Josh, our 23 year old Arab gelding...and the best horse EVER!This coming July, Madison's birth father is getting married to a lovely woman named Gina. They live in the San Francisco bay area and we plan on attending their wedding. What is causing me an ulcer right now is the thought of driving all the way there and back with my wonderful family.
Why not fly you ask? Because the airfare out of Bismarck is horrendous and I would rather save that money for a nice trip to a Beaches Resort in the Caribbean. Sooooo, our delightful little family of 6 will be packing up and heading out the middle of July. The other ulcer causing problem of this trip, or any trip really, is trying to find someone to take care of our 9 horses. The dogs are fairly easy, yet expensive, as they go to a kennel at the cost of $14 a day for each dog. $14x4 is $56 a day x10 days and that is $560!! It is very difficult to find someone that would take care of our horses in the attentive manner we do. We'd ask our neighbor who has horses, but she is a certifiable PSYCHO!! That leaves us up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
Our search is on for a horse caretaker. One who recognizes the signs of colic. One who knows to turn out our gelding by himself with our Arab in the run next to him. Someone who knows how to drive a truck and trailer just in case they have to haul a sick or injured horse to the vet. Someone who is comfortable giving one of our mini's oral medication because of her previous founder. The list is endless. We need an experienced horse person, not a cowboy who learned to solve horse problems with a bottle of Wild Turkey and a gun.
This problem will eat at me until I find someone willing to stay at our house during our vacation and feed the horses twice a day; at 7AM and 4:30PM. I don't know how to go about finding someone. All our horse friends, live too far away to make the daily trip to our place so I am stumped. I miss our dear friends in Oregon who got us started in horses. They knew what they were doing and did it right. We learned from them and it is hard to find anyone that measures up to Steve and Terri.
I love living here, but sometimes the isolation from dear friends and family is tiresome. Having purged all this openly now, I hope I get serious about finding a horse care-taker. I am such a procrastinator!
3 comments:
If I didn't live 14 hours away, I'd be one it-good luck, but I hope you stop by on your way to SF :)
If you lived closer I would ask you to move in with me! :) Oh, and then I'd ask you to take care of my menagerie! And heck, yeah we are planning on seeing you guys either then or before then.
If I had a reliable enough vehicle to get me and my crew to ND,
and if I wasn't completely afraid of horses
and if animals having medical emergencies didn't freak me out so darn much
and if I didn't dent the vehicle with the trailer by backing up too sharply every time I tried driving a truck w/a trailer (my stepdad's poor truck)
I'd sooooo be your girl because the kids and I would love to spend a week or two at your place with your doggies :)
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