A good afternoon at the barn

Because I was out of town last weekend, the goal today was to spend some quality time at the barn. A good hour after arrival was spent cleaning out my corner of the tack room. We've all been hearing the telltale rustling of mice, so I wanted to sweep out the corner and just sort of tidy up a bit. Plus, the weather forecast was for snow showers - it was a good day to bring in the winter wear for the horses. 

This is the "before" shot:

And this is the "after" shot:

Hmmn, it doesn't look a whole lot tidier, now that I look at the photos. :)

I brought another plastic crate to put blankets in, so that added to the stack. And I took home the English saddle and the bareback pad, which haven't been used in months. The English saddle makes my knees ache, and the bareback pad never fit Dude well. That was a plan that didn't work out at all. The pad kept sliding backwards, even thought it had the sticky bottom to supposedly keep it in place. I brought back Dude's Western saddle back to the barn. It's on the lower rack since it weighs about a million pounds. Well, close to 40 pounds.

I swept out the corner (tons of mouse poop, blech) and cleaned out the shelving (Banamine from 2006, anyone?) and brought home the jackets that had been hanging in there since last winter to wash them.

After all the cleaning, I saddled up Dude to do a little walk in the indoor. By the time I walked him down to the new indoor, which has the deeper, more comfy footing, the saddle had slipped back. He has so little muscle on his back, the saddle doesn't fit right. I got on him bareback, but just did one circle at the walk around the indoor ... I felt bad subjecting him to the combo of my bony rear end and his bony back, but he seemed pretty peppy and happy.

As I went to get off, I don't know WHAT I did, but as I swung my right leg over his back, I slid right off onto the ground. Wish I could have gotten a picture of Dude turning his head to look at me sort of quizzically - whatcha doing down there? It was pretty funny. What a good boy, though - perfectly well behaved after a good 6 months not under saddle.

After we got back into the barn, I tried Bestie's saddle on him and it seems like it will work. I'm going to bring the breastplate just in case. We'll have a go with that Monday night.