Finally, LILY GOT A HORSE

My SI joint feels 99%. That was a quick healing. I'm thankful for that, especially this big day going to get this horse.

Do you have any little Kohlers?

Yeah, we do have it. It's on the fridge. Look, she's excited. She woke up at like 5:15. She's in her show outfit. Doesn't she look cute?

I have a different pair of shoes. Oh, and I'm not gonna wear my braces.

It's not your show outfit, huh?

I'm not gonna wear my braces. I'm gonna wear my tops.

Oh, okay.

Did you start the truck? I wonder what our horse is gonna think about the trailer. It smells like sheep and cows and pigs.

That'll be different for it, I'm sure.

A little bit.

That's a little bit. A tiny bit. That's good.

I lifted the trailer up as high as I could and I heard the gear click. It wasn't gonna go anymore. Plus I'm about that far off and I can't move the— I couldn't move the trailer. We go to put it down and it's not going down. That click must have got it out of gear. The only thing I could think of to do is jump up and down on it. So I jumped up on it down again and had Lily twist, and it worked. For a minute there I thought, really, we're gonna be hours delayed getting this fixed. We have the boards underneath. I must get repositioned. I don't want to hurt my back moving that over.

Papa, you did it wrong again. You need to go back and do it again. So wrong. You need to do it again. Good. But Papa, wait, stop. Go forward a tiny bit. That's good. Still on the wrong side. That's good. Wait, no, a little bit backwards. That's good, that's good, that's good. A tiny bit forwards. That's perfect. Go backwards a tiny bit. That's good. Perfect. Is a gooseneck easier to hitch up?

I don't know. 1.5 hours down, 3 hours to go. It's a waste. Potty break. Just 28 minutes to go. Feeling pretty sore though. Absolutely no traffic. It's going really well. We're spending good time together. I hope we brought napkins.

We did not.

We did not? Okay, do not spill. That's a jammed out, uh, Peanut butter and jelly though. Nor did we bring a spoon for my soup. Bring any salt either, but thankfully I have these little Redmond's little micro shakers everywhere. Done for now?

Yeah, I'm gonna save the rest for when we're done.

Okay, avoid the snot, but I have a handkerchief.

I'm gonna wipe my face on it.

All right, you ready to go see this horse? Yeah, 30 minutes away. You'll never have another first horse. Listen, I don't know the first thing about horses, okay?

I know a lot about horses.

Yeah, so I'm counting on you for that, okay? Don't look at me for what to do, okay?

Okay.

We're gonna talk to this lady, we're gonna ask to ride, and you're gonna have to know what to do.

I don't know what to do.

I mean, I'm sure she'll tell you some specifics on this guy.

Like, I walk around once, I walk around once, and then I'm gonna turn around and walk around another time, a few times, then I trot. In one direction, then I can walk and then cut across the ring, or I could try to cut across the ring and go in a different direction, or I could just do a simple change.

Okay, 5 minutes. You nervous yet?

I am. I don't know why.

Oh, Billy, we've arrived!

Yay!

It might be him.

I don't know. You think that's him right there? It might be the blonde one.

Oh, he's so cute. Actually, it probably is. It looks like a 14-hand. It's a good little horse right there. And Unless it's him over there.

What's his name? Hey, I'm Justin.

That's Heidi.

You're Justin? Am I in Justin?

You're what?

The horse's name is Justin too.

This one?

Yeah, well, he's just Peachy. Oh, okay, but they call him Justin.

Okay. Oh, that's funny.

Maybe you'll change that.

Yeah, when you were saying Justin, I thought you were talking about me or something. What did you want his name to be?

I wanted Peaches.

She likes a similar name, Peaches. So what does this horse mean to you guys?

He's here on consignment. Ah, so yeah, most of the ones here are from—

what does consignment mean?

Trainers. Like, trainers send horses to us to sell.

Oh, okay. Oh, okay. So how, how heavy can somebody be to ride this thing?

For jumping or for just casual? Like, I mean, he's very sturdy.

Yeah, 200, 250.

Yeah, I mean, he'd be fine. How long have you been riding?

Um, like a year and a half.

All right, very good. Good, so slow your posting down. Just take a deep breath and relax. There, good job.

If he gets tricky, just stay easy and slow your post down.

Take a deep breath.

How's he feel, Lily?

Pretty good, pretty energetic.

Is that—

he's ridden in a couple days.

Is he energetic compared to Smokey?

Yeah, I just need to get used to him.

Yeah, Smokey's how old?

22.

Smokey's her horse she's been training on.

Very good.

Or pony.

Keeping your reins short, and then I said if you want to be soft with your hands, you can kind of just like let them be down here, and then if he's going too fast, then you can pick him up, right? And then think about if you want him to walk, if you want him to walk, your sitting was very nice, but when you went to sit, because he was a little bit bouncy, he didn't walk right away, you had to squeeze, right? To hold yourself in the sit. And then he was going, are you telling me to go faster or to go slower, right? So soft pull with your hands, you can use your voice, he listens really well. I think you guys are just getting used to each other.

Just asked if she can try cantering. Trainer said she could if she feels comfortable. Wrong lead, and then he swapped it for her.

So if you saw him do like a little this, that's a lead change. He has really good lead changes. Okay, good. Say whoa and sit tall.

Good, there you go.

He really listens to your voice. Okay, so say whoa.

Good.

I never in a million years thought my children would be horse people. I had horses growing up, fell off of them 3, 4 times. Of course, I had— we were breaking in, uh, broncos. We're gonna do a cross rail.

You can cut through the middle of the ring if you want. There, keep the reins short and your hands forward. There you go. And then if you want his trot to go a little slower, he's still thinking canter. Lean back and just slow your post down. There, perfect.

Really well ridden.

She just told him to trot and he did.

Yeah, he listens.

That's it.

He really listens. And also, when you think about it, when you say— when you say something, your body reacts to how you say it, even if you're like subconsciously doing that. And so if you say like, whoa, your body relaxes as you say it. So that's another— like, it's not so much that they necessarily know the word, but the way your body responds. Very good.

Cool down.

Getting the hang of him.

Yeah, pretty fast.

He's very fast, energetic. Have you ever gone that fast?

Oh yeah, I have.

Okay, who goes that fast?

Captain, uh, Wyatt does.

Wyatt? Yeah, thanks for taking them over to the vet. Yeah, good rider. Yeah, I know, right? We found somebody to do it on Wednesday.

I know, we were the only ones there.

Okay, that's not your normal vet because they're further away?

Yeah, our normal vet won't do pre-purchases for us because it's a conflict of interest.

Oh, I see. Yeah, but come It does, yeah. That's good, we don't have one of those. Uh, Mom's going shopping this afternoon, maybe it'll be some Black Friday. Yeah, he's all right around kids. Oh yeah, you would be all right if she led him and let kids ride him? Yeah, he's 100%.

Yeah, okay, if you share your phone. There's cookies right there in that jar if you want to get him a cookie in that big white one.

Yep. Wants more treats.

Oh yeah, how can you tell?

The way to a horse's heart is through its stomach.

Ah, is that right?

Cookie Monster.

Yeah, she made him treats yesterday. Oh boy, some oats and molasses. And what else you put in those treats?

Carrots and apples and vegetable oil.

She had a spoiled pony.

Somebody had given her a book and it had a recipe for a treat.

Oh, how fun!

You were riding him after he hadn't been ridden quite a few days. If you ride him every day, he won't be quite as fast.

You're just ready to go, huh?

He was. He was like, all right, finally!

Think you can handle all that energy, Lily? Yeah, I know.

You do not have to work quite as hard.

I've rode in Rocket before.

Oh, he's rocking pretty wild.

He doesn't have brakes.

Oh man.

Show him your truck and trailer. Hmm, lead him around a little bit.

His friend's checking it out. You lead pretty well, Lily? Wow, he's very gentle. Okay, well, I'll get him the stuff. All right, I think we asked all the questions.

Okay, so if you want to face him towards the trailer, let him sniff it. He's not sure, so walk right up to it and then you can just kind of let him look inside of it. And then once he has a second to understand— very good.

Nice.

He's like, I don't need to look. We'll put this in there for him. Okay, so you don't need to undo the bale.

It's his hay ration right there. Two flakes.

Yep.

Okay, here, we'll do this.

So two flakes in the morning and two Oh, okay.

Two flakes in the morning and then—

and you can—

hey, hey, hey, I'm hungry! There we go.

That'll keep him.

That way, if you had to stop or something when the bucket tipped over, it might be rolling around in there and scare them.

All right, Lily, you just added another boy to your life. You didn't have enough?

Uh, yeah, no, I didn't. I didn't have a horse. It didn't matter if it was a boy or a girl. Okay, actually, I'd rather have a boy horse than a girl horse.

Oh, would you? Okay, good.

Girls have cycles.

Girls are moody. You don't have to deal with that. That's good. All right, is he being calm?

No, he's moving around.

He's stressed out, isn't he?

It's okay, he'll settle down in a few days.

Well, what'd he ride like? Did he ride like you expect, or what was it?

No, I expected him to be lazy. He is not lazy, and that's good because— okay, uh, so he hasn't been exercising a few days, so he needed an exercise.

Okay, I noticed that they said that you could talk to him and tell him what to do.

Yeah.

Are you used to that?

No.

I didn't think so. But is that nice or is that weird? It's okay.

I mean, I sometimes I talk to Smokey.

Can you get used to that? Yeah, I can get used to it.

Whoa.

You could even tell him to trot.

Yeah.

How'd he jump?

He jumped it pretty good. He's like Smokey, he canters after he jumps.

Oh, look at that one horse following us.

He was following us. I'm glad I can rename him. His name is Justin.

Yeah, that would be weird. Yes, she said you can rename him. What are you gonna name him?

I'm gonna call him— name him Peaches.

Okay, he's not registered or anything. That makes it easy.

Yeah.

All right, Peaches, here we come. Estimated time home, 5:11, and I'm hoping we can get home before dark. I'm gonna have to drive so slow though.

We might have to give him water. At least we brought that big thing of water.

You did bring water?

That was meant for you, but we can—

Peaches can— oh, I see.

And you can have my water.

Excited for you.

I'm so excited.

I feel your energy. I never had that energy for a horse, but I feel it from you, and I'm happy for you, darling. Tomorrow morning you're gonna wake up and you have a horse. You can walk across the street and it will be there. Hey, well, you're a horse mama now.

Oh dear.

And I'm a horse dad.

Okay, so did you talk to her about the feed? Did you see that?

Yeah, I got the feed. I sent, I sent you a picture of it.

Oh, okay. Angie told us how much to feed.

We got a, we got a hay bale, we got a bag of feed. Atlanta Black Friday traffic. How's your boy doing?

He's doing good. He's just looking out of that window. He's been there for like an hour and a half.

That's good.

He's not moving around too much.

He's settled.

He moved around for the first like 10 minutes.

Then he settled.

That's good. He's not eating his hay.

Unless he's stressed out.

He's moving his head.

Almost halfway home. 2 and a half hours left. We'll take a break here in about 20 minutes. Yeah, get some fuel, go to the bathroom, check on Peachy?

He might eat— nope.

Peaches.

His name was Peachy, but they called him Justin.

I like that name.

Justin. We can't.

Halfway mark. You want to know how he's doing? Oh, he's eating something.

Yeah, I gave him apple core.

He ate it. All right, well, he's not too stressed. Oh, you're all right, bud. And this is an animal we're not gonna ever eat. Yeah, you can get super attached to him, huh?

Yeah. Do you want to feed him one?

Sure. How do I do it?

Hold out your hand, um, down like this. He'll just eat it right off your hand.

You two are gonna be good buddies.

Yeah, I love to feed him snacks. These will help him get less stressed out. If he's eating an apple, he'll be less stressed. We got out and petted him. I realized he's gonna be fine with We take him out of the trailer tonight?

He's gonna be just fine. He's doing just fine back there. I'm even getting a little attached.

He's actually a little bit—

a lot attached.

Yes, he's so cute.

He's so nice.

He is. He's like perfect.

He's so nice.

Yeah, he'll be great around Henry and such.

No, Henry will love him.

Henry will love him. He loves horses.

Exactly the kind of horse you needed.

Yeah, a good around little kids especially. I already love him so much. He's so cute.

You do?

Yeah.

What makes you love him?

I don't know, he's so cute and nice.

He is so nice.

Yeah. I guess he figured out that being nice was being— was actually better than being not nice.

Yeah, he's a smart one.

But he was never not nice. I cannot imagine him not being nice. All of our parties and going to shows and all that stuff.

Might still be a little light when we get home. Think it'll still be light in 10 minutes?

Yeah, it'll be still light. I mean, it won't be as light as this, but it will still be bright.

It'll be nice for everybody to see them in the light.

Yeah, they've been set up for a few weeks already. Crazy, crazy Christmas light bulbs. He's gonna look out at all the green pasture we have and he's gonna be like, We're home. It's been such a long day.

Yeah, you've been a trooper. Did you take a nap on the way home?

No, I tried, but I'm gonna fall asleep.

I'm not—

You're too excited.

I just can't. I'm just not. I don't— I can never take a nap.

You won't even be able to go to sleep tonight.

No. I'll just stay up all night in the horse's stall tomorrow morning, and I'll sleep all day tomorrow.

Oh, there they are.

Do you guys tell Mom? Bring my new buckets. Where are my new buckets?

Okay, good.

Come on down. Henry, guess what we got? It's a horse! I can't wait to show everybody.

Hey, Henry. What do you think of that thing?

He's so cute.

Huh? Mom's gonna fall in love too.

You think so?

Oh yeah.

Are you in love?

He's so gentle.

Are you in love?

But I probably will. He's so gentle.

I'm so glad you're home.

He's so gentle.

How have you been feeling?

I'm a little stiff.

Um, can imagine.

8 hours.

8 hours in a car is gonna do that to you.

You're back on a nice walk. I would be a bad truck driver.

Let's go on a walk this evening.

Oh, for sure.

Wait, your back hurts?

The whole mile.

Well, I mean, he's just stiff.

He's been sitting in the car for 8 hours.

My back kills me just sitting in the car like that. There's a horse. It's Oliver again.

Is it?

My older, older brother used to live in the cabin where we are, and he used to have horses here. I mean, that's why our horse— our house is a horse barn. Look at his ears. Hey, yes, this is all so new. She's— I like how she's got Jonah working. We brought some of his hay. Thank you, Gideon. We'll let you feed him one, okay?

Okay.

Oh, he's eating. That's a good sign.

He didn't eat all the whole way here. Well, it's a little rough. Well, I don't have the gel. The gel is up at the house.

We should do that gel right now too.

He loves apples. He loves all treats. I'm gonna keep walking him around.

Well, you could also let him drink out of the creek.

Sure.

He wanted to see who Winnie was.

Let me do a him some probiotics.

We'll see. He's very—

travel.

Do you know how much to give him? It means he wants you to go away.

Let's hopefully— hopefully this— he doesn't get spooked in the stall. Oh, you know what, we could put this, uh, probiotic in his feed. Well, I'm glad he's very gentle. There's a lot of new stuff going on right now. I can't name a horse Justin, it's too confusing. There we go. I'm not even gonna go there, he doesn't need any more excitement. Everybody's out, everybody's safe. Okay, all right, let's get his Um, how are we gonna feed in this bucket? Oh, he's already eaten. That's good.

Oh, where's the bag of grain? I'm gonna go—

don't—

okay, now how are you gonna feed in the grain?

I'll just dump it into his bucket right here.

Okay, so do you just have a water bucket and a feed bucket?

Water is right there.

Okay, all right, and then I'll put this probiotic on his feed scoop. Okay, y'all are used to wild cows. Yeah, that horse is super chill. We're gonna do is I'm gonna put— yep. I'm gonna put this probiotic—

is that enough?—

in his feed. Yeah, hold on. That smells real good.

All right, he didn't even put his cat head down. He doesn't even know where it is.

He's getting his probiotics. He's got his hay. Lily's got water.

He'll smell it.

He's got water, Lily.

Huh?

Yes. Okay, you can come check on him like right before you go to bed too, okay?

Okay.

But he's good.