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We planned an early start on Thursday, October 18th. Sharon had a horrible
case of the flu and couldn't go. Herbie and Suzie Kicker arrived with their
pickup and trailer as did James Kicker and Tami Daniels to say goodbye
and help with the loading. Tami was able to hastily arrange for time off work
and substitute on the shipping crew in place of Sharon.
We decided to load the burros first. Since we were trying to load three burros at
one time, our plan was to herd them into a chute behind the trailer and load them the same way that BLM would load them
at their facilities. After a little while it sank in that tame burros would
not load this way. They simply ignored all the "flag" waving and other annoyances
that we tried. After Rosie and Bell figured out how to separate two of the
panels and wander off for a snack, we decided to simply try halters and lead
ropes. They led right up to the trailer and with a little encouragement from a
butt loop, they hopped in.
The horses loaded like pros. The trailers were closed up and we were ready to
go.
We scheduled an overnight stop with Bruce and Shirley Allen in Carson City. They are members of the
Virginia Range Wildlife Protection Association and have large corrals in their back yard
for holding injured mustangs. They also had adopted Brighton the burro. They were
able to put Brighton, their adopted gelding and a mare they were treating for a gunshot
through the withers in one corral so we could put the horses and burros into the other corrals to
rest for the night.
We offloaded the horses first. They unloaded well. Then we unloaded the burros.
We had to lead them through the horse corral to get to their overnight accommodations.
At first they were reluctant to move through a narrow opening between buildings to get
to their corral. Then they saw Brighton in the third corral and trotted through to the
fence next to Brighton to say hello.
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