Wednesday, February 10, 2010 – Hay and Travel Day

Whew! Another busy day. Packed up and left Coldwater by about 9:30, a bit later than usual, but we didn’t feel a huge hurry because our trip was just a little over three hours, with a stop for hay along the way… at least that’s what we THOUGHT was going to happen. That’s what we get for thinking! Made our way to the place where I had scheduled to pick up some hay, only to be sorely disappointed in the quality. Frankly, it was the worst hay I had ever seen short of something I might use to mulch my garden. Yuck! So I quickly got on the phone and called another man who had returned my call the night before, and asked if we could arrange to get hay from him. He managed to swing it so that I could go to his mother-in-law’s where the hay was kept and pick it up ourselves and pay her. Fortunately, this was much better hay (though no quite as good as the hay we got in Blackstone, VA, but that was EXCEPTIONAL). Apparently, he’s a vet who’s taken over his father-in-law’s farm, so he did all the soil testing, fertilizing and nutritional testing to prove it’s worthy of being horse hay. Glad he was able to work us in, we’re set now for another three weeks.
It was nearly 3:00 by the time we finished, WAY behind schedule, and then, because all my maps were from the south, and we were now coming from the north, and Gracie (my Verizon GPS) couldn’t get a bead on the address, so I had to program her for the nearest town (Saucier, MS). We ended up getting lost a few times anyway, till we got close enough for her to find the road we were looking for. Then I missed the turn for the road to the horse camp, and ended up at the Airey Tower Forest station, which was just as well, we filled up with water while we were there. Got into the campground just as the sun was setting, set up during twilight, and was just finishing as it got dark. But we made it!