Operation: Let's have a real-life Knabstrupper! Current Stage: BABY IS HERE

[Silverine]

Small Update

First for the part that concerns Mojo: she's not coming home today, I'll be going to get her tomorrow. After everything that happened yesterday it seemed like the universe was telling me today was not the day and so I'm going to heed it's warning and wait until Tuesday.

Anyway... let me tell you the saga of the rental truck!

Firstly, I own a trailer but don't yet have a truck. So usually when I need to do some towing one of my friends helps out. In this case everyone was busy so I did what I've done before and rented a truck. In all the other times I've done this I've never had an issue.

So I get a call the day before I'm supposed to pick up the truck that the person before me says they'll be a little over an hour late and will drop the truck off around 2. I said that was fine, that the timing didn't really matter to me since I wasn't going to be doing my hauling until the next day. The rental person said great and we hung up. So I'm figuring if the person is dropping the truck around 2 I'll get there a little after 2 and things'll be hunky-dory. What the rental person neglected to tell me is that the rental places closes at 2 on Sunday.

So I get to the rental place at 2:05 and can't see right then that it's closed. My friend drops me off and goes on her way. I do stuff on my phone to check in figuring that they left the key in the lock box but no, my phone tells me it's a desk pickup. So I walk up to the door for the desk pickup and find out they're closed. Wonderful.

I call my friend and let her know that I might need her to come back and get me but I want to look into some other options first. I try looking up pickup rentals at other rental places nearby (that are still open) but my cell signal at the place is really spotty and it is taking forever for pages to load. About twenty minutes after my arrival - as I'm still trying to get webpages to load - an employee comes out of the place to close up. He notices me and asks if everything is alright. I told him I was there to pick up a truck but that I didn't realize they'd closed at 2. It's no big deal I can come back later. He asks my name and then goes "oh yeah! we were waiting for you!" and brings me inside and gets me all set up. Success, right? Well, not so fast.

I get the truck, everything looks good, I head over to the barn to grab my trailer so that I can bring it home and be ready to go bright and early. I get the hitch lined up and trailer hooked up first try, no problems. Then I try to pull out... aaaannnd the truck is stuck. It had rained the night before and the ground around and under the trailer is mush. I hadn't realized this - I thought the whole area was gravel.

I get out and unhook the trailer thinking that I'll probably be able to at least get the truck out without the added weight of the trailer. Nope, no dice. So I'm sitting there, trying to figure out what to do because there's no one at the barn and I have no way to get home with a stuck truck. I call the barn owner and we talk it through. Eventually what I did was grab a shovel and dig up some gravel from a spot that we don't drive on and put it in front of the tires of the truck. This allowed me to get enough traction to get the truck out. Yay! But I'm still left with the issue of getting the trailer out.

With our weather the way it's been there's no guarantee that the ground will dry out by morning so it was decided that I should use some old boards we had lying around and put them down where the truck's wheels would be to give me the traction I needed to pull the trailer out. (The boards had some termite damage so weren't good for anything but were solid enough to be useful in this scenario.) I put the boards down, get everything lined up, and then start backing up to hitch the trailer up.

What I hadn't realized was that the boards underneath the tires had added height to the hitch. Can anyone see where this is going yet? I backed up, thinking that the ball would slide right under the hitch on the trailer. Instead, the ball hit the hitch and there was enough give in the wheel blocks that the trailer fell backwards off the block that was holding it up.

Here's what that looked like:


At this point there's no way I'm getting it hitched because there's no way to jack it up. I call the barn owner and ask for options - not necessarily to get the trailer hitched, but just to get it lifted up so that I can set it back on the blocks. She says there's a floor jack down at the garage on the property that can be used to lift it up. At this point her mother (who lives on the property but has no more knowledge of how to fix this problem than I do) gets home and so we both head down to the garage since she at least knows what the floor jack looks like.

We get down there and I realize that I have absolutely no idea how to use this darn thing. At this point I'm thinking I'll just come back tomorrow, but the barn owner's mom texted her and she decided to come over and help us (she lives about thirty minutes away).

The barn owner arrives, we get the floor jack up to the trailer, and decide on a plan of action. We'll use the jack to lift the trailer enough that we can get it on the blocks, then the barn owner will hitch it to her truck (which is a dually with 4-wheel-drive) to pull it out and let me take it with the rental truck. We get it up and get it on the blocks only to find out that her truck is much taller than the rental truck and won't fit under the hitch. So we use the floor jack to raise the trailer some more, get the truck lined up, and release the jack only to have the whole thing lower to the right of the ball. So we jack it up again, set up the truck in the correct area, and get the trailer hooked on. From there her truck easily handled pulling it out and getting it up on the driveway so that we could switch out the trucks.

We get the trucks switched out, I hitch up the safety chains and the electrical and go to check my lights before driving off. Guess what? They don't work. I literally just changed out these bulbs and they worked on the barn owner's truck so I know the issue isn't with my trailer. I'm at my wit's end at this point. (Actually I was at it before but this didn't help. ) I have some friends good with electrical engineering and call them to see if there's anything I can do about it. They say some dielectric grease might help but I'm better off just switching the truck. Meanwhile the barn owner is telling me to just go without lights.

In any case, my house is only five minutes away so I figure it's still daylight and driving super carefully I should be able to get it home no problem. And I did. No suspense there, we made it home just fine. But I still don't know what I'm gonna do. I have an idea of what I want to do but just can't seem to make up my mind so I call my parents and talk it out. In the end it was decided that I wouldn't go up today; I would call the rental place in the morning and tell them about the lights and ask to switch trucks and then go up on Tuesday with the new truck.

So that's what I did. I got home a bit ago with the new truck, hitched it to the trailer, and everything is working as it should. Right now I'm just taking this as the universe telling me bad things would happen if I tried to push it and go up today so for the rest of the day I'll just chill and recover from yesterday's escapades and then make the drive tomorrow.

That's the plan and everyone can look forward to Mojo picture-spam tomorrow.

[BlackOak2]

What more can be done?

Yeah, I'd say to give it a day too. Last time I didn't take the advice of an automobile, I failed my driving test! It's been awhile, but I listen to the vehicle now.

And that is quite! the story. Quite.
And, luckily enough, no damage resulted anywhere.

Good Luck on the drive tomorrow.

By the way, there could have been two basic things with those lights (well three, really). First, the fuse was blown. Second, the wire was cut (either accidentally or purposefully). Third (and most likely, at least in my mind) is that there was crud up in the connection. That's my problem with my truck. If ever I get around to towing things with mine again, I think I'll just be replacing that wire connection. She's old and I was stupid enough not to throw electrical tape around it to protect it.
So... for those that don't already have caps, wrap the end of the connection in electrical tape to protect it from crud between uses.

[Silverine]

So the people at the rental place actually said that it was a blown fuse. The truck they gave me today didn't have a hitch on it at first and they said what had happened was that they knew there was a blown fuse but had taken the hitch off of the wrong truck.

And yeah, today is much more chill so it seems that the universe is fine with my going up tomorrow. But I'm enjoying a day of not doing anything. Yesterday was the day after my second covid shot and I was all achy and feeling gross pretty much all day but was determined to get things done. So today I'm actually letting my body recover and it seems quite thankful. I guess I should listen to it more.

[BlackOak2]

Hah!
No, but really. It's good to hear that you're feeling better.

Trusting people to do what they should do, properly... -_- Need I say anything more...?

[Silverine]

Mojo is home! I left around 6AM, got to the repro place just before 10, then got home right around 1:10. I couldn't have timed the traffic any more perfectly - didn't get caught in any jams at all! That was my biggest worry as I didn't want the drive to be any more stressful than it needed to be and the jams in one of the areas we had to go through can last for several hours.

Mojo was not excited for the trailer ride but was super happy to see all of her friends - especially her best friend Dana. I'm hoping that the calming effect of returning to some place she knows and horses she's familiar with will cancel out the stress of the trailer ride. I'm definitely keeping my fingers crossed that everything is still all good and that I haven't messed everything up at just day 17. (None of the vets or my friends that have bred seemed to think the trailer ride would be an issue, but I'm a worrier at heart.)



Gosh she's so pretty. Oh, and I actually don't know why the tag on her halter said 4/15/2021 since she was covered on 4/9/2021 and ovulated on 4/10/2021. But whatever it's still a neat little memento. Nevermind! I figured it out. It actually says 3/15/2021 which is the day I brought her up there. *facepalm* And man, I knew the halter would come home dirty but does it ever need a cleaning! At least it's naturally well-worn now.

I have another video of Mojo figuring out where her friends are but it's taking forever to upload so I'll post it later.

[Silverine]

And here is Mojo figuring out how to get to her friends. There's a bit of her cantering up the hill near the end. I hadn't gotten a head-on video of her cantering before so that's exciting.

[BlackOak2]

"...Going to do horsey stuff..."
AKA Roll in the mud! I heard that as you said it.

And her look, when she got off the trailer, 'eh... another ride at it's end.' She looks like she's getting to be a pro with that, although with a horse her age, trailering should be an easy thing. At least, one would hope.

She really looks like she's super comfortable too. Wasn't long ago she was wearing a blanket and everything was covered in snow and that surface ice that makes it sound like the hill is coming down on top of you when you walk on it.

[Silverine]

(Major) Update!

We have a heartbeat!

Baby is still present and now has a heartbeat!

I was so nervous that I'd shaken it loose with the trailer ride. I know that's basically impossible but I couldn't help worrying. But it was fine, baby is still comfortably settled in the uterus, and for now things are looking good!

For those curious, here is a video of the fluttering fetus. (The big black circle is the embryonic vesicle, the small white thing inside is the fetus, and the fluttering motion is the heartbeat. )



My vet pulled bloodwork today to check Mojo's progesterone levels just as a precaution. There's no indicators of anything wrong, but it'll be better to catch low progesterone before it causes a problem.

I still have to call the office to schedule the 60-day check so nothing is set yet, but that check will be around June 10th.

[BlackOak2]

O.o
So Exciting!
She took and is holding.
SUCH a good girl! Mojo.

[BlackOak2]

...
Mojo's preggers...
...
Worth saying again!