Playing Catch Up...in the mud.

Sorry I've been MIA this past week. It certainly hasn't been for lack of things to write about! The move kept me busy, and of course as my luck would have it, plenty of regular occurances of Murphy's Law.

First, though, I want to congratulate Rhonda Blair of Louisburg, KS. She decided JJ was a good fit for her and hopes to show him soon.

I miss him a ton already, but I know he's perfect for Rhonda.

Along the same lines, please welcome Suzie (Sheza Triples Zippo) to our program. Suzie is in foal to a lovely son of Quorum (Laramie's grandsire and an APHA Champion) for her first foal, due April 4th. She was shown a few years ago so I hope to go ahead and resume her training under saddle once her baby is weaned and probably breed her next year to Eddie.

Suzie is a daughter of Painted Triples and her dam is a multiple World Champion producer. I'm very pleased with Suzie and hope that she'll be able to fill in several spots for our program: as a senior show horse and as a great performance producer to cross with Eddie.

Laramie was also going to Rhonda's but in talking through a few things we decided the mare I was trading her for just wasn't a good fit for us, so I still have Laramie and may try to start fitting on her again for this year if I can get my facilities in order quickly enough. In the meantime she is still available for sale. I just don't need so many horses :)

Between the move and the trip out to Eastern Kansas things have been quite hectic, but nothing like yesterday. Poor Suzie being 10 months pregnant and not really having done anything for a few years, plus factoring in pouring rain, just wasn't too keen on being loaded back into the trailer yesterday after a 4 hour trip the day before (who can blame her, really). So, we ended up doing our trailer loading lesson and she eventually got in without too much trouble.

Problem was that it took quite a bit of time and I was going to run out of daylight, so I decided to take a shortcut, which I thought I remembered as being a good road but it turned out my memory was WRONG. I got stuck--truck, trailer, horse, dog, and a full load of household items.

OK, well...it wasn't quite that bad.

Thankfully it had stopped pouring rain and was only misting and I thought (also incorrectly) that I was only a couple of miles from the house, so my plan was to unload Suzie, walk her to the house, then walk back and since I really wasn't all that stuck, I'd surely be able to pull out of the mud on my own without a loaded trailer.

Well, a couple of miles turned into SIX. At one point our road ended and we had to trek through a muddy field. It wouldn't have been so bad but 90% of the time we were sludging through mud, plus it was windy--a cold wind--and still misting, so Suzie, Sophie and I were cold, tired, and damp the entire way, taking over two hours to reach our destination. Not my idea of a good time, to say the least.

Suzie was a trooper, though. She did so very well. I suppose I could have rode her but for one thing, I didn't think it was that far and second, she's VERY pregnant so I didn't think it was fair of me to ask of her, either.

Silly Sophie ran up and down the road, chased birds and rabbits and zigzagged along the whole time. I sure wish I had her energy!!

I called Dad and him and a co-worker took one of their heavy-duty 4WD trucks out there to pull my truck out. Problem was, though that they got stuck, too! So they called a 3rd guy out with another 4WD and he ended up entirely in the ditch. Thankfully a tractor came along and pulled the 2 4WD's out. Dad managed to almost get the truck and trailer down the road without assistance (as I had guessed, taking Suzie out of the trailer freed up the truck somewhat) but the tractor did help the rig along the last few feet.

As they say, though, there is a silver lining to every cloud. I weighed myself this morning and I've lost six more pounds over the last week, even with eating cheeseburgers the last three days (between moving and traveling it's kind of difficult to do much more than convenience food).

Poor Darlene got stuck with my girls another day. Hopefully the moving this afternoon will go much better. Wish me luck--I apparently need it!!

And don't worry, I'm taking the highway all the way.