The Day the World Continued In a Normal Fashion

There were no coronary incidents that day. No panicking, no strokes, no emotional overloads.

Oh, I'm referring to Moving Day for Ernie and Stella.

Traditionally, Moving Day has been filled with anxiety, emotional turmoil and general uneasiness. I never enjoy moving Ernie, especially: he sees the trailer and IMMEDIATELY starts to panic. The poor horse probably thinks I'm nuts every time he gets on, because every time he gets off it's at somewhere new.

They went back down to Randolph yesterday morning. The day started off not so hot. I brought them in at 10:50AM, and Ernie was less than pleased that his daily routine had been disturbed. "Me, eat hay quietly in a stall when I could be roaming the pasture? Unacceptable!" said Ernie, as he weaved in the corner for almost the entire morning. When he wasn't weaving, he was screaming at any horse he heard walking down the aisle way, even though Stella was right across from him, IN EYESIGHT, Hoover-ing up a small pile of hay. Oi. Oh, did I mentioned that I bathed them Wednesday night? And how clean and lovely and nice-smelling Ernie was Wednesday night? And how DIRTY and MUDDY he was yesterday morning upon coming inside? Somehow I knew it wouldn't last long seeing as cleanliness is never a high priority for Ernie, but a girl can dream, right?

Apparently not. Stella was still her usual pristine self, but Ernie had found the BiggestBathRuiningPuddleEver and rolled in it multiple times. I cried a little when I saw him in the field.

Oddly enough, the barn was incredibly busy that morning, which, even more oddly, calms Ernie down more times than not. He likes to see that there are other horses who have to suffer as he does sometimes, sitting inside with piles of food, no bugs, and people to love and groom and feed treats to them. How terrible! So, he shut up for a little while until the trailer came. On went the wraps, tail bandages and halter fuzzies for both, and onto the trailer we went!

Ernie has always been very good about loading. The trick is you can't let him see the trailer before he gets on, otherwise he gets worked up and nervous. I'll admit I tricked him big time yesterday, and by the time he realized he was going somewhere, he was already on the trailer. Haha! Stella, on the other hand, DID NOT trailer when I first bought her. She was in a trailering accident as a baby with her mama and FREAKED when she had to be loaded. The first time it took us 40 minutes, 3 people, two lunge lines and Ace up to the eyeballs to get her on. She's been getting better every time, and wouldn't you know, this little mare walked out of the barn, looked at the trailer, hesitated JUST slightly for a second, and walked right on. She's only been trailered 4 times, this being her 5th, and we have achieved near trailering perfection.

The ride down was quiet (if not the longest drive of my life...) and when we pulled into the barn I'll admit I was a little nervous, but terribly excited. My relief came with Ernie, who practically self-unloaded (not in an explosive way, just a little more forward than usual), walked off, looked around, and gave the BIGGEST sigh ever. Ernie loves this place, absolutely loves it. Stella was more concerned about the large amounts of grass at her feet than where she was, but she, too, has always been very happy here.

Both horses got unwrapped and put out into their nice, deeply bedded walk out stalls. First thing on the agenda for both? Pee. A lot. Must have been the fresh bedding. Ernie then proceeded to walk in and out several times, grabbing a mouthful of hay from his hay net, walking outside, coming back in, etc. I think he was in slight disbelief. After a few minutes of this, he settled right in in front of his hay. Stella, in true mare form, looked for dinner. She found her hay, too, but kept looking at me like, "Ma, I know you have dinner somewhere. I know it. I see the door to the food. I know it's there, and I want it!" (Stella's stall is in full view of the tack/grain room, and we've nicknamed her Radar because we have to implement ways to hide when we mix meals.)

I stayed a while longer after the trailer left, getting all my horse stuff organized and in it's proper place, mixing dinner for both horses and chatting with Donnie some. I will not be making the trip down today to see them, though I really wish I was. I have nothing to do, really, but I go back to school Sunday anyway, and I'm going down tomorrow, and in all honesty, driving all the way down and back once is bad enough; doing it five days in a row is really draining. Donnie knows those guys as well as I do. If anything is wrong, he'd let me know, which is a huge relief because most of the time that isn't the case with the other places they've been.

The ponies are happy. I'm not suicidal with worry. Everything seems to be OK.