Waiting on the farrier

The farrier has a day job.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for him. (Sorry that he's not making gas money shoeing & trimming, but hey, the guy drives two or three hours in all directions for ropings, cuttings, shows & clients on a regular basis - not cheap these days!). But his day job involves lots of driving and on call type jobs. So he's never sure from day to day where he'll be, how long the job will take, and when he'll be home.

In the last several months he's gone from mostly reliable to usually unreliable. AND HE DOESN"T CALL!

Once again last night I spent two hours waiting for him to show up. The horses were cranky and twitchy - it was cold & damp and they wanted to be down in the pasture tucked out of the wind. The lot was still gooey in spots, mostly concentrated in front of the posts I usually tie to, so I couldn't skip a post between them - which I usually do to give the farrier space to work.

I'm still short two halters. (My best one went on the sold mare because J thought it was hers.... And one is still in the other car, I think). I can usually leave the two oldest mares loose, as they'll happily stand and snooze, but last night at least one of them was in heat. Both of them were causing trouble picking on the tied horses. Grrrr! So they got tied and the two youngsters got locked out of the lot to keep them out from underfoot.

I used the time productively enough, I guess. De-mudded all of them and got the majority of the wind tangles out without cutting any chunks of mane loose. After three days of wind & rain most of them had elflocks - thankfully not to the dreadlock stage!

Overcast skies meant that at 7 PM it was dark, the farrier hadn't arrived or called, and wasn't picking up his phone. So feet are still long. Bah.

It may be time to start asking around about someone else to trim. I'm not looking forward to the prospect though.