Well, the day is here – as of about 12:30pm Eastern Standard Time, Pierce is on the road up to The Cold Dark North™ (Michigan). I’d been hoping the weather would swing back toward being at least slightly more moderate in time for his arrival, since we’ve been hopping back and forth between frigid snow flurries and balmy 70° afternoons that feel more like mid-May than March.

But beggars can’t be choosers, and at least Pierce is originally from New Jersey (and was based out of Pennsylvania before coming down to Ocala this winter) so he’s had some cold exposure before.

Once he’s arrived, he’ll have another week and a half of small-paddock turnout before he can go out in a larger field for two more weeks, and then start working under saddle again. In the meantime we’ll be doing some light groundwork. His manners leave something to be desired so lots of practice grooming, tacking, standing patiently in the cross-ties, that sort of thing – maybe some walking over ground poles later in the process. I just want to get my paws on him, full stop.

On the crunchy rib front, things are going as well as can be expected. Quite a bit less fragile-feeling than the time of my last post, but I also came down with a wicked, unexpected chest cold (or flu?) just a few hours after hitting publish on the last installment. 101° fever, hacking cough with delightful phlegm, body aches; all of it helped distract from the ribcage situation (except the cough of course).

Luckily we’re feeling mostly better in time for tomorrow – just waiting for the ETA text from the Ecclestone driver and I’ll be jetting off to work from the observation room (or just stare out the front windows looking for the big rig trailer).

I also need to do some catching up on documenting my retail therapy – I played hooky from work Friday afternoon and went to my local Dover as well as an independent tack shop for a few hours. All in all I’ve picked up: new spur straps, color enhancing bay shampoo, new liniment, new Equifit Multiteq front boots, a new Black Oak bridle (oops), several containers of treats (oops oops), and Ice Horse hock wraps (this at least has a medical purpose, ok?)