I think whenever anyone moves, whether it be a home, business or stable, everyone comes to a certain point where you say, “Dear God, Where did I get all this stuff?”.
Fifty horses, five ponies, a donkey, saddles and bridles, tractor, manure spreader, washer, dryer, tables, office furniture, horse show equipment, wheelbarrows, feed tubs, salt block holders, trunks, picnic tables (yes, we have 10—and each must weigh 400 pounds), tools, stall cleaning stuff, bridle and saddle racks, pleasure driving carts, jog carts, jog harness, show harness, railroad ties, trail obstacles, a gator, winter blankets, a complete fly spray system, a tractor, wheelbarrows, dollies, tack trunks, and even more stuff that must be moved.
Don’t forget our camp supplies—for the past three years, the LEC has hosted entire summers of camp schedules. Each week of the school break, along with Spring Break, Holiday Break and even Derby week-end saw us hosting a camp. Western saddles (don’t forget cowboy camp!) along with their own “stirrup buddies” (p.s. “stirrup buddies” are best invention ever to western instruction!), western pads, cinches, grooming equipment (about 40 grooming buckets), brushes, brushes, brushes, curry combs, curry combs, hoof picks, hoof picks, stirrup irons, peacock safety stirrups (for underprivileged camp), stirrup leathers, saddle pads—and don’t forget plastic totes so each child has their own for the week of camp to keep their own personal stuff in. We lost count at 83 plastic totes. Construction paper, scissors, glue, pens, pencils, stickers, tattoos, hot glue guns, stick horse remnants, ribbon, glitter, glitter glue, foam, the list goes on and on. It must all go and then be stored somewhere.
Oh, have I mentioned the Drill Team Costumes? Each year we take at least 20 kids to the state 4-H Drill Team competition. Each team has a complete theme: costumes and music. We have been Little Mermaids, Lions and Cheetahs, Carmen Miranda (complete with cones of fruit on the helmets), and last year we had poodle costumes, Christmas elves and U of K Wildcats. Boxes and boxes of costumes and props, again must be boxed up and stored somewhere? Where?
You know when the cold weather hits, and you have to take 25 horses to the National Academy Finals, where the temperature can be 80 degrees in the day and 35 degrees at night (sorry for you folks up north, but for us down further South, 35 degrees is really cold)—and you simply can’t find enough winter blankets and sheets to bundle up all your freshly body clipped lesson horses? Well, guess what during the moving process, we found all those blankets that we had been so diligently searching for. The LEC could probably blanket and sheet every horse within the Kentuckiana area. I swear we just threw away a bunch of old and tattered blankets and sheets just the year before. Maybe we did, and under the cover of night, the old blankets jumped out of the dumpster and back into the store room. Because I found them all right here in the storeroom. Big blankets, little blankets, big sheets, little sheets, neck wraps, fly sheets, tail sets, pieces of tail sets, little bits of tail sets, cruppers, turn-out blankets, and two or three tubs full of bits of blankets, sheets and tail sets that we might need if there was ever a world wide shortage.
You know all those straps, little clasps, little fasteners, half a sheet that you saving to repair all the other torn sheets with. Well, that’s if you ever get time or learn to sew or even purchase a commercial grade sewing machine. That’s a lot of obstacles to overcome. But maybe one day.
Then there’s the feed room (o.k. feed room/storeroom/utility room/tool room) which includes all these annoying Smart Pak containers, which they so helpfully send you—old supplements, medicines, ointments, unknown substances and goo’s. Not so sure what most of it is or what it was, or what it was originally used for. And in the feed room we’ve also collected tools, pieces of tools, bits of tools, remnants of tools—both large and small pieces of metal things. Things with unknown purposes. At first you start bundling all these tools and pieces up, but after several very heavy boxes and totes, eventually you just start tossing things.
Tossing things in the nearest dumpster, that’s what moving is all about. Exactly when is the moment that you give up and are overwhelmed, and simply start tossing things, that’s when you know you moved!
Everything that once seemed so valuable, has been worthless junk.