Goldilocks - Barn Shopping Edition

*sigh*

Boarding barn shopping.  Where's the emoticon of me blowing my brains just right on out?  And let's be honest.  WHY ARE HORSE PEOPLE SO DAMNED CRAY? 

So here we are.  Two, somewhat normal, ladies looking for a boarding barn.  We're not asking for much (are we?).  We've got 5 horses between us.  All we want is pasture boarding, and one solitary boarding for an aged old man who needs mush.  How hard could this be?

How hard indeed......

The first barn people seemed to be as about normal as you're going to get when it comes to horse folks.  Thankfully a good friend boards there and can vouch for their sanity.  They are FAR for me, but they have 39 acres for turn out.  A massive lit outdoor ring.  We can't leave jumps up but they have enough bells and whistles to make the drive worthwhile.  But they are also hesitant to put 4 more horses on their acreage. 

Barn two.  Well.  We won't talk about that one long because I'm afraid that I'll contract hepatitis C just thinking about it again.  It COULD'VE been nice but.....  It was overgrazed.  The barns were filthy.  The place was ill-kept.  The lady was well intentioned but after the third barnyard animal came up to use that looked like it was on it's last legs we thanked her kindly for her time and split.  I'm sure the horses are well cared for.  She's that kind of crazy that puts the horses first, but maybe cleaning not so much.  You know there's an issue when there's a HORRIFIC smell and it's not horse urine......

Barn three I have NEVER heard a bad thing about which let's face it, its a miracle.  The barns are nice.  Place is clean.  But talk about over crowded.  The owners are maybe the nicest folks I've ever met in my entire life.  They agreed that it was maybe not a fit for us, but gave us the number to barn number four.

Ah barn four lady.  So nice.  So crazy.  So nice.  So nice and crazy.  She's built a MASSIVE cedar barn.  MASSIVE.  No expense spared.  It's the kind of thing only can only dream about.  And maybe don't see here in Texas.  While I'm pretty sure she's willing to accommodate our level of insanity, I'm not sure I can accommodate hers.  She asked what time we normally ride.  Said she'd have to 'think it over' to have us there past 9 pm.  Look, I live around an hour away.  I have a regular job.  It's gonna take me time to get there, then time to ride then time to go.  I may be there past nine.  And I honestly don't want to feel like I'm scheduled to see my own horses.  We thanked her kindly for her time and split.

Maybe it's because I was fighting off an illness.  Maybe I'm just too old for this shit.  We went with Barn #1.  I'll deal with the drive.  The owners seemed nice.  They'd do what we wanted as far as feeding goes.  DONE.  Nice?  Not totally nucking futs?  Will feed my feed?  Fuck.  Done. 

We move next weekend.