Thursday, June 4, 2020 – Fourth Day of June Ride at Loretta Lynns

Hi Sweetie!
Another busy day, but this time I didn’t go riding. I let myself sleep in a little, got up at 7:30, made it to breakfast, and fed the horses afterwards. I’m a bit worried about Apollo, he seems to be limping a bit. I noticed he has some kind of damage to one of his back hooves, looks like when a pebble gets caught in his hoof then grows all the way up into the hoof and comes out months later at the top, which sounds weird because you would think it would grow down. Anyway, I’m keeping an eye on it, I may have the vet here take a look if it doesn’t improve. I managed to find some fresh hay, at last, about 25 miles away. The haymaker was about to sell his whole load to someone, but pulled 8 bales off for me when I called, for which I was so grateful. Not even the coop has any square bales yet! There’s been a lot of haying going on because we’ve finally had nice enough weather, but not many are baling square, so I was very lucky. Even a girl at Tractor Supply, which was my next stop, asked me where I got the hay, because people had been asking them! Got stocked up on feed there, they even had a bag of Balancer, which is hard to find, so I snatched that up. Walmart next, topped off with fuel so I would be ready to go on Monday, did a little shopping, though I didn’t need too much, and mostly for Lola, including a new leash since her last one broke in the creek. Got back in time for lunch, then had to go looking for a missing package. I had picked up two on my way out this morning but didn’t open them. I know one was a new XL Jiffy Jack (Valley Vet replaced the one that got smooshed the first time I used it, and didn’t even charge me extra, yoo hoo!), the other I thought was my toilet valve kit, but the box seemed kind of big for that. When I opened it, it was the replacement wand for the pressure washer, which I had just about forgotten I had ordered! No toilet valve, though, which is what I needed most. When I checked online, it said it had been delivered two days ago, so I went on a hunt for that. Turns out the address I used was really the country store across the street, and it was still in the mailbox, no one had checked it in two days! Once I got back from picking it up, I headed down to the Trail Competition obstacle course to watch for awhile. I actually had entered it, but scratched as soon as I got there, I hadn’t had any time to work with either horse beyond the seesaw, and I had too much to do to hang around long. I watched a couple of horses go through the course, and was glad I didn’t enter, I would have been pretty embarrassed by my guys, I’m afraid! Something to work on, though. I headed back to the trailer to do the work I needed to do. I went out to turn off the water so I could do the valve repair, and lo and behold, one of my hoses had burst (even though I had turned the water pressure way down, I guess it just wore out!), so I had to run BACK to the country store and get a water hose for that! I did both of those repairs (and I realize now why the toilet valve broke so quickly, entirely due to my last installation being incomplete), then I also decided to fix the outside spigot, which kept coming loose because one of the screws didn’t have any place to set into any more, it had rusted away, so I tried a tiny bolt with a lock nut, I hope that works better. Anyway, all of that running around and repairs, and it was just about dinner time. I drove up to the cook shack today, I’m getting so tired from all this activity, I just didn’t feel like walking! I finished quickly, though, as there was a bad storm on it’s way and I needed to feed the horses. Then the concert started, which I could hear from the trailer, then the awards ceremony, which I walked over for, then when the music started again I came back to camp. The storm blew itself out before it got here passing us to the north, so all that running around putting awnings up was a waste of everyone’s time (I’ve got the screen room up, so I didn’t bother anyway.) So bedtime, it’s already much later than I planned. Good night, baby! Love you!