Friday Four

Premier Equine is an evil temptress

Confession: I bought a new saddle pad. In my defense, 1) I gave another one of my plain square pads away, 2) Premier Equine is having a 25% off sale on these pads AND I had a coupon code (AW919 will get you £10 off). It was $50, leave me alone. My only teeny tiny complaint about my all-navy pads is that colored wool of any kind does start to fade in the sun or with washing, so I wanted to get the navy with natural wool to use as my daily pad, to keep the navy with navy wool looking… navy.

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I would probably have a dozen of these pads if they made better/new color combos, so even though I complain about it all the time maybe I should actually be thankful that the rest are so ugly.

Ponyo almost broke my heart

I pre-ordered Presto’s next season monkey blanket from Ponyo, and was crushed to see that there were no unicorn blankets available in horse sizes. Noooooooo. The sads. I mentioned this on social media and the owner responded saying that there had been a mix-up at the factory, so they wouldn’t have bigger sizes in the first shipment but they would have them later on. As soon as she knows how many and what sizes, those will be available to pre-order too. Shipping from the UK is expensive so she offered to hold the first one so they could ship together. Super helpful! So, crisis hopefully averted, because I was kind of dead set on Presto having monkey and unicorn blankets next year (and forever after because even if/when he outgrows or destroys them he will wear them until they’re absolutely in tatters).

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monkeys and unicorns

Chewy for the win

I noticed yesterday that Chewy.com is carrying my brand of feed now. It’s kind of a PITA for me to get this particular feed, I have to drive about an hour round trip from work, the opposite direction of home, and on more than one occasion they’ve only had a few bags even though I called before I drove up there and they said they had way more. Their price is really good, the cheapest in the area by a couple bucks, and $4 per bag cheaper than Chewy, but by the time you factor in convenience/cost of gas/wear and tear on my truck and the fact that there’s no tax on the Chewy shipment… it’s hard to resist. I ordered a month’s worth yesterday so we’ll see how this maiden voyage goes. It only ended up being $17 more than the other place, and it’s a million times more convenient. I’ve gotten dog food from Chewy for a while now, but never horse feed. 2020, what a time to be alive.

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This effing coronavirus

I think any and all of us who have any kind of remotely manufacturing-related job is already feeling the indirect strain of the coronavirus. A lot of the components that go on our PCB’s are made exclusively in Asia, and right now many of those manufacturers are shut down. If our own suppliers can’t get the parts they need to build our electronics, then we in turn can’t get the parts we need to build our products (which relate to the oil and gas industry). We are already feeling the squeeze, starting to see major part shortages, and it’s going to get way worse before it gets better. Kinda makes me start to wonder what else this could effect in our day to day lives, too, as shortages on certain things become more widespread, or as the virus itself spreads. I know there are already whispers of possibly having to cancel the Olympics if they can’t contain it, which would be such a bonkers situation. I’m not particularly a fan of the Olympics when it comes to equestrian sports (unpopular opinion of the day: I’m one of the few that would support a break from IOC altogether), but still… so much has already gone into it. Yeesh. That dystopian book is coming to life, folks. Has it started to effect anything in your life yet?

Side note: I’m starting to draft the post for the Hylofit review next week, if you have any questions or specific things you want to see, give me a shout.

With that, I leave you with my favorite meme of the week:

20 thoughts on “Friday Four

  1. Hey I bought Remus’s ration balancer from Chewy’s (and now dont cause he is a boarding barn and is on a teeny teeny bit of Senior and his supps) and while a bit more expensive it was worth the convenience. I think Sarah (ThreeChestnuts) also buys her stuff for horses through them.So worth a shot…..

    Those pads, how do you clean the fluff on those pads? i just can see them getting really gross..(My horse is disgusting)..

    also Presto and unicorn blankets. Let’s hope when you get it he will have outgrown his destruction tendencies. Wait..probably not 🙂

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    1. PS I really never realized how much the Corona thing would affect jobs. I mean it def. affect us for conference due to even though it is not till next october there are still a lot of things going on that could affect our attendance. UGH

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  2. I work for a major university in the biomedical research labs and we’re starting to see a limit on certain supplies like face masks and gloves. Which, gloves I get but the face masks WILL NOT protect you from getting the virus. They will help you from passing it if you have the virus. For the love of god people don’t hoard the masks!

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  3. Love that about small businesses, that’s such amazing customer service! Also, it never occurred to me that Chewy might carry horse feed, much less Bluebonnet. Yay internet!

    We haven’t seen slowdowns from COVID-19 yet but….it just clicked when you mentioned it that I work in HVAC parts distribution in central Texas, we’re about to hit our busy season, and a lot of HVAC equipment and parts are made in China. Oh boy. D:

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  4. Wait until coronavirus is running through the U.S. There is no way to stop this from happening. It’s coming, we just don’t know when.

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  5. Don’t worry the COVID19 idiots have already started showing up in our EDs. Like the ones worried they got it from eating Chinese food. We’re starting to put together plans for how to handle a surge in all our hospitals and it’s super stressful, so I can only imagine those of y’all facing shortages.

    Also… I want a Premier pad but I’m so very attached to my shimmable half pad + Ogilvy baby pads… But they’re so FLUFFY

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  6. I live in N. California and the California Corona patient is at UCDavis hospital which is 10 miles from me. My husband has a staffer who went to China to see her mother two weeks ago despite everyone telling her not to go. When she got off the plane in China, government officials allowed her to see her mother for literally 30 minutes and forced her to return to the airport and fly back to California. His company decided to pay her two weeks leave to keep her home and quarantine her from potentially having the virus. It was a good faith quarantine, so who knows if she went shopping everyday or not. Oy vey!

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  7. I would actually be super interested in reading a post about why you would be okay with/in favor of a break from IOC. I’m a bit meh either way – just kinda on the fence, but I still think it would be a great post – yours are always thought provoking so I’d love to read something like that.

    Yay on a new pad! Unfortunately, I am an enabler, so the fact that you did get rid of one is good lolol. And yes, that meme is me all the time LOL

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    1. Basically it’s because our sport changes to suit the Olympics rather than the sport changing to suit what’s best for the sport. I would like for us to make the decisions that make the most sense for the horses and the sport, rather than having to find ways to make our sport fit into the Olympics and their goals. The Olympics aren’t even the top level of eventing anymore, it’s a dumbed down version. I like the team aspect and all that stuff, but we get that at WEG too.

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  8. Those Ponyo blankets rock! I love the unicorns. I think my mare needs one as well. What are the chances that they come in an 81?

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  9. Interesting about Chewy. I did not know they sold horse feed. I am curious how long it sits/how long it takes for it to sell? I have had problems with a certain feed store where their feed sits too long or comes too far…it molds before I can go through it. I have never had that problem before and we go through a lot of feed.

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  10. My job is chaos from this effing virus. Just utter chaos. Being handled really poorly by upper management I might add. But anyway.
    Love Chewy. That’s definitely worth a few extra bucks to save yourself some time.
    I would be so sad if the Olympics were canceled. I love watching all of it!

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