Elsa's Arrival

Elsa's arrival really couldn't have come at a worse time. You want to talk about a hectic month. So some backstory. I am 23 years old, married to a 31 year old, with 2 small little girls. I was going to college like many kids my age when my husband and I found out we were expecting our first daughter. I was 20, had just transfered colleges, and only in my sophomore year. I finished out the school year, took a year long break, went back to school, found out we were pregnant again, managed to just barely finish that year up, and had our second child. I had only intended on taking a year off after our second daughter as well, but things haven't worked out in my favor. I still intend on finishing school, it's just taking me a bit longer than most. In all this time, my husband has been the sole provider for our family. I had put my first child in daycare when I went back to school, but we found ourselves unable to do that againe once we had our second daughter. Daycare is too expensive, plain and simple. And that's the cheapest daycare we could find (that we trusted). Even if I had been working full time and taking classes, we would have been loosing money every month putting them into daycare instead of having me watch them.

Meanwhile, we were paying almost $800 a month for rent and $300 a month on utilities (we didn't know how much of an energy waster this house was going to be when we moved in) all on my husband's one income. We needed to move (low living cost also equals lower pay). So come June, not only were we having Elsa shipped, we were packing the house, desperately trying for the second month to find a new place in town near my parent's place (where Elsa would be staying), and starting to move some things out to my parent's for temporary storage. So yeah, Elsa couldn't have coem at a worse time. (Who knew it would be harder to find a house in the country willing to allow dogs than in the city?) To top that off, there was severe weather in Texas that my shipper was having to go through. It delayed him. Now at the time I was living 2 hours away from my parent's place, meaning it was an ordeal and all day thing to go to their house. Just so you can understand how frustrating the following week was.

I should have been home packing. There was so much packign and cleaning to do....repainting a room the girls had drawn on the wall in. So much work. So the shipper arrived late, he told me and the breeder he would. But then he still arrived 2 days late from that to the breeder's place. Causing inconvinence for her. So I had an estimated delivery time, 2 days. It wouldn't be 2 days. I arrived at my parents place on the afternoon of the second day and excitedly awaited the arrival of my first horse. And the shipper was no where to be seen. I didn't hear from him until that night (even though I had called and emailed throughout the day). He'd had trouble loading a horse somewhere else. (Even though the contract said they wouldn't spend more than an hour trying to load any horse, so not sure how that set him back an entire day).

The next day came and still this man was no where to be seen. I took the time to do some more house hunting. Our landlord was rushing us out of the house and we needed to find a new place to move into. (spoiler, he had men inside the house cleaning and fixing it before we were even out and then he tried to send us some outrageous cleaning bills...) However I was trying to plan my house viewing times around this shipper's arrival. After nearly a week of banging my head on the wall, and having almost no luck with communication with this man, he finally arrived. I could see a couple horses through the windows as he backed up to teh pasture, and last on the back was not-so-little, little Elsa. He pulled her off the trailer and I was smitten. And amused, as Elsa was only a year old and taller than the other, clearly fully grown, horses. The man seemed nice enough, but the fact that he was unable to be contacted and that he was nearly a week late was increadibly frustrating. He was cheap, and she arrived in great condition, but I'm not sure I'll be using him again as a shipper, it's just too inconvient. As he left, me and my daughter sat there and greeted the new horse (and she shared her apple with her.)

She was cute as a button and well behaved. She was alert and called to the other horses as they left on the trailer. Everything was new and exciting, and a bit scary. My stepdad started the tractor to move a water trough into the field, and I walked Elsa away from the gate. Thinking that maybe doing something familiar might help her relax a bit, I started tossing the leadline all over her. Sure enough, her head lowered and she completely relaxed. First thing I did once I decided to leave her alone to get used to the new surroundings, was message her breeder. I was smitten, and I also wanted to let her know the filly she loved had arrived and was safe and healthy. At long last, my girl had arrived!