Tack Room Tour

When Tim travels and I am doing the daily herd check, I usually walk through the new barn a time or two to be sure everything is all right. The new barn is really nice - it has eight box stalls, a large indoor arena with good footing, a lounge with windows that look into the arena, a bathroom, an office for Tim, a large workshop, a storage room, and a tack room.

I love the tack room. Sometimes I just go in there and breathe in that heavenly leather smell.

The walls are lined with reclaimed barn wood and are very roomy with lots of space for hanging all the things you might need for horses and their care. (That's the lounge that you can see through the door.)

There are cabinets for storing any dewormers and medications, fly sprays, and leather conditioners.

More saddle racks are next to that and underneath them is my old tack trunk. I got it when I was in high school and it holds some pretty sentimental things - Amy's saddle blankets, Cee's show halter, my western hat, and my riding helmet, just to name a few.

Another wall is where Tim hangs his harnesses. He used to have a couple of Belgians and I think he sold their harnesses when he sold them. But Diablo drives so he has a light harness set or two for her.

 Tim's chaps are hanging on the wall, too.

Some of Tim's horse drawn vehicles along with a couple of mowers and the tractor.

He comes home later today so I will not need to do the daily checks or walk through the new barn as I have been doing for the past week. (I'll still go out and visit Abby, of course!) 

Speaking of Tack...

When I was hunting for that bridle to photograph earlier this week, I pulled things out of my hobby closet that don't often see the light of day. One of those was this:

 The tack box my father made me back in the 1990s!

I had attended NAMHSA's very first NAN in 1995, and my tablemate had had a tack box that, when opened, had pegs and hooks that held saddles, bridles, and other things needed for performance showing. She let me take a couple of pictures of it, and my dad did the rest. He actually made two; this is the smaller of them.  (The other is quite large and difficult to transport.)

 For whatever reason, my father had some old salesman sales cases on hand; they'd held samples of vinyl siding. (Go figure; my dad never sold vinyl or anything else; we lived in an all-brick home. How he got those is a mystery.)

I dabbled in performance showing briefly back in the 1990s and got a couple of Top Tens at the 1995 and 1997 NANs, but now I prefer collectibility classes when I show.

I have one other western saddle and a vintage Breyer english saddle that are elsewhere, and some Arabian costumes and a Native American costume that are put away in tubs.

That "mystery bridle" and documenting it has got me thinking that I may have found a new project - documenting the makers of the saddles, bridles, halters, costumes, and harnesses in my tack case and elsewhere. Recording hobby history is becoming more and more important as we earlier (not older; earlier!!) hobby folks age and begin to disperse our collections or even pass away, leaving behind things that are important examples from early collecting.

Sounds like I have a project for Spring Break.