I like to help other horse people out. Makes me feel good. Makes me sometimes think I know something. Actually, it also makes me sometimes think I know nothing. It’s good to be at both ends of the pride/humility spectrum.

So last night, on the way home from herding class, I noticed that Vickie was selling her trailer. She’d listed it on Craig’s List. I immediately shot another horse owner, Marj, a message, because I knew that she was looking for a trailer. Today, Marj came over and we did a field trip over to Vickie’s place.

Vickie is selling her one horse trailer. It’s a one-of-a- kind trailer; the front part has a metal grill upon which you can put an ATV. She also repainted it, and her husband Mike put new brakes and bushings on it. I do not know what a bushing is. I am probably also going to remain ignorant about this. No, I will ask Pete at dinner and get the low-down on this subject. Then, after a while, I’ll cease to listen to him because some obscure but important detail will escape me, making full comprehension of the subject near-impossible.

No matter. I like Vickie’s trailer, and always have. But I have no desire to buy it. This is because the trailer should go to someone who will both use it to haul a horse and an ATV. (This just gave me an idea – perhaps the local search and rescue horse group would be interested). Someday, though, I would like to purchase a one-horse trailer, so that I might go places independently of Pete.

Marj, Vickie, and I stood around for some time, in the cold, talking trailer. Marj likes the trailer and is considering purchasing it. It made me feel good to have helped her connect with Vickie.

A digression of sorts that’s not really a digression. There are two things that I did not know when we purchased Raudi. The first was that one horse is never, ever enough. You do in time have to get a companion for your one horse. This is because they’re social animals. The second is that one horse is never, ever enough. You do in time have to get a trailer to haul your horse around. Otherwise, you are stuck either riding in a small area, or beholden to another who has a trailer.

What was most impressive about today is that two women were totally involved in the trailer negotiation. Mike, Vicki’s husband, was present, but his job was to verify that this was indeed, a very good trailer. Yes, two women were totally involved in the trailer negotiation. Two women who own one horse each. Indirectly, horses have changed their lives because otherwise, they would not have been talking trailer. This affirms what I’ve been thinking for some time, which is that horses empower women. Evidence of this can be seen anywhere you see a woman loading or unloading a horse into a trailer, going down the highway pulling a trailer, parking a trailer, fixing up a trailer, or purchasing or selling a trailer.

Women are the ones who are primarily horse-obsessed. Once in a great while a man will have the gene, but it is a truism that women are the ones who tend to become infatuated with horses. If this wasn’t so, there would be that many less competent women out there. And we have our horses to thank for this.

A Postscript. Tonight at dinner I asked Pete what a bushing was. He told me that it’s sort of like a very thick washer. He said more, but this is what I heard. I am now curious. I am going to have him show me one of these things in the very near future. We live, we learn, we die.

Next: 244: 11/25/13: Wrong Brothers, First Birds to Walk