County Fair Patrol

Good Morning to all my Curly Friends! What a long but wonderful weekend filled with so many things to tell you about. I am going to appologize first for no pictures of our time patroling. I tired and it was to dark for any of them to turn out. Thursday evening I rushed home to give Marley a bath and get the rest of my packing done for the weekend ahead. Made it up to the fair by 8pm and got everything all ready for the long grueling hours of 9pm till 3 am (which is when our shift ended). Marley had a nice comfy stall with a ton of shavings to rest his weary legs and in a quite part of one of the barns. The first night we where out, we really learned alot about what to look for, what goes on, and what to do when we are needed. The first big question I had was why till 3 am, it has been known that is when the carnival workers come back from the bars, throughout the evening kids that are mad at other kids for beating them in a class let their animals out or vandalize items, and that is when the first milking shift starts as well. Thursday evening and Friday evening where pretty uneventful other than learning our surroundings so it made for some really long shifts. Saturday on the other hand we where busy. The cattle shows where all done and the 4-H had their dance and the demo derby was also done. So had to watch for the drinking, suspicious behaviors, and any fights that might have broken out.

Saturday nite Marley and our other partner where patroling on the back side of the track trying to get the derby guys to get going home and we heard over the radio that they needed assistance in a fight that had gotten out of control at the dance. We where to far away to help, but the other 2 riders had assisted and showed that as posse people we do really serve a purpose. While out on patrols as well, we had met many people, both young and old that where so intrigued by Marleys hair, and that just opened up an opertunity to talk to them about our great Curly breed. A few folks asked how I braided his mane to get it to look like that. (Oh I forgot to mention that I did a hot oil treatment in Marleys mane too, and that really softened it up). One thing is for sure you have to have a horse that likes to socialize because the people do like to pet and scratch them.

Ok I do have to tell you guys also about one more thing that happend to us after my shift on Saturday night. I got Marley all tucked in for the rest of the night and carried my tack back to the trailer and went to bed. I never locked the back that night, I was so very tired. I wasn't asleep very long and my husband asked if that was me in the back of the trailer a bit ago, I said no, he was like there is someone back there. He went out and looked and sure enough someone had passed out on one of our haybales in the back of the trailer! He found someone that knew him and he was one trailer off from where he should have been.

Marley & Dana