Today was Bathing Day at the barn for the horse show this weekend. Bathing day is always an adventure in itself! There are eleven horses going to the show this time...which means eleven horses who needed four legs, two ears, and one head clipped. Eleven horses who needed four hooves scrubbed, one head wrestled with to bathe, and one body washed. Two of them were done yesterday which left us with nine today. For a while we were moving along rather quickly until the major storms swept through and we had to stop clipping/bathing for safety reasons! Most of the horses are pretty good for their clipping and bathing rituals. However, Dream (a beautiful young mare), does not enjoy this process. It took three of us to hold her steady and clip the inside of her ears. Now, most horses HATE having their ears clipped, which is understandable. But we couldn't even get near Dream's little ears! Finally after a long time of wrestling and some close calls we finally got her ears done and she looks gorgeous.
It was a long and damp day but a job well done. Many might wonder "why the heck would she do that and how much does she get for it?" I can answer the latter with much greater ease than the former, I don't get anything for it. I do this because its a passion. I've helped at nearly every bathing day for about ten years now. I love it, I love to work hard and I love to be with horses. Some day I will no longer be able to volunteer my time to help (which I think will be sooner than I want once I enter the "real world" and need to work all the time to afford the costs of living...) so I'm enjoying helping while I still can...
"The essential joy of being with horses is that it brings us in contact with the rare elements of grace, beauty, spirit, and fire."
~Sharon Ralls Lemon
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