My Feed Crew...

Is probably plotting a mutiny as we speak. I asked one of the girls that actually showed up early this morning to tell N to come over to the block barn when he got there, had F (called such because I already have an E) sweep in the arena barn, and let T and R feed and water out back and then told them to sweep the block barn. I even swept half of it.

When I went out and told T and R that they could start sweeping the block barn when they finished outside, T (the other supervisor) said "why can't you guys do it?"

"Because, I decided that everyone who was late more than once or just didn't show up this morning could make up the time they missed doing all the sweeping."

"Well, I'm glad you're an authority on everything."

"I am the supervisor."

R chimed in: "So is he."

Me: "Then he probably should have shown up this morning, huh?"

They're plotting to hang me right about now, I'm sure. But guess what? They swept. And Marilyn knows exactly why I had them all sweeping. And it's in the report, although I have a feeling that Marilyn is going to be sharing the story with the other instructors as soon as she sees them, she thought it was pretty funny.

Tsk Tsk.

This morning, three people, including myself, managed to show up for feed crew on time. The rest were late or absent entirely.

The ones who were late showed up eventually and did work... although I fed the entirety of the block barn, half of one side of the arena barn, and half of the pens outside myself. Normally, we break up into groups of two or three, and each barn and the pens has its own group that's responsible for it.

The one that didn't even bother to show up? The other supervisor, who hasn't done anything supervisory at all the whole feed crew.

There were two late yesterday too. I didn't mark it down because they got their work done and didn't make the rest of us stay too long.

I didn't mark it down this morning either. I have a better plan.

See, tonight is our last evening feed crew, which means its the last time we sweep. In the morning we'll just feed and water and we're done.

I think I want to hand over the barns to the next feed crew sparkling. And I think that everyone I've let slide on being late gets to do all of the sweeping. And they'll sweep until I'm satisfied. Or, I can always go back and put into my written report for the week who was late, didn't satisfy their responsibilities, or just slacked the hell off.

I'll remind them that I'm a writer and I can be completely truthful to the nth degree and still make it sound like they all stood around with their thumbs up their asses while the rest of us did all the work. Or, I can be just as truthful and make it sound like everything went fine and no one got in trouble except for the absences.

It's still a hell of a lot nicer than a real job would be, but I think it's fitting. Especially since most of them are the guys who avoid picking up a broom at all costs. And everyone who showed up on time, did their work and didn't complain? Gets to go home as soon as feeding and watering are done.

The ones that need this will hate me, but I'll be laughing my skinny white ass off while I'm perched somewhere watching them sweep.

Stolen...

From Mark


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Dang. Maybe that's a way to raise the money for the saddle? (I kid, I kid. No one around here has a grand an hour to spend on sex....)

Food!

Last night I had three cheese sticks. Along with two Little Debby snack cakes, but the cheese sticks are the important part. I'm not talking those string cheese thingys, I'm talking deep-fried crunchy goodness.

It hurt, but they tasted soooo good.

Today, I mauled my way through six chicken nuggets from Mickey D's, along with half of a medium order of fries (the half that wasn't rock hard.)

It hurt, but once again, it tasted sooo good.

It's bad enough cooking for one normally, but when you're eating small portions it becomes a heck of a lot easier to just buy prepared stuff. And, if I'm in a hurry (which I usually am) and don't have the time to sit down and eat, the best option is usually... you guessed it... junk food. And by junk food I'm referring to things that contain no meat and have a lot of 0's in the nutritional value section. I have a box of blueberry loaf cake from Safeway which is basically slices of blueberry muffin, which is great because I can never eat a whole one of their giganto muffins at a time.

But, progress is being made. I have a little bit of crunch back in my diet, which is a freaking miracle as far as I'm concerned.

Little Do They Know...

So, this hearkens back to my posts at the beginning of last semester. Ya'll remember, where I was complaining about how hard college was.

One of the requirements in the horse-oriented programs is Feed Crew. Ya'll have seen me complain about it. It's a pain in the butt when no one does anything during the day to help out the feed crew, and everyone wants to complain about how much their horse was watered, or fed.

Well, this week I'm a supervisor. I should say the supervisor, because my so-called partner does precisely squat on the supervisory side of things. It isn't helped by the fact that I have the only set of keys for feed crew that wasn't carted off to the rodeo this weekend, because instead of leaving them in the office like she was supposed to one of the last supervisors gave them to one of the crew to give to the other supervisor and he didn't get it done before he went off to the rodeo.

So, I get there fifteen to thirty minutes early, unlock the gates and the office, make sure the sign in sheet is on the right page, sign in myself, set up the coffee maker for the instructors, and start feeding. Usually all before anyone else gets there.

I've got one girl that likes to finish what she's doing and then leave if no one is watching. I suppose I should be glad she bothers to finish what she's doing. So, last night, she told me "I have to sign in and then I have to go feed a rodeo horse."

"No, you can feed the rodeo horse after we're done here."

"But I'll forget!"

"I'll remind you, because you're going to be here when everything is done tonight, right?"

I was checking the pens in back when she finished up watering, drained the hose and left it piled.

"Ok, I'm done!"

"No, you still have to coil the hose."

"But it's fine."

"Um. No, it's not. It doesn't have to be perfect but it does have to be neat."

"But it's not tangled!"

"It's my ass that will get chewed if JJ or Jason comes back and checks up on us and things are a mess."

"But-"

"The longer you argue with me the longer you'll be here."

So that pissed her off. Of course, she (and most of the others) don't treat this like a job, which is what it's supposed to be. Feed crew has a dual purpose... making sure that the horses get fed and watered, obviously, and job training. See, everyone gets to be a supervisor at some point, so they get the responsibility square on their shoulders, and everyone else gets to get experience under different supervisors with different management styles.

I, unlike most, if not all, of the other students, have actually had responsibility for what other people have done in a real life job setting. As a result, I'm a bit anal about everything getting done, and done right, every time.

If that pisses people off, well, welcome to the real world. I'm being a long shot nicer about things than I would be if it were a real job situation. I've been known to give real ass-chewings for the kinds of things that I've seen done on feed crews. But, I'm taking into account that some of these kids have never had to collect a paycheck to keep their car, or or their cell phone, or eat dinner that night. They don't have the experience. So, I'm trying to ease them into it gently.

And it's starting to give me a headache. At least this weekend I have a few people that I can trust to do the job without me having to watch them.

Oh, and I'm likely to be hailed as a bitch after this morning. One of the geldings in the block barn likes to kick the sides out of his stall, and this morning he had managed to get into the stall next door with a little mare, because no one bothered to put the boards back. So, I pulled him out of her stall and put him back in his, and used his halter to tie the grating so that he couldn't push it up and get back through. Then I left a note.

One of my crew asked me if I wanted to use twine to tie it.

"Nope, if we leave the halter in there they'll have to fix it. I don't want to be pulling him out of that stall every morning because they can't find the time to put the boards back, or the brains to move him either to a stall where he doesn't have neighbors or a pen outside."

I left a note in the office about it. We'll see if I get my butt chewed or not.

Pretty Pretty Pony

So, we got the little show over with, Monkey placed third (he was the most immature looking out of all of them, and he behaved well, so I was fine with it) and Farmdad got some pictures for me.

To illustrate the difference in muscle tone, I give you:

Monkey Before:
And Monkey After:
Look at how much muscle he's put on in his shoulders and chest! Now I just gotta build up his hind end, which comes after I make him slow trot for about twenty minutes so that he gets frustrated and when I finally let him stretch out really drives from the hind.

He's come a long way... the main problem we had today was he spooked a little at the people "helping" us trot, and he kept trying to eat my sleeves when we were standing set up. He did square up for me really nicely (as you can see in the photo) and for the amount of people that were wandering around and the distractions he behaved himself remarkably well. I'm proud of him, even though he got bored and tried to shove me over or eat me while we were supposed to be standing. I got lots of horsey kisses giving him my hand to try to get him to stand still.

Meanwhile, we still have riding class this afternoon, and he's covered in show-sheen. If I'm not careful, my saddle is going to slide off him like snot. But he's so pretty!

Tired

But the Monkey is brushed, clean (ha! Like that will last the night) and he will trot in hand.

At the barn from one this afternoon to right at five. I accomplished these things:

Ran the shedder blade (a type of brush that is designed to remove the shedding hair without clogging the brush) over him about a gazillion times.

Ran the bristle brush over him about a thousand times, five hundred cross-growth (to bring out as much dirt as possible) and five hundred with the growth.

Unbraided his mane and tail (which I had spent an hour and a half yesterday braiding before I knew about this) and treated them with detangler/conditioner. Brushed them just enough to make them look good.

Trimmed his full-jaw beard with the manual clippers I have. Trimmed his nose and chin whiskers with C's electric clippers. That was an adventure.

Helped C trim her horse. Helped C clean up her horse's belly because he was getting a lot of crusties around his sheath and he doesn't like it when you touch his no no spot. Helped J trim his horse after class.

Treated Monkey's feet with hoof-heal to moisturize them tonight, tomorrow it's hoof-shine.

And the big one... Taught Monkey to trot on the lead. He was really confused about that part. I did a lot of jogging today, so I think I got my cardio. But, by the end of class he would trot without me having to have the short whip that I was using to teach him what I wanted in my hand, so I call it a victory. Now they won't have to completely freak him out when it's time to trot by running up behind him.

My arms are tired, from all the brushing. My legs are tired, from all the jogging. My back is sore from bending over to do legs.

I still have to run a load of laundry and take a shower, and get my gear together for tomorrow. Horses and handlers have to be ready by eight thirty in the morning.

It'll be really satisfying if we win, but it would make me feel less like it's all just a bit futile if we actually got a prize for winning.

Stingy bastards.