Hoarders: Tack Trunk Edition

Most of you saw and/or participated in the "what's in your tack trunk" blog hop that was going around. Y'all had tidy little inventories of useful things and it was cute.

I was over here like "I have no goddamn clue what's in that giant abyss and I don't really want to find out". As Lindsey can tell you, I've been promising to go through it for like... a month. And hadn't. Oh and yes, it was/is my daily driver. I'd just sort of sit on the lid to squish it down and latch it each day.

But due to some unforeseen circumstances the other day,  I finally had time to go through it. Here's what I found:

bridle rack above

jumbled mess below

 I tried to make a bet with friends that there were 8+ sets of polos in there, but no one would take those odds.

stuff

This photo shows 7 full sets of polos in various states of cleanliness. There are also 3 pairs of polos and there was another full set ready for put on C-rage. That doesn't include two full sets of bandage liners or two full sets of boots.

I also had:

two sad pairs of bell boots

Two whips and a lunge line

eight bonnets

Plus there was this pile:

STUFF

So yeah, that's a quarter sheet, saddle cover, ogilvy pad, mattes shims, and you can just see the tboots. All good things, but possibly not things that actually fit in said trunk. This list actually isn't comprehensive. I had my CO sparkle helmet in a bag with a spare hat and gloves, plus my beater Ovation helmet and winter gloves, plus a couple of mismatched gloves and of course my brush box.

In my defense, I cleaned out the brush box a few weeks back to make room for fancy new brushes, so that part actually wasn't terrible.

I took everything out of the trunk, sorted it by whether it needed to be thrown away, given away, washed and put away, or washed and brought back. Then I threw away the trash, anonymously shoved shit to give away in barnmates' stuff, and tossed the other piles in the back of my car.

WE MUST REBUILD.

Obviously, an empty trunk helps no one, so it was time to start over. 

all I need is one cooler HAHAHA no

Here you see the bottom section of the carefully restocked tack trunk.

That's better

We started with a cooler, then added in the fancy CO for clinics and spur-of-the-moment photoshoots, included the tack cleaning kit (oh yeah, that was in there too), stowed the "bad boy" halter, the lunge line, and a dressage whip. My full set of DSBs (the only acceptable princess boot), one set of liners, and one clean-ish set of polos (much preferred to DSBs), and my mattes half pad. 

And look at that. You can still see open space in case I need to add something else. I do plan to keep two sets of polos and liners in there eventually, but laundry needs to happen first. 

 Add in the brush box and life is looking good.

o0o0o0o0o

 A couple caveats here--Courage's blankets live in an oversized rubbermaid tub outside his stall. You can barely see my wash bucket in the bottom right corner of the picture above--it also doesn't live in the trunk. I have an extensive horse-shit-organization system at home in my garage (which it looks like I'll be going through and cleaning asap).

Oh and I cleaned ALL the leather tack at the barn and reorganized. Now it looks like this:

three bridles, one martingale, one drop

I will admit that it's rather refreshing to actually know what I have around. Plus maybe now I look less like a hoarder? Just try not to think about how all that shit is now somewhere else. (such as in my car. hush you.)