old hay on the floor from the haynets. She started eating! I ended up spreading her hay along the fenceline so she could eat while still hanging out next to Willy. She dug in. After that, I left to go to work, and Diana later texted me that she had eaten all of her beet pulp. It was scary for a minute, though-I had not had a horse have a vaccine reaction before, and I've heard some awful horror stories. It didn't help when, 24 hours after giving her the consecutive 3 vaccines, she developed fat legs and her neck became so sore that she couldn't lower it to eat from her ground feeder!!! She jerked when I was trying to give her the first shot, developing a hematoma on the side of her neck. She received all of her hay that day in haynets so she wouldn't have to put her head down, and she demonstrated a healthy appetite. Bute and a long hand walk in the park helped alleviate her soreness and the swelling of both neck and legs. No fever at all, though. By the end of the day, she was able to lower her head to eat. Thankfully, all was well with her after that. I lost a lot of sleep that week between Lily and Charles, who first developed a cold, then a horrible gastritis, and was then due for his flu shot, which last year made him sick for a few days. This is when I go holistic on traditional medicine's ass. I hate vaccines... Astarte my kitty got hers too, before moving her across 5 states.

Lily's health certificate was written up on October 11, and she was scheduled to leave on October 22nd, with the goal of arriving in Maryland on October 23rd, 5 days before we arrived in DC. This was the longest I had ever been without seeing her, and it is the first time in a very long time that I have a horse in full board. It was also the first time I have ever had a horse hauled long-distance, and I was sweating balls over that too. Should I put boots on her feet for support during the trip? Will she drink enough? Will she eat at all? Will she be sore when she arrives? What if the people at the new barn discover something else wrong with her? Will she be okay in turnout in cooler weather? Will she drink enough once she is over there? Should I send beet pulp baggies to last the first couple of days while she's adjusting to all of the change? Will she get batshit herdbound in 5 days? All of these questions ran through my head. I ended up scraping up a little extra money just so I could get her insured before the trip!

The reason why I chose this barn, despite the fact that I would probably be driving more to get there, is that the horses are managed and supervised as close to the ideal as you can get. I felt a tremendous peace of mind when I discovered that this place existed, and kept coming back to it. I started hoping we'd end up in DC or Maryland, just so we could board at this one barn!

The barn manager over there gave me everyone's cell phone numbers, including the barn trainer who checked on Lily's foot the weekend before we arrived while the barn manager was out of town, in preparation for me being a worrywart. I loved this woman already and hadn't even met her yet. :)

In the middle of all this, one day I was scratching her withers in her stall, and she turned around and groomed me back! This was the first time she had ever done that! The first time any horse had ever done that to me. It was SO freaking cute! She didn't use her teeth-she just wiggled her upper lip hard in a circular motion against my hip, going down my leg to my sneaker, where she stayed for a minute, then going back up to my hip, while I continued scratching her. We're grooming buddies! :D

On October 22nd, I went to the barn straight after an overnight shift to finish packing Lily's stuff. The hauler came right on time to pick up Lily, plus Lady and Kenny, 2 of the 3 minnies, whom the BO was shipping up to NJ to live with his nephews. I had originally wanted to send her in a box stall, but he'd said the stalls in the trailer were plenty wide for a horse to be comfortable. Plus he didn't tie their heads up anyway. He had originally said he'd stop and let the horses out of the trailer every few hours on the way up. However, when I saw he was driving by himself, and then that he put the nearly wild minnies in after Lily (it took 3 people to get the little guys on), I knew Lily would not be coming off that trailer for 30 hours. I gulped. She had trotted up to the trailer eagerly-it was a big 7-horse slant load. I could not afford the nice air-ride trailers like Brookledge, though I would have sent her with them in a heartbeat if I'd had that kind of money. I had requested a quote from them before anyone else...

The trailer floor was covered with rubber mats and shavings, and she had her own water bucket, but the stall was a lot narrower than originally described-I knew she was going to get claustrophobic in there. I had also sent plenty of her own hay for the trip and for later for acclimating her to the barn timothy, and I prayed she ate throughout the trip. She went right into the trailer, but immediately became nervous. I was glad for the Smartship & Show I'd given her, hoping this would help counter any ulcer formation. She proceeded to start pawing the trailer floor. Keep this in mind, as it will come into play later. As the trailer left, Lily whinnied, and some of the horses whinnied after her.

Mark ended up going with me to lunch after Lily left, as I was kind of a mess. I felt like someone had removed one of my arms. I'm not big on praying or religion, but I was in a state of constant prayer for the next 30 hours.

Off to a land of green pastures and cold winters!

More to follow. I'm splitting this up into multiple posts!


Barn BBQ

Last Saturday, the whole barn planned a barbecue at one of the Davie parks, Tree Top Park. We've been making a point of all hanging out together on Saturdays, usually Saturday night where we had been going to a local barbecue joint for dinner and laughs. This was our first barn outing since Judy took over as the new barn manager.

Mark, Dianne, and Pink's leasor Ines rode in Mark's truck towing Pink and Beau. This was Pink's first outing, and I was excited to see how she'd behave-I had a feeling she was going to do great. Somebody took a long time to train Pink properly before she ended up abandoned in a field, and even after being owned by Dianne for a year already, Pink is still constantly surprising us. Even though I don't have the time to ride her like I used to, she is still among my favorites at the barn.

Pink and me, on a brief ride last week.

Sarah, Judy and myself rode in Judy's truck towing Lily and Sarah's Trote-Galope gelding Romeo. We left the barn an hour after Mark's group because Judy had to get a couple of things done first around the barn and at her apartment, and we had to load Romeo, who had had a negative trailering experience the last time he was trailered-he would not load after a long ride. Romeo surprised us by going into Judy's step-up trailer after just 15 minutes of Sarah patiently coaxing him with treats and tons of praise. Lily stepped right in after me when I led her in, and we were off!

We arrived at Tree Tops right at 11:00 am as planned. The drive down was uneventful, and once in the park, the day was beautiful. The forecast had threatened thunderstorms all day, but the sun was bright and shining. Dianne and Ines had ridden out on Beau and Pink respectively, and they returned shortly after we arrived. By then, Sarah and I had unloaded Romeo and Lily, and were allowing them to graze and explore, walking them around the picnic area and the field so that they could get used to their surroundings before tacking up. I like to give Lily a break especially, because she's always a little nervous initially right after unloading. It has to be weird to come out of that little box of a trailer to find yourself in completely new and unfamiliar surroundings.
 
 
 

Lily relaxing after the trailer ride



Sarah and Romeo



Ines with Pink (she untacked her to let her graze and cool off while waiting for us) and Romeo



  

Dianne cantering on Beau while we get settled





Cantering across the field




Ines tries out Western riding on Beau



Dorothee's Charles and Mark get the grill going





I was also giving Charles a chance to arrive before we rode out-he was driving to the park straight from the hospital after staying late to help out with the case load; there had been so many admissions at the hospital that they were running short on nursing staff.

We started tacking up after he arrived, and rode off on a brief trail ride while Mark and Elisabeth's Charles started lunch.

Ines warms up Pink again



Sarah demonstrates the trote on Romeo




Elisabeth all ready to go on Beau

Lily  & me

The trail riding posse! From left: Sarah on Romeo, me on Lily, Elisabeth on Beau, and Ines on Pink

 Sarah led the way on Romeo, since she was the only one in our group that had been to the park before to ride. Lily likes to be in front on group trail rides, but I insisted on keeping her behind Romeo. She had a hard time with it at first, trying to trot and jig to take the lead, but I held her back. Eventually she accepted the fact that this time, she was not going to lead, and relaxed, but still asked to trot every once in awhile to catch up. The trail led through high brush and savana-type trees that filtered the light of the noontime sun, going around a lake. As we came out of the trail onto a side street, Romeo took the lead by about 5 lengths in his trote, and Lily suddenly decided to imitate him, arching her neck and giving me a smooth prancy trot. She was not pulling at the reins or acting supercharged; she was literally imitating Romeo. Super cute!

We crossed the road and found the trail again a little further down, following a fence line, and came out by the park entrance. We crossed the street here, then rode into the pine trees. The forest was gorgeous; it was like we were riding up north in the Carolinas or something-it did not feel like South Fl.

Pine forests. Beautiful! Sarah was leading the way on Romeo

 As we followed the trail, we came out by the park lake, where people were canoeing and overall having fun (there was a huge Cub Scouts jamboree going on, so the park was pretty full in the people section), and then the trail looped back into the forest.

Someone canoeing to the right on the water

The park lake

 Around this time Mark called me to let me know lunch would be ready in about 10 minutes, so we picked up the pace, following the trail as it came out by the campers (we were greeted by shouts of "Horsie, horsie!" but we trotted past before any children could get the idea of running up to us and spooking the horses...) and around the park perimeter until we arrived back at our field. We rode around for a few more minutes, which is when Dianne took these awesome pictures of Lily:



This is so much better than 6 months ago!



She's gained so much muscle!

This photo made my day.



Cantering. Slowly improving here as well. We'll get there.

We untacked the horses and took them to a nearby wash rack (the park even supplied hoses and running water!) to rinse them off and offer them water. The park provides a water trough, but I had warned everyone that it wasn't a good idea to allow the horses to drink from a public trough-they could get EPM, strangles, the flu or God knows what from shared water. So we had each brought a bucket and we offered the horses fresh water from the hose-they appreciated it.

There was a small corral where Beau and Pink were turned out together, while Lily and Romeo got to hang out at the hitching posts by our picnic table. We finally sat down to eat; the food was delicious! Nothing like eating barbecue after working up an appetite riding! Dorothee's Charles had even made chili!

There were other people parked with their trailers and horses around the field. Someone's horse got loose and took off across the field at a gallop, with his saddle on and no halter nor bridle. It took awhile for everyone to catch him, but he eventually returned to his buddies. During the time that the horse was running back & forth, Lily became very antsy on her hitching post, twirling around to watch where he was going. We joked around that she wanted to do exactly what he was doing; the rest of our horses didn't care and acted like nothing was going on. Now hold this thought for later...

The group hanging out. This is what I mean when I talk about South Fl being a cultural melting pot: Judy is part Native American, Mark's parents are Polish, Elisabeth is German, Ines is French, Elisabeth's Charles is Argentinean, my Charles is Cubanorrican (Cuban born and raised in Puerto Rico), and I'm Puertorrican. Dianne is probably the only one that comes closest to being a true Floridian, her parents having lived in FL most of their lives, from what I understand. People from different cultures, backgrounds, of different first languages, all together, all friends. :)

We celebrated Elisabeth's Charles's birthday

After eating and hanging out for awhile, we tacked up again. It was around 3:00 pm that time, and Charles was exhausted-he took off to go home and sleep. We hit the trails again, but it was like the horses were going out for the first time...Lily, Romeo, Beau and Pink were all hyped. We trotted most of the way out on the trail, taking a route that led us out of the park and into a different park, following a path that wound between forest and the backs of people's houses. It was a gorgeous trail, and at one point it opened up onto rolling hills (EXTREMELY unusual in South FL!) with trees scattered across them. We cantered across them, then broke down to a trot until we came to the end of the field, then turned around and came back. On the way back, Elisabeth and Ines took the lead on Beau and Pink, first at a trot and then a canter. Lily became anxious about being left behind, despite being next to Romeo, and proceeded to give 3 huge bounds forward as I tried first to hold her back, and then allowed her to canter. Behind me, Sarah was struggling with Romeo as well; we called to Elisabeth and Ines to wait up, and they brought their horses to a stop, which made Romeo and Lily immediately settle. We trotted the rest of the way, Sarah leading the way again. I'm still not sure how she knew her way around-she'd never been on these trails in particular, but she got us back to the field eventually, safe and sound. We were out over an hour.

Lily was acting unusually herd-bound, so I made her work in the field for 10 minutes or so before untacking her. We trotted, and cantered small circles. She bucked twice at the canter, but I worked her through it until she was calm and focused exclusively on me. By the time we were done, the rest of the group had already untacked, hosed off their horses, and brought them back. So we made our way to the wash rack, while Lily zig-zagged behind me, whinnying for the rest of our group back at the trailers. Suddenly, she reared up and away from me, yanking the lead rope out of my hands (not without taking my skin off in the process!) and took off at a gallop back to our trailers. I knew she wasn't going anywhere-she went and hid behind Pink, and Dianne, who was closest, was able to catch her. I was furious at Lily, but started laughing when Dianne says, "Well, she got her wish-she ran free across the field just like that other horse!" Indeed she did!

I made her pay attention to me as we made our way back by pausing, backing up, slowing and accelerating our pace by turns, and she relaxed. The wash rack was uneventful, and then I tied her up to her hitching post again while we picked up and the other horses got loaded. It was 5:00 pm.

Pink and Beau loaded quickly onto Mark's trailer, but Romeo was a different matter. He started out more stubborn than at the barn, reluctant to place even his front feet in the trailer. It was not a good sign, and when time continued to pass without Sarah, Dianne or Mark being able to coax him in, we started to get a little concerned. It was 5:30 pm and the park was supposed to close at 6:00.

Lily waiting, not so patiently, for Romeo to load. Note the "question mark" expression-one ear forward, one ear back.

My new favorite pic of her

Romeo is not wired mentally like your "normal" horse. He is a Trote-Galope, of very similar breeding to a Paso Fino. I've worked with a lot of horses of various breeds and backgrounds, and Pasos are among THE most intelligent I have ever handled. Romeo is no exception-he is extremely smart, and will find ways to wiggle and worm his way out of work in ways that you would never have imagined. He can really and truly outsmart you if you're not paying attention. Add to that the fact that, like most Pasos, he was abused most of his life until Sarah got him, to the point of being considered dangerous. He will resist any kind of force or coercion, especially if you're trying to get him to do something he doesn't want to do. Especially if it means loading into a trailer at the end of a long day. While he has perfect ground manners and responds tremendously well to natural horsemanship groundwork thanks to a lot of hard work put in by Sarah, he retains the capacity to instantly revert as soon as he thinks the game isn't fun anymore.  Thus, traditional natural horsemanship methods to put "pressure" on a horse are a moot point with him-tap him with a carrot stick, and watch him spin around and bolt; back him up and bring him forward to the trailer, and instead he will back his way out of the park. Traditional strength methods (rope around the butt, chain over the nose, cracking a lunge whip in the air, etc) will have even less success, causing him to revert to his pre-Sarah days. We even tried loading Lily in first to see if it would convince him to load, but the only result was that he continued to balk and Lily freaked out in the trailer, breaking her halter in the process. Thank God for safety crowns and for Mark always carrying a spare halter... I got Lilly off the trailer.

We considered our options. Romeo was not in the least scared of the trailer; he had simply turned this into a big game where he was quickly becoming the grand winner. Judy has a trainer friend whose barn is adjacent to the park whom she called, and it turned out she had Rompun on hand that we could try on Romeo, to see if tranquing him would at least make him easier to manipulate. Sarah rode him over to the barn, and I loaded Lily up again. It took some convincing to get her on the trailer this time, but after the 3rd try and a carrot stick tap in the butt from Judy, she hopped in. We all drove around the park to the area that led into Judy's friend's barn.

The struggle was far from over. Romeo was given a double dose of Rompun, and even then, all it did was slow him down a bit-it almost made him even more stubborn. At one point, it was all of us pushing and heaving on his hind end trying to physically load him on the trailer, but it was not working. It was an epic fail. Eventually everyone took a break to regroup. Lily had been in the trailer for an hour at this point and was starting to get really anxious. It was torture for her to see Romeo appear and disappear, and the racket he was making with refusing to load was making her even more nervous. However, I was afraid to take her off the trailer and have her refuse to load again as well.  I was standing outside with Mark, when the trailer started to heave-Lily was bucking/rearing in the trailer. I ran in and she immediately calmed down, her eyes rolling and sweat running down her shoulders. She had multiple cuts on her face just from that one little struggle, and I thanked the stars that I had wrapped her legs.  My poor horse. Dianne was still trying to load Romeo while everyone else regrouped, and I asked her to stop. Lily settled completely.

At this point, I knew my horse was done. I tried to step out of the trailer, and immediately Lily started throwing herself around again. I hopped back in and she settled. It was 7:30pm. Sarah was also done, and angry. She decided she would keep Romeo overnight at this barn and stay at the trainer's groom quarters. Mark and Dianne decided they would take Pink and Beau back home, and return with Mark's trailer, which has a ramp and might be more enticing for a small tired horse than a 2 feet high step-up. I chose to ride in the trailer with Lily, and Judy agreed.

We drove out of Davie, and Lily stayed calm. It was hot in the trailer so I went around making sure ALL the windows were open. Lily whinnied each time I stepped out of sight, which is an absolute first. I stroked her neck to reassure her. Judy stopped before we got on the Turnpike to make sure we were okay; I told her I'd stay all the way-it was another 30 min drive to get home, and I didn't want Lily freaking out on the way and causing the trailer to fishtail or worse.

It was a nerve-wracking ride. Have you ever ridden in a trailer? It is a wonder that horses ever want to go back in one again after their first ride-they feel and sound like death traps. And Judy's is an improvement to Mark's-his is a beautiful brand-new 2-horse Shadow, well-built and sturdy, but it is noisy inside the trailer if you ride with the horses; it seems like everything that could possibly clang, does. And he drives slow! Judy's is an extra-tall Sundowner and is somehow not quite so noisy. However, even with her careful driving, I was still on edge, and developed a new admiration for my mare, who simply spread her back legs and leaned her butt agains the rear bar for support, taking the brunt of her weight off her front legs and onto her stronger hind legs. Smart girl! She stayed completely calm as long as I stood by her side, but about 5 minutes after hitting the highway, she started to fidget with her halter, turning her head as if trying to get it off. I got the hint, and moved the trailer tie towards her on the manger so she'd have a good 10" of slack. She relaxed and shifted more of her weight back to her hind end-she needed that extra room to be able to balance better. Lesson learned for me.

This also allowed Lily to press her forehead against my chest for awhile, which always makes my heart melt, and the rest of the ride home was uneventful. As we approached home, I knew when we started to get close because her expression changed-she suddenly started looking out the window, ears pricked. I looked out the back windows and saw the toll lights as we passed through. We were finally on the street that led home.

Of course she blasted a whinny as soon as we pulled up to our driveway, and it was answered by all of the horses. I could recognize their whinnies-Rose, Pink and Beau in their trailer, and Crissy. Mark, Dianne and Ines were already there, unloading the horses. Lily came off the trailer uneventfully, and I put her on the cross ties to hose her off and give her a liniment bath, treat her cuts, and wrap her legs.

Mark, Dianne, and Ines finished unloading all of their stuff from the trailer. Ines stayed to help us feed the horses and clean up, while Mark and Dianne left to go rescue Romeo and Sarah. We all went home, and Mark and Dianne were eventually able to get Romeo on the trailer with the ramp-they arrived back at the barn by 11pm.