Thanks to Matt & Michelle, and than Jennifer & Paul, I have decided to try my own hand at this new blog thingy.
As most of you know, I was born a "city slicker". Not just a "city slicker" but a "California City Slicker". But deep down inside I always loved the country side of life. On the other side of this twosome is Carol / Mom who was born in the country, thus the name "Carol-Jean". Although she is very comfortable in the city, she also longs for the country. Most of you kids already know this as we managed to live in out of the way places most of your lives. Anyway, a few months ago I got this idea that it would be kind of neat to go to a Wild Mustang Auction. You know, just for the fun of it. I went on line, found the site, found the date, time and place for the next auction in this area. I read all that I could find about it and just for the fun if it, I filled out the application for adopting. On 18 July of 2008, we went to Archdale to see what these rag-a-muffins were like. Carol came along just to make sure that I did not go crazy. We were both very surprised to see the quality of these animals. They were ranging in age from 1, 2, 3, 4 and a few 5 year old. They had Fillies, Mares, Gilding's and Stallions. They even had little burros. We went home that afternoon with me talking about all of the fun we could have with a dozen or so (they only let you have four at one time). Carol spent all of her time trying to get me to wake up and get some common sense. We could not afford to buy any, we could not afford to keep any, we don't have the time to work with any. But mostly, we DON'T KNOW HOW TO WORK WITH ANY. But I persevered and in the morning we went back to the actual auction (just for the fun of it and to see what they would go for and to plan for the future years [since we are both in our sixty's]). Mom picked out one she liked and I picked out one that I thought I would like. We thought that since we don't have any tack and there is not a lot of room for riding in our back yard, we should look at yearling fillies. You know, kinda like having a big dog for a pet.

When it came time to bid on "Carol's horse", I started to bid at the bottom at $125.00. But someone else wanted it as well so they beet me to it. I went to $135.00 and they went to $145.00 I asked Carol if she wanted to go higher and she said no so I let her go at $145.00. A couple of other horses went by and than it was time for mine. I quickly gave my starting bid and waited, and waited, and waited the next thing I new, I was the proud papa of a yearling filly. A Bay with a spot of white on her leg that makes her a Pinto. She also has a white sock on her left rear foot and a small white star on her forehead.

I was told that if you bought one at the auction price you could by a second one (Buddy) for $25.00 so I picked out a dark one and bid on her. No one bid against me and now I had two horses.

This one is called Black even though she is just a dark brown but she has the prettiest main and bangs. They moved onto the next pin and I started to go to the table to pay for our new "pets" when Carol stopped me and asked me where here little filly was and when I told her she was already sold, she got very upset and started to cry. She said she did not realize that we were talking about her horse because she could not see it very clearly. Being the good man that I am, I asked her to find another one that she liked and so she took several minuets and finally selected a little tiny baby, (did I mention that it was very small).

I wrote down her number and went to the paying table where they informed me that the buddy program only kicks into play after the bidding stops. As with Carols little, little filly. Still, we came out of there with three horses and a $275.00 whole in my wallet. Now the next question, how to get them home and oh yeah, where to put them? I asked around and found a young man who transports horses and is also a trainer and best of all he lives less then three miles from our home. I made arrangements for him to bring them to us on Sunday morning and hurried home to build a rag-tag corral for them to stay in. I called Steve, Jen, Amy and Jordan to ask for help on my new construction project. We now had to build a 50' X 50' corral in just one night. As soon as we got home, I did some quick figuring on material as we started to the lumber yard, Jordan drove into the driveway. While I bought lumber, Jordan and Carol had a great visit in the garden section. I had to make two trips and Jordan helped me unload both times. Next we replaced the bad existing post and then extended all of the rest
to 6' in height. It was then 10 pm so we stopped for the night. In the morning Jordan and I did all of the layout for where we wanted the rails and than off to Archdale again to finalize the paperwork so Brandon could transport our three new babies. Now we raced home to put up some rails before Brandon got there. I got out my air compressed and nailer and chop saw and to of my neighbors came to help. Jordan and I measured, cut and hauled while Ronny and Kenny shot the rails to the post on the marks that Jordan and I had already put there. By the time Brandon got here, we had the front up one rail all the way around. He offloaded them and they started right away mowing the grass as if we were not even their. I thought that the air compressor and nail gun or at least the chop saw would send them through the moon but all they were interested in was that nice green grass. By noon all of the fence was up and we were patting ourselves on the back. Now what are we going to feed them. We made a few phone calls and found some hay at a local farmer in the area. I will bring you up to date on our first week in the next blog.

Love, Farmer Tom