Archives for May 2018

After so many hectic days, I was looking forward to a quieter day today, but then realized where were getting untenably low on hay. I had been hoping to get some from my Mennonite neighbor that I used to get it from, but we have had so much rain, day after day, that almost no one has been able to bale any. I called the place in Manchester where I had gotten a few bales before, and learned he had baled before the rain, so he had nice, soft, not stalky first cut hay available, so we decided to take a quick run out before the afternoon thunderstorms began. So we headed out after breakfast, picked up 25 bales of beautifully fresh smelling hay, loaded half into the horses’ shed and the other half we left in the back of the truck, testing the theory of how many bales we can put in the bed of the truck without interfering with the goosneck, which is about 11 if we stack it in our usual way, enough for most of the trip to Montana, which was the goal. Now that we have two horses to carry, I don’t have room in the back like I did on our last trip, at least not until we get the new trailer. There’s a hay rack on top, but I don’t see me using that for hay so much, don’t have the ability to put it up there! I have plans for some other stuff to go in there already, stuff we don’t use very often, and that’s definitely not hay! Dialyzed Hubby when we got home, and otherwise tried to rest for the rest of the day.

Had to get up earlier again today, as Hubby had a doctor’s appointment in Murfreesboro, about an hour and fifteen minutes away, though the appointment only lasted about ten minutes. After that we checked out several RV places, looking for a place to consign our Open Range, did some quick shopping, got home by mid-afternoon, dialyzed Hubby, and crashed for the evening!

A final view of the trailer before I headed back to Billings, where I stopped at a couple of RV sales offices to see if they might be able to accept our American Spirit trailer as a consignment. The tentative plan is to hit the road with that trailer, moseying across the country to Montana, make the changeover from the A.S. to the Trail Rider, then head whereever the heck we want after that! Not sure we can pull it off, but that’s what we’re starting to plan out. Both places I went agreed to take it on consignment, we just have to choose which way we want to go. Got back to the airport in plenty of time, after stopping for lunch in a little Mexican restaurant along the way, then was subject to one of the most thorough TSA inspections I’ve ever undergone. Yeah, in Billings, Montana. Go figure. Anyway, after quite a long delay there, I made it to the gate, and not long after, onto my seat on the plane. It was a rough ride for the first half hour or so, but then it settled down after that, and I got to enjoy a nice meal before we landed in Dallas. A last minute gate change had me scrambling to get from one end of the terminal to the other, but finally I was able to relax in a nice window seat. My seat-mate had actually also been on the Billings flight, I discovered, she was actually sitting right behind me. We chatted for a bit, but then I had to excuse myself to get some sleep, my adrenaline was finally petering out. I guess I slept for a little bit, because the next thing I knew we were coming in for the landing in Nashville. I was greeted with heat and humidity, despite arriving a half hour late at 11:00, but managed to make the drive home safely. Hubby had gone to bed after I called to tell him I had landed, but his light was still on when I went to bed. Whew! What a busy few days!

After getting to bed a lot earlier last night, in addition to several naps I took during the day yesterday, I was in a lot better shape when the alarm went off at 4:45 this morning. Once again, headed out by 5:30, picked up breakfast along the way, got to the airport in good time. No problems with weather today, made my connection in Dallas, and arrived about 30 minutes early in Billings. Rented a Toyota Rav4 and headed up to Lewistown where the Trailrider trailer was. I met the owner Anne at the trailer about 2 ½ hours later, and we started touring the trailer. The pictures she had posted had given a very good impression of the trailer, and I wasn’t disappointed. It had everything my beloved Open Range has, but can also haul four horses or the equivalent in other stuff. Just what we need to carry a month’s worth of dialysis supplies and everything else we need. Of course, we’ll have to modify it somewhat for Hubby’s machine, especially since we want to try to the Pureflow, which actually makes dialysate out of regular water, so there’s a lot less supplies involved if we can pull it off. Anyway, after we thoroughly toured the trailer, we headed out to a nice little mom and pop cafe for a quick dinner, then back to her house, where she had graciously offered to let me stay overnight. We chatted for a while, came to some terms, and headed off our separate ways to bed.

It was after 11:00 when I got home last night, and was so wound up it was 12:30 before I went to bed, another half hour plus before I got to sleep, and then the alarm went off at 4:45. I could barely function. I finished my last minute packing and headed out of the house by 5:30, with half a dozen 5-hour energy drinks, which I figured I was going to need. After all, I had to drive nearly two hours to Nashville, take all day to fly to Billings, rent a car and drive another two and a half hours to Lewistown to see the horse trailer that we’re wanting to buy, spend the night, drive two and a half hours back to Billings and fly home, arriving after 10:30, which meant after midnight by the time I got home. This was not going to be a fun day! Then, as I was driving up I-24, I had a text come through that there was a problem with weather and my flight to Dallas was going to be too late to make my Billings connection. Sigh. So I turned around and headed back home (was was already more than an hour on the road), and spoke to the airline and changed everything to tomorrow. It was actually the best thing that could have happened, really. Now I could get some sleep, dialyze Hubby, relax during the day (which had been my plan for yesterday), and be much more prepared to make decisions about the trailer I’m going to see, now tomorrow. Silver lining in all the clouds that have been on the horizon lately!

Woke up this morning early, and the first thing I noticed was a text on my phone from a neighbor asking me if Lola got home all right, so of course, I started looking for her. She was nowhere to be found! I immediately jumped in the van and started searching the neighborhood, nothing. I came back and saddled up Flash, and proceed to spend the next 4 ½ hours searching far and wide for her, nothing. This was just not like her, she ALWAYS comes when she’s called! Finally, it dawned on me. We have a neighbor who (against the rules of the neighborhood) rents her place out on AirBnB. We’ve often seen strangers there, and Lola has gotten in the habit of sometimes going over there to see if there’s anyone to play with. Often there are kids there, so of course, they do play with her, and so she keeps coming back for more. When I passed the place at 7:30 this morning, there was no one there, but I had seen lights and heard voices there the day before, so I texted the neighbor across the lake from that house to see if she noticed what time they left. She said, no, but that Lola had been in the area around midnight, and if they were still up, likely she went over there. I got a sick feeling in my stomach. I texted the woman who owns the house to see if she would contact her renters to see if they had seen her. The answer came back a few minutes later, Yes. Not only had they seen her, they thought she was a stray (despite the fact that she had on a collar and a very recent rabies tag!), and they decided to take her home and put her in a shelter, since a shelter could trace the rabies tag. When I asked where they were now, I was told, CHICAGO!!!! What the HELL!!! They had left very early and were just about to arrive in Chicago! What is WRONG WITH PEOPLE! She gave me their number and I called right away, and told them they needed to return my dog. They objected to coming all the way back to Tennessee, but I wasn’t about to lose Lola, so I had to agree to meet them in Louisville, KY. Aaaargh!! I had already missed breakfast looking for her, I didn’t have time to grab lunch, I just hopped in the truck and started driving. Four hours later I arrived near an agreed upon town, grabbed a quick steak dinner while waiting for them to arrive, then met them at a nearby truck stop. Two young men, two stupid young men, were waiting with Lola, who looked totally dejected. I immediately gave her a big hug and put her in the back seat of the truck, before turning back to these two young idiots (well, not that young, probably late 20’s, old enough to know better!), who were already walking away. I was astonished they didn’t apologize, didn’t address me hardly at all. When I suggested that it would be appropriate for them to reimburse me for my unnecessary travel expenses, they laughed and continued walking away, whining about how THEY had to drive 19 hours to accommodate ME! Like they were doing me a favor! Unbelievable! What was I supposed to do? Over seven hundred miles round trip, at my expense, because these idiots thought taking a dog with a collar on from Tennessee to Chicago was a good idea. I was so mad, all I could think of was, it was a good thing I hadn’t brought my gun. Relieved to have Lola back, but seething from the whole experience, I headed back home. What made it worse was that I was supposed to dialyze Hubby this afternoon, the last time before my short trip tomorrow, so now he was going to have to go for THREE DAYS without dialysis. NOT GOOD! I had planned all week for his final dialysis session to be today, and this totally screwed that up. And to top that all off, I have to get up at 4:45 tomorrow morning in order to catch a flight to Billings, Montana out of Nashville! Good luck working on 3 hours sleep! Grrrrr!

Started out early, picking up some rubber roof caulking so I can get all the RV roofs done at the RV store, and spoke to them about taking the Open Range on consignment, quick breakfast at Waffle House, then a run up to the acupuncturist in Murfreesboro, then a drive home that ran into some heavy rain storms, lunch snack, an afternoon of dialysis while we had more rain and a brief power outage, dinner and a quiet evening of Longmires.

Did some more cleaning on the American Spirit horse trailer, this time going back to the White Diamond Cleaner I had started with, and relatively speaking, it’s doing a much better job than just about anything else, though about the same as the Mother’s cleaner and wax. I’ll keep trying, though, to see what works best and easiest! Worked with Flash a bit in the round pen area, all I had time for today, just running him around a bit for exercise and a few ground manners lessons. After breakfast with Hubby, we decided to move the vehicles around so we could get the Open Range cleaning started. That took more than an hour, connecting, moving, disconnecting, connecting, moving, disconnected and so forth. I washed the one side of the Open Range that wasn’t in the sun, but I need to clean and reseal the roof once weather permits. We’ve had a lot of afternoon thundershowers, kind of reminiscent of our summer days in Florida, so we haven’t been able to get much done by the middle of the afternoon, which is actually fine because we’re dialyzing most days then anyway. I continue to communicate with the owner of the horse trailer in Montana that we like, and finished making arrangements to fly out on Monday to see it. Dialyzed in the afternoon, as usual, and settled down for the evening.

The day started out slow, at least for Hubby. I packed a bunch of books in boxes (we’re trying to clear out as much stuff from the house as we can), tried out some new Starbrite cleaner on the aluminum siding of the horse trailer (which didn’t do a thing!), tried several other things we had laying around, like compound, scratch remover, vinegar and baking soda, Barkeepers Friend, (you name it, I tried it!), until I found the best result so far came from Mothers paste cleaner and wax. We’ll see if it holds up, but for the moment, it’s the only thing that seems to be cleaning off most of the oxidation. I may have sold a couch I put up on craigslist, we got an email for a 3-day job that looks very promising, and we think we might have found a horse trailer that has everything our Open Range had, including a washer and dryer, an electric fireplace, plus room for FOUR horses! Well, at least for two horses with lots of room to spare for Hubby’s dialysis supplies, our fair booth setup, boxes of books, and maybe even some hay, though there is a hay box up on the roof. Not sure how little old me is supposed to get hay UP there, though I’m sure getting it DOWN is a lot easier! Think I’ll stick to putting it in the back of the pickup truck. Anyway, it looks like I might be flying on Monday to go see it, coming back late Tuesday, leaving Hubby at home to fend for himself while I’m gone. Didn’t get as much done on the outside of the horse trailer as I wanted, but otherwise, I would say it’s been a productive day!

Got up bright and early this morning in order to make a 9:00 veterinarian appointment down in Morrison, about 20 miles away. I wanted my vet to give Flash a soundness test, just to make sure he is a healthy as he seems. I’m not used to a gaited horse, so I can’t tell from the feel of his steps about any lameness. He seems fine to me, but better to be sure. We also brought Apollo along, as he is in need of a new Coggins, and I figure I can get a 6-month passport for both of them. Not sure we’ll be doing any traveling out of state, but better safe than sorry. Flash didn’t hesitate getting into the trailer at all, nor did Apollo following suit, which made me very happy! Flash passed his soundness test with flying colors, thank goodness! Then we drove up to Murfreesboro for Hubby’s acupuncture appointment, and back to McMinnville because they’re the only Tractor Supply that stocks Nutrena Empower Balancer for me. A final stop at Walmart before heading home. We started a dialysis session but ran into problems about halfway through and had to stop because of a slight clot in one of his lines. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get a full session in tomorrow. It delayed dinner and getting settled in for the evening, but eventually, we were able to wind down.