Feed Adventures, Part 2 of 2

What do you do when it’s the Monday before Thanksgiving and you are on your last bag of feed? You panic and call every feed store in central Alabama.

My bad. I let the supply get low. In my defense, we went through it faster than we had initially calculated and the store that promised to order more did not. They are dead to us.

As my calls went further and further afield, the feed stores had less and less variety. Until I arrived at one store that had no stock. They ordered as needed. Half of the places I called offered to order for us. Yes, fine. I have an order in at the local co-op. It arrives a week from Friday. That doesn’t help me NOW.

Stop. Regroup. I need to be heading toward population centers rather than away. Unfortunately, the towns likely to carry interesting feeds are at least a two-hour drive.

If I’m gonna spend all day driving to get feed (and grateful to have that option), why don’t we combine the car drive with a driving lesson? Plus, Franklin, TN, is the type of horsey area that would stock yuppy feed.

I was right. Of the two feed stores in town, one had 4 bags, the other had 11. Coach Kate kindly offered to buy it for us. In fact, I was halfway through my song and dance when she said, “You’re working up to ask me to go get some.” Yes, Ma’am.

Was she free over the weekend for a lesson? Well, no. She was busy Friday through Sunday. They didn’t have plans for Thanksgiving. Why didn’t we come up Thursday? That’ll work. We don’t generally make holiday plans and the horses had enough excess on board that they could handle tight rations for a few days.

So that’s what we did. We drove up to Franklin, had a lesson, ate lunch with friends, and came home with a backseat full of feed. (Thank you!) On our 20th wedding anniversary, we did a 40-mile bike around NYC. Playing with horses on Thanksgiving was positively normal. For us.

Props also to the nice man from Triple Crown. While I worked the local angle, Greg called the company directly. The sales rep was able to find two bags headed to one of the stores I had already called. We could pick up them on Saturday. Fine by us. Better feast than famine.