Wednesday, July 5, 2017

First World Problems

Well -- I did get to enjoy my 4 day weekend, but it was fraught with first world problems! Saturday was actually fairly low key, I did some shopping for necessities (and made a frivolous Ariat boot purchase), and spent time with Ruby. Saturday evening, the boat we were trying out got dropped off, which meant I immediately knew Sunday would have no horse time.
Clearance + Coupon = $28 boots FTW!
 
Sunday morning our mechanic friend came out to work on the brakes of my Silverado (in case you missed the fun story of having to drive it home without stopping power!). We also had him crawl under the diesel (an F-250 Superduty), because it developed a bit of a front end wander that we noticed when we were driving to/from Indian Camp Creek a few weeks back. He quickly identified the problem, but said we'd be fine to haul the boat down to the river and test it out while he replaced the brakes on the other truck -- so off we went!
Poor Silverado
The boat test drive went fine, minus a kind of odd incident backing the truck down the ramp (the brake pedal suddenly went down the floor, but the brakes held -- our friend was driving the truck and he commented on it, but we all assumed it was just a weird fluke). We had a good time putting the boat through its paces, then headed back to pull it out of the water and head home.
 
Pulling the boat out of the water, the rear end of the truck started making an awful grinding noise. Turns out the weirdness backing the boat into the water was not in fact a fluke, it was the truck slipping a rear brake pad. *blah blah blah insert mechanic speak here* but the end result was the truck was not safe to drive home, much less on a highway, pulling a boat that technically didn't belong to us yet. God bless our mechanic friend, he had just finished up on the Silverado's brakes so he tossed his tools in his truck and drove an hour down to meet us with appropriate parts, installed a brake pad so we could drive the diesel home, then spent another few hours completely replacing the rear brakes and rotors.
Did not plan to be broke down on the side of the road for 3 hours... haha.
Our mechanic friend also helped us get the parts ordered to fix the front end issue and checked out the intermittent check engine light in my car (because when it rains, it pours apparently!). Thankfully some savvy parts shopping for the front end worked helped balance out the unexpected cost of the brake work, so it all should come out in the wash. He'll be back out soon to finish the front end work, and then we shouldn't need any more vehicle work for the near future (knock on wood!). It's definitely a trade off -- we own older vehicles that we use pretty hard, so they need regular (and sometimes expensive!) maintenance. But a payment on a newer truck would be much more expensive than this maintenance (and out of our budget anyway!).
Poor diesel.
At the point when the repair costs start to outweigh the costs of a newer truck, then we'll have to look at making some changes. But for now, Kate (the Silverado) and Brienne (the diesel) [shut up yes I named my trucks!] should be pulling our horse trailer and hay trailer for many more years.
Is there such a thing as too much teal? Asking for a friend..... 
Thankfully I had taken Monday off work, so we were able to spend a day with my dad and step mom -- we hung out, played with the goats, BBQ'd, browsed an antique mall, and generally just had a really nice low key day. We also finalized the boat transaction, so now DH has a new toy to play with on his days off and that will hopefully keep him more occupied so I can do more riding! I'm sure I will also spend some time out on the river with him -- we ordered a canopy and a radio (as well as a little doggie life vest so the teeny dogs can occasionally accompany us), so I'm sure that will feature prominently on nice weekends! While Monday was overwhelmingly skewed towards relaxation, I also stepped on a bee (ouch) and accidentally popped a pipe under the kitchen sink, causing a minor flood and forcing us to turn the water off at the main overnight. Because if I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all? Haha.
Teeny dogs are judgemental about our lack of water situation.
Thankfully Tuesday we were able to get the pipe fixed (hooray for showers), and I finally got to ride! I spent an enjoyable afternoon at the barn with Ruby, poking around in the field in my endurance saddle and hackamore. Tragically I forgot my phone, so no photos :( but soon! I need photos so I can review my friend's awesome paracord creations! It's SOOOOOO nice to have Ruby so close. I can't get over it. I might start biking down to the barn (that's more attainable than jogging lol) because I need to get back in shape! (plus my brother sold me a bike so I could ride the trail with DH). The indoor should be really to ride soon, so I need to contact possible new dressage trainer about lessons and find my motivation! Hopefully everyone else had a fun and safe 4th!

25 comments:

  1. Ugh, vehicles are the WORST sometimes! My shiny new diesel is behaving himself so far, but my not so new car keeps taunting me with an intermittent engine light too. I need it to go off so I can go get my emissions test done!

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    1. Aren't they though?? Like I know having multiple vehicles (in our case, two cars and two trucks) is totally a first world problem, but I was seriously annoyed that all of the problems decided to happen at once! I do know what the issue is with my car but thankfully it's more of an annoyance than something dire in need of repair. And at least I live in the boonies so I don't have to worry about emissions testing!

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  2. I hear you on truck repairs. We had an old Silverado for years and years. We'd pump money into the repairs as they were needed. Sadly, the damage last winter was more than the truck was worth and more than we could afford, so we let her go. Unfortunately, we can't afford a newer truck so for now the Rav hauling a landscaping trailer will have to do.

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    1. I'll be sad to let these go -- they're 17 and 18 years old, so it's definitely in our not too distant future I'm sure 😔

      Gotta do what you gotta do! My friend has a Rav that's old with a bagillion miles and still trucking!

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    2. My RAV is a '96 model, still kicking, best all wheel drive on the planet (husband calls it a Billy goat) and STILL gets 25 mpg!
      On a side note, Conner got stung on the bottom of his foot over the weekend too. He *might* have ignored Momma and was running around our clover covered yard barefoot though.

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    3. Yours is the one I was thinking of! 😂

      I had shoes on, I just had equisitely poor timing I guess? Haha. Myles got stung last night -- we need to mow down all our clover!

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    4. LOL! She's a good old car! It's actually learned to drive in. I *almost* feel bad that Jack typically drives it back & forth to work,it is purple after all 😂

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    5. In my last comment, my typo is driving me nuts -- exquisitely. Thanks for nothing autocorrect lol.

      Jack is totally manly enough to pull off a purple car 😋 hahaha

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    6. Mine too. Definitely left out a few words. Oops

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  3. What is this "forgetting of phone" nonsense? Does not compute.

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  4. why are trucks so expensive tho... thank god for good mechanic friends!!

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    1. I feel like the expense of trucks reinforces the "horses are a luxury" mindset, haha. But yes, god bless my amazing mechanic, because without him I'd be high and dry!

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  5. My subaru is Stella and the truck, as you know, is Jolene. Too many gearhead friends wanted to know names, so I started naming lol.

    Also, OMG I totally feel the "so he'll have something to do so I can ride more" lol. My boyfriend still seems to want to do all our shared hobbies with only me and I'm like 'dude, how did you survive without me? go do that again and let me do my thing!' We've also got this trip to Mexico planned in Novemeber that I'm not exactly psyched about, but I'm going because I'm gonna be getting a puppy when we get back and I hope placating him with a climbing trip will help my case lololol

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    1. Omg right? Like I am super appreciative when he wants to be involved with the horses, but I am totally fine if he does his own thing while I go ride or whatever. Like please get your own hobbies and friends occasionally so I am not solely responsible for keeping your non-work time occupied 😂

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  6. I am glad the boat was the only vehicle that ended up in the water.

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    1. Same 😂 once we figured out what the issue was I was like "well at least we didn't sink the truck?"

      It could always be worse!

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  7. Lol my car has two names - a name it got when it was new, and a name it got when it went over 200k miles lol

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    1. That makes sense! I might have to change the Silverados name if it makes 200k -- the diesel passed that like the month after we bought it 😂

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  8. Maybe you should just stay away from vehicles for a while. Clearly these are signs you should just use your horses to get where you need to go. ;)

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    1. 😂😂😂 I don't feel like Ruby or Cinna would appreciate my 40+ mile commute, although my work does have some nicely manicured grass they could snack on! Lol

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  9. Oh my goodness those are some dirty horses!!! Hello btw, I am new to your blog. Your dog is super cute!- Kelly @hunkyhanoverian.com

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    1. Hi Kelly! Thanks for checking me out and leaving a comment. I think the dogs are pretty cute too, but I'm a little biased 😋

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  10. Ooooh boy, I am not showing B that boat you guys bought. He'd be all over that thing

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    1. Haha it's a bit older, but in pristine condition. DH is pretty tickled with it, and I don't mind going out in it occasionally. It's much sturdier than his smaller jonboat, so I don't feel like I'm going to take an unscheduled swim :-P

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