Pinch Me

Sunday, February 28, 2010

This is it. This is the day we bring the horses home.

It’s a dreary, grey, and wet day, but the weather can’t do anything to dampen my excitement. I arrive at Five Elms at 8am, trying to visualize how I’m going to pile 3 saddles, 2 bridles, and dozens of polo wraps, saddle pads and horse blankets into the cab of my truck. But before I can carry the first load from my over-flowing locker, I notice a Sobeys bag that’s been stuffed onto the top shelf.

Inside the bag are two 18 inch long pieces of wood, hand-painted with Maggie and Murray’s names on them. They’re perfect and beautiful, and I can already picture them above their stall doors. Thank you so much Roxanne, and Nicole and Laurier. There's also a gift bag full of hot chocolate, fudge and a martini mix. Just the items needed to deal with the stress of moving into a new home. Thank you Valerie! And don't forget the handmade cross stitch with Murray and Muscade's names on it from Kayla. I'm going to miss you all so much.

I'm going to miss the barn, but I'm ready for my new adventure. I do (somehow) manage to stuff all of Murray and Maggie’s belongings into my truck, though if I open the back door, it’s all going to tumble out. Murray’s outside with his friends, so with Roxanne's help, I chase him into the barn. Part of me feels guilty for taking him away from his buddies, especially when he has no way to know that this is the last time he'll see them.

Guy brings in Maggie, and we load the two of them into the trailer (which is already loaded down by the 136 bales of hay we've bought). Murray loads like a pro. Maggie loads well too, though it takes her a minute to decide that it's OK to stand beside this tall, old horse she's never met. She also seems to think the stall's a bit narrow for her rather large hind-quarters, but we squeeze her in, close the door, and hit the road.

An uneventful drive, and suddenly it's 2:30pm, and I"m pulling into our driveway, followed by a slow-moving, weighed-down trailer. Guy easily backs into our narrow driveway, but the mud rising almost to the rims of the tires shows just how close the trailer came to getting stuck in the slick, icky mess at the crest of the hill.

Dave escorts Maggie to her cozy 10 x 10 stall at the end of the barn, and I lead Murray into his "executive sweet" on the corner. It's a 10 x 20 foaling stall, and I wonder for a moment if it's wise to give an un-catchable horse so much room to roam, even indoors. Oh well, before long, the animals are munching hay, and sniffing each other through the bars. We stack the rest of the hay in the spare stalls, and Cheryl and Guy climb back into their truck for the long drive back to Moncton. We leave the horses to get settled in, while we settle-in in front of the TV to watch the momentous Canada-U.S. Gold Medal hockey game. Quite a day.