My new saddle.
My Amish neighbors have a pony for their 3 boys but no saddle. And I have no pony because I have enough to do. I was walking around the Bart mud auction this spring when I happened upon the tack auction area and just as I walked by the auctioneer said he had a black saddle with silver trim, brand new, just right for a pony. I ran up to the edge of the crowd and waited to hear the price. $80.00, I raised my green ticket. Then another bidder raised it to $85.00 and they looked at me. I raised my ticket and it was now at $90.00 and the other bidder stopped, and the gavel slammed down and just like that, I got that saddle for $90.00. And when I say I got the saddle, I mean it both figuratively and literally as the man came up to me and handed me the saddle. Didn’t see that coming. Great! Now I had to walk around with this thing the rest of the day or so it would seem. Luckily I found a couple of young Amish boys just sitting on their wagons waiting to help people haul their belongings to their cars as they left. I paid them to babysit my saddle while we finished walking around and it was a great deal for both of us. I hate to think what would have happened if I had won a bid on a horse. How would I ever get that into my car.
When I got back to the Faux Farm Amos was working on my shed and the kids were there with him. I showed them the saddle and they are going to try it on Rocket this week. The saddle is going to stay in my shed so the place looks farmy and the boys know they can come over and get it anytime they want to. Of course Rocket isn’t broke so he is the only one who is not going to be happy with this whole deal.
As a followup, we tried the saddle on Rocket last weekend. Seems we were missing a part of the saddle, like the part that goes around the horse’s middle and actually keeps the saddle on the horse. We took off the saddle and tried to figure out how it worked as there was a strip of leather there. The Amish are not big saddle, horse back riding people so Amos was as stumped as I was. We thought the strip of leather was the girth but when we attached it to the other side the only animal it would have fit around was a small dog. Amos remarked, “that isn’t going fit much of a horse now is it?” We went to Yonnies saddle shop down the road and he hooked us up with a new girth and told us the leather strap was decoration. I think he was laughing when we told him we tried to tie it around the horse. Now Rocket is all hooked up and loves having the kids ride him. Wait till I get on his back!
I checked the internet for saddles and saw this one which looks just like mine only this one costs $1250.00. Snap!