Spring Cleaning

With the weather marginally improving over the last few weeks (I say marginally because the wind has been ridiculous, and its supposed to snow later on this week) we've been taking advantage of the warm afternoon sun to do a little horse-washing at the ranch. After an entire winter spent rolling around in the dirt, mud, and snow, crushing debris into their long coats, they've all finally started to shed out... and they're filthy underneath all that hair.

Take one horse, add warm water and shampoo, soak, lather, rinse. Repeat. Sixteen times. Yes, each one of the sixteen horses and ponies on the ranch needs a bath, so we've been steadily working our way through the lot of them, dirtiest to least dirty, performance horses to ponies.

The shampoo we have reads, "For use on carpets, upholstery, industrial fabrics, and livestock."

Yeah. I thought it was a little weird, too.

Things haven't improved a great deal with the tutoring/barn work balance, but I have been able to ride almost every day, which has been good. Trina has her finals at the end of next week, which means the next two weeks will be tutoring-heavy for me, but afterward I should be spending the majority of my time with the horses.

As for finding a field job for the summer, things aren't looking great. I've received quite a few "We regret" style emails, including one today for a really neat job for which I was well-qualified and thought I had a really good shot at.

And today I received official notification from U of Northern State that I was not selected as a candidate for admission. :( That leaves one school... U of New England Place, which I emailed again this afternoon to see if I can get a straight(er) answer than, "We'll look into and get back to you" (i.e. "We'll delete your email and never respond to your inquiry.")

Hey, good things! Over here! Please feel free to start happening at any time. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.