Scattered . . .

by Kit Ehrman

Sadly, I’ve been offblog for a while. My husband and I are trying to sell our house, and it’s been frustrating and hectic and time consuming. I believe this will be our twelfth move. Except for the townhouse we rented when we first got married (and our current house) we’ve always lived on horse farms, and to my mind, there’s no better place to be. I love living in the country. I love looking out the windows and seeing pastured horses or, at times, horses in the backyard, putting my birdfeeder at risk. I especially loved having the horses close at hand where I could check on them day and night.

And like the humans in our family, my horses were accomplished at relocating. My worst move was one where I wasn’t personally involved in transporting them. I had three horses at the time, plus my sister’s horse. Four horses to move six-hundred miles, and I wasn’t going to be there when they were loaded into the trailer. Instead, I would be flying with my six-week old son, lugging his baby bag and car seat through Chicago’s O’Hare airport with mere minutes to catch my connecting flight.

Meanwhile, strangers were loading the horses onto a trailer. I figured my horses would load okay. After all, I’d loaded them singlehandedly numerous times. But still, you never know what unforeseen circumstance might make a horse balk. Then, the hauler would have to find my parents’ farm to pick up my sister’s horse, and he could be a bear to load. But he was in the barn alone, and I hoped the desire to be with other horses would come into play. Apparently, it did because the horses arrived in Indiana twenty-four hours later, none the worse for wear. It was such a relief to get them off the trailer and into their stalls.

This move, if we succeed in selling the house, will be a short one, as we’re only moving a couple of miles away. Too bad I don’t have any horses to move this time.

For an interesting article on the ultimate in horse transport, visit:

clipped from www.nytimes.com

First-Class Treatment for U.S. Team’s Horses

Tim Dutta has learned that satisfying his well-heeled clientele means attending to the smallest of details. One of his frequent fliers loves orange Gatorade, for example, but turns up his nose at lime. Another drinks water only if it has been sweetened with a touch of apple juice. Some ease their nerves by nibbling on wet hay, while others take it dry.

His clients, of course, are not human but equine — Dutta is a shipping agent for the United States equestrian team, responsible for flying the team’s horses to Europe for the first leg of their trip to the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Kit Ehrman
www.kitehrman.com