I feel that after everything that has happened to me over the last six months, I need a vacation. Okay, so being on a whirlwind, rollercoaster ride of a time buying my very own horse farm in March and putting it back together has been a wonderful diversion from my mundane life to date, but I still need a vacation. I think I would like to go to a dude ranch. I really would like to check out some different dudes. And I have always wondered if they actually sell "dudes" at these ranches. And if they do, is the product any good? Because I have to tell you, the dude that is currently occupying space in my beautiful new horse farm has some idiosynchrosies that I could do without. Or maybe they are what I need in life? I'm not actually sure. But I'd like to check out some new dudes to compare anyways. It's been 6 1/2 years. Almost time for that 7 year itch. And while I'm waiting for my ultimate "dude" (John Cusack), I think that I should be effectively comparing dudes to the dude that I currently co-habitat with. I have all these questions like "do the dudes on a dude ranch listen to the Head Mare in charge"? Or do they go ahead and do whatever they like causing chaos and extra work for said Head Mare? So that you have a better understanding of what I'm talking about, let me explain. In the middle of another terrible thunder storm complete with sideways rain, my dude, a.k.a Ed, heads out to try to bring horses into the barn. Head Mare, a.k.a. Me, tells him that this is not a good idea. We need to wait until the storm lets up. The horses are crammed in their lean-to's and are fine. I try to go out to help bring in the mini's and the fuppies will not let me out of the barn. They keep running in front of me biting my feet. I can take a hint. I'm not a dumb Head Mare. So I stay in the barn and wait. Ed heads out. He gets Dancer and Bill runs Ed over at the gate. Bill heads into the barn and is confused because he is going into a new stall that Ed built. And I will say that he did a beautiful job on the stalls. But the glory of a job well done is lost when he let a horse get out. I get Bill in his new stall and life is good. You'd think. We head out for the big horses. The rain let up a bit and I bring Taylor in and Ed get's Lacy. I go back out for the little witch in my life, or as I like to call her "love muffin". Carly is a one person horse and Head Mare is it. She starts to give me a hard time, I tell her to knock it off and she walks in like a little princess. I almost have her in her stall and I hear Ed yelling for Allicks to Whoa. Actually, he was yelling "Allicks stop"! Not a command that Allicks knows. Then I hear all this metal crunching and turn to see Takoda the freak crashing into and trying to jump over the metal gate. He succeeded and came running into the barn and butted up next to Allicks. Then Ed was tell Allicks to "stay". Also, a command that he does not know. All Ed had to do was close Allicks door and then turn around, tell Takoda to back up and point to his stall and he would have been in and done. But alas, that was not to be. Ed put the rope on Koda's neck and then tries to turn him around in small aisleway where the new stalls are, crashing the horses butt into the new stall doors. Princess Carolina was not happy with this as it was her stall that was being crashed into. So, she reaches out to bite Koda in the ars. Which makes him eek his way farther into the short aisleway instead of getting him out of there. When all was said and done, the horses were in safe. I looked like I had taken a shower fully dressed and Ed wanted to know what kind of gate we could put up so that his horse couldn't do that again. I told him a nice lightweight cement block gate should do the trick. If my current dude had listened to what Head Mare has told him about a zillion times, none of this would have happened. I never take Allicks in before Takoda. Allicks is more stable in the head than Takoda and can take being alone for the 2 minutes it takes to get Takoda in his stall. And I know that you should be able to take any horse that shows up at the gate and I can. But not everyone else can. So, if you just follow my suggestions, no one gets hurt. So tonight, we brought the horses in my way. It was raining, cold and windy. They walked in like the wonderful ladies and gents that I know. I looked at my dude and he said, "I want you to train me to be a horse trainer". Hell, I'd be happy just to have him be trained to be alive. So don't mine me if I'm babbling like a lunatic, I am a lunatic. The fact that I would even look for another Dude shows how insane I really am. I think I'll go to a Dude Ranch and see if they rent dudes by the hour instead. And that's not even for what you think it's for. I want him to saddle my horse, bring him to me, ride with me, untack my horse and then cook me dinner. All without trying to get killed or getting me killed. That would be a vacation!