Nicky called me yesterday. She is the Mississippi State highschool girls champion roper and had space to take a mustang home. It turns out that she is doing mustang training as a Senior Project for highschool. They wanted to come out and take a look so instead of going to Gobernador and fixing some fence as I had planned, I hung around and tried to fix the welding machine.
I was deciding that my screwdriver selection was not sufficient to get the carburetor apart without stripping screws when a truck went by. Hmmm. You recognize strangers just by the way they drive. They went on across the bridge to Ice Canyon. Hmmm…. but then suddenly they were back at that gate by the barn.
A family of four Mississippians emerged from the truck. I loved their accents. I showed them the two older geldings then said, but the horse I want to sell you is over there. They followed me to where Chaco was eating. Nicky immediately fell in love. Hey, he was a wild horse once. We let him finish eating, then led him up on the porch to get saddled.
I put that nasty Wade on him. It doesn’t fit him but it looks so good. He was cranky as a result. Mistake, but it reminded me of why to not put that saddle on that horse. He acted up a little bit and I was kind of embarrassed, but he didn’t buck or run out. Poor Chaco! But that didn’t keep Nicky from wanting him.
When it came time to talk price, I wanted Chaco to go with this Rodeo Queen. I have him advertised in the paper for $1000, but I told her I wanted $750. She immediately quit petting him and I could see her wanting for him retract. I asked what she could afford. She didn’t want to say. She had come looking to get a $125 mustang.
Then we looked at all the other equines. Cisco acted like a real idiot. He made the mustangs look so tame. I never let him just run off and get away with it. I had to follow him around until he finally gave up and let us catch him. I showed them how you could create a gate for him by just laying a rope on the ground.
They started debating whether to take Ocho or Trinity. Trinity has better confirmation, Ocho has a better attitude. Mom and Dad wouldn’t make a decision for Nicky and she wasn’t happy to have to decide. Then she asked me what is the lowest I would take for Chaco.
Well, I started asking questions. Who is paying for the horse: Nicky or parents. Nicky has to pay them back with the money she gets from working. She works for a company that does landscaping. I imagined that was not a nice job in Mississippi in the summer. I asked her what she gets paid: $6.75/hour. Hmm. That would be over a hundred hours to pay my original asking price. I thought fifty hours was okay, but I wanted more than $350, so I told her $400. She jumped at it.
The next hoop was getting a Coggins test done on him in time for the trip back to Mississippi. We went in the house and started calling veterinarians. Not possible to get it done before Monday. The USFS mustangs already had Coggins. She was going to check around at the rodeo and see if anyone had an alternative possibility.
This morning she called. They are taking both Ocho and Trinity. No need to decide between them. The family went down to the Farmington holding pens where Anthony and Dan were unloading the first captured band. They filled out the paperwork back at the USFS office and Anthony called me to give me clearance to release them. Ocho and Trinity are going to be southern mustangs. Yes’um.