My post today is somewhat of a personal rant and some of a therapy session/release, so bear with me.

My husband came uncorked when he found out I traded our 1989 truck that is hanging on to life for a awesome broke Palomino Paint mare with a powerful pedigree.

He took off in my car intending to go shoot some pool, I guess he was thinking he was punishing me?

He got lost and drove around for 3 hours, couldn’t remember my speed dial number and ended up in San Diego 85 miles away.

Why? He has moderate Alzheimer’s disease.

I have seen this man decline in the last 5 years to a point where he is afraid to even go outside. I love him and will be there for him because I can see ‘it’ coming. We agreed that he will not go anywhere unless someone is with him from now on. His driving days are over. What he did today was no less than a temper tantrum like a toddler would have.

This all started 2 months ago when my friend and horseshoer asked what we were going to do with this truck. This truck had been sitting idle for more than 5 years, to the point where one of the tires just rotted and fell apart. The injectors, glow plugs and brakes all needing to be replaced as well as the windshield.

Can you say “ka-ching”?

My shoer, on the other hand, a young energetic and mechanically inclined type needed a truck very much and had put a lot of miles on his friends’ truck going to his shoeing appointments.

Not having the cash that my husband was demanding for a “perfectly good” vehicle, he offered to trade a great horse, take my mustang mare and get her broke and sold, do my other horses feet for free for this truck that has seen better days. Did I mention it has over 130,000 miles on it? Well, for a diesel that is ok.

My hubby scoffed at the idea. “ What the hell do we want another horse for?” Poor boy. He forgot why we moved to the country 30 years ago. I am terminally horse crazy and have been since childhood. Got my first horse after we’d been here 10 years. Besides, we weren’t getting another horse since I had the shoer take the mustang back with him.

Well, my husband doesn’t/wont ride (I envy those who have spouses that do) , I have no one to ride with and really feel vulnerable on the mounts that I do have, which are fine if someone is riding with us.

I saw a very big Win-Win for everyone. This truck needed to go away and my shoer realizing the risk of the repairs, agreed to trade (his idea, remember). I wanted a good mount to go out alone without worry of getting dumped when a bird flew up in the air or a plastic bag was floating in the bushes. Any equestrians know what I mean.

I made an executive decision.

We agreed to trade but my husband couldn’t be involved or he would throw a conniption fit (sort of like he just did after the deal was done). FYI: He has done some arrogant acts when dealing with someone wanting to buy anything of his. He has NEVER sold anything! Nobody has enough money. I had a decrepit tractor and trailer sold with cash-in-hand only to have him back out of the deal because I sold it too cheap, after the tractor was on the trailer already! It took these guys 2 days to get the thing started to get it up there in the first place for crying out loud!

THE PLAN: Seldom would hubby come out to see what I was doing “out back with the horses” so we traded the horses and loaded my mustang in the trailer parked down the street. He took her to his house and returned with his father in-law. He drove the truck with its bad brakes to his father-in-laws house and end of story.

I figured my husband never even notice the truck was missing, and he didn’t.

What set him off and let the cat out of the bag was he looked out of the kitchen window where the horses can be seen.

This Palomino stood out like a coffee stain on a white shirt! (she is a looker).

He came out while I was feeding. I acted like nothing was out of the ordinary and he asked “how’d we get another horse?” So I told him bluntly: we don’t have another horse, we traded. “Is that fair?” he asked. “A green mustang for a dead-broke horse?” No, he got the truck too I told him.

Scroll up to the second sentence to see what happened after that.

Thanks for reading, I feel better already.