I was asked the other day, “Why do you need to buy more tack? It seems like you have a bunch you are trying to sell!”

 My answer, “because there are things that I need, and don’t have, and things I have I don’t need.” 

 Like most other people who have had horses most of or all of their lives, I have a lot of tack.  But when I need something, I don’t have the exact thing I need. Here is why. I am stupid, and I am a sucker. If I had the money for all the tack and horses I have given away or lent out and never got back, I could buy a new house! 

 Like the other day, I needed a surcingle and some skid boots to work a little gelding. I didn’t have a lot of time before I needed to be somewhere, but had almost 2 hours. 

 Great, just need this guy to get a little ground work in. If he isn’t worked with regularly, he gets a bit cocky. So I go to get his skid boots and bell boots. So after searching for some skid boots for 20-30 minutes, I find one larger red one that has the Velcro coming off and one nice blue one. Um, yeah. Not going to work. I gave that nice pair of skid boots to a friends daughter the other day so she had a pair, because they don’t have a lot of money and she is doing barrels. 

 Ok, well we are just doing ground work. It should be fine. I find 3 bell boots. They don’t match, not even close, but get 2 that will work. Find 2 gloves, they don’t match either, but they are similar if different colors. And a right and a left, I am on a roll! 

 Surcingle…I just replaced my old one with a fancy expensive new neoprene one with all the bells and whistles. But, cant find it anywhere! Oh, that’s right I lent it to someone……aaaaacccckkkk! I cannot remember who. 

 Ok, well I will just saddle him and run the long lines through the stirrups and …..oh yeah, I lent the long lines to a woman whose horse needed more ( or at least some) ground work. Horse was (kinda) broke to ride, but did not know anything. I also lent her my videos of ground work. So I call her up, I am going into town later, I will pick them up. She tells me her trainer asked to borrow the lines and videos, and she gave them to her! What the heck? And her trainer is out of town for the weekend. *(Just a note, I would never let anyone use or borrow ANYTHING that was not mine and under my care. I cannot fathom why someone would think that is ok? Either her trainer for asking, or her for agreeing!)

 So I have his saddle, his pad, mismatched bell boots, mismatched gloves, finally found a better cinch, (been going to change his out for over a month) it is better quality, but doesn’t match anything else on him. He is wearing a black and red saddle, a black and red pad, and now an orange and green cinch I got on clearance and meant to dye. I braided up some hay twine for long lines, got his bridle and then changed out his bit. Noticed some minor boo boos on his legs, decide to treat them with gentian violet just in case. So this little light colored gelding now has purple spots all over him. 

 My alarm on my phone goes off. I need to leave for my appointment! I just wasted almost 2 hours chasing down tack, and not working the gelding at all!  The positive side, my step tracker says I met my goal for today running around looking for my stuff! 

 How can I have so much tack, but never have what I need? Because I am a sucker and give stuff away or lend it out. I have too many saddles, lots of bits and headstalls, many reins, several cinches off billets and such. But the stuff I really need, nope. 

 I get back from my appointment and tack up my gelding. Looks like a trailer park rig with the twine lines. Of course they are multi colored, because of course I don’t have enough of one color. So they are orange, blue, green and porn star pink. Pretty much scared the horse when I tried to put them on him. (Why is it you can never get the stuff untied when you try, but when you want it to stay, it slithers loose? 

  My friend Della decides to stop by with her new friend. Her friend wants to buy a western saddle, and Della is all English. I am trying to get some work in with my little gelding in my ‘round pen’. That has quotes around it, because my round pen was stolen, yes that’s right stolen. So since I am moving soon I am waiting to replace it until after I move. In the mean time I am using some wire cattle panels tied to T-posts. It looks awful. It is not a good setup in the least. Another friend calls it my “thrift store round pen.” 

 So I am in the thrift store round pen, working the poor gelding with the ugly hay string long lines, ugly cinch, purple spots and Mismatched bell boots, and me with my one green and one black glove. Oh by the way, did I mention it decided to rain when I started working with him? Well not really rain, but epic deluge? So the saddle has a big black garbage bag over it to try to keep it dry. I don’t have a fancy saddle protector either. 

 I am assuming that Della’s new friend is not impressed by me in the least. Then I realize that my shirt, (The good new one I wore to my appointment, and meant to change), it spattered with mud and soaking wet. Also, completely see through! My jeans are soaked, my hair is plastered to my head. I had put makeup on, I don’t usually wear it, but it is mostly washed down my face anyway. You got the visual? I wish I had taken a picture. 

 I put my soggy gelding up and take Della’s new friend in to show her the saddles I have for sale. She is getting out of showing dressage and wants western stuff to trail ride. She finds 2 she really likes and a few others she is interested in. She decides she is going to bring her horses over so she can try the ones she likes on her horses. 

 Then she blows my mind. She says, “I knew you were the right kind of horse person when I saw you improvised your pen, used what you had to get the job done, and were working your horse even though the weather was nasty. I usually have to improvise a lot too. I have a lot of tack, but never have the right stuff or right size for what I want to do when I want to do it.” 

  Btw, if you borrowed my surcingle, can I please have it back? I really need one! 

Tonight, 2 of my horses are being treated like felons and are in jail. Well, in the foaling pen, which is not very big, but very secure. I am about to have a stroke!
30 minutes before this all went down, these boys were up by my rv. Then I went to say goodnight and feed the horses. It would be dark soon. They didn’t come when I called. I went out on the almost 7 acres of mixed trees, hills, blackberries and grass that is my so called ‘pasture’ for them. I am calling, walking all over looking.
Yesterday My husband and I cut all the blackberries and other brush off the electric fence line. The electric fence was all intact. I asked my dog grey to “go find Rocky.” She went right to a hole in the barbed wire fence on the farthest side of the property. Now, the other horses have been in this pasture for 3 years. They were never able to even GET to where the barbed wire is. There is/was a natural barricade of black berries, nettles and all that assorted flora we get in western WA . These 2 turds ate and stomped their way through the brush, and the wire fence. It is old and probably didn’t put up as much fight as the blackberries did.
I am scrambling down the hill, in sandals and pajamas, hollering their names, tripping and falling every few steps through blackberries, nettles, and assorted brush and roots. I can hear the little darlings running up and down the road. So I finally catch up to them, my neighbor who has the goats, she is trying to convince them to wait for me. (I dont run. I cannot physically run. I have a plastic knee cap, a bunch of pins, screws and plates one DR calls a “metal appliance” in my left leg as well. And I was already sore as heck from falling down yesterday when cutting down blackberries. Yes, you guessed it, into the blackberries.)
I finally catch up to them. I had earlier in the day taken off their halters, as they had learned to stay away from the electric wire. ( I had just moved them to this field yesterday) I do not have so much as a hay string. Not even a draw string in my pj bottoms. Luckily I still had my bra on or I would have had to choose between my pj bottoms or my top. So the pretty pink bra goes around Rockys neck. It just fits. Who knew? My chest is the same size as Rockys throat latch. He wears a 36DDD. Hmmm.
I finally get them home and the neighbor I got them from, ( of course it is a guy) pulls in to see if every one is ok. I am trying to be casual, but I really don’t know how. I have my arms crossed and spit out, “I didn’t have a rope so I used my bra!” Rocky is pure black, so the pink lacy bra around his neck is very noticeable.
I really don’t know which of us is more uncomfortable at this point.
I am completely out of breath. My pink bra is around Rockys neck, and the girls are flapping around under my tee shirt.
Both neighbors are now convinced I am completely crazy. But they should all have concluded that because I have lived here a couple years now. They leave.
I got my pulse down to 105 from 118, so maybe I won’t have a stroke tonight.
The horses? Oh they are fine! Fred has one minor new scratch on him. Not even bloody. Just lost some hair. Me? Pjs full of tiny burrs, and holes, garbage bound.. Several new bruises, a finger nail busted off to the quick and bloody. Big scratch across my face. Tops of my feet and ankles torn to bloody hamburger from the nettles and blackberries, and i somehow ripped the armpit out of my tee shirt and scrapped up my under arm. Thats a new pain.
And now I have no idea what I did with my pink bra when I took it off Rocky. I am sure it will turn up when most likely to have an audience and mortify me.