Spa Day for Jackson

Yesterday was a big day for the baby horsie. I missed his birthday a week or so ago (5/27), but, although I might think a "personal care day" was appropriate, I'm not sure Jackson appreciated the busy day he had this weekend.

First a bath.
It was a lovely day, in the 70's, with welcome sunshine. I needed to stand him up for some new sales photos and maybe a short video. Al had to work a half day (Saturday--ugh!) so I didn't have anyone to shoot pictures of the soggy two of us.
(I thought of recreating the event today, but it's raining...again!
Then, again, he's already all wet. Okay, here ya go. Notice today's mud.)
Hey, lady! I thot we did dis yesterday!Jackson was a good boy, after some initial snorting, and stood well after the basic bath for mane and tail conditioning and de-tangling. Practiced his lunging for a few minutes, then some hand-grazing until he was dry. Then a little touch-up manicure and moisturizer for his "nails."

Maddie said:
If Black [and White] is beautiful, then I want a turn, too!
She got the basic pedicure.
(She's standing a little weird on the front foot here, but I did end up taking a little more off the flare in the outside back corner of the left fore.)

With only one of me to hold and take pictures, this was the best I could do for "after" photos. Not exactly sales/confirmation shots (Jackson kept following me, and I couldn't get broadside to him, nor get far enough away to get his feet in the frame!), but you get the idea. It'll do until Al can take pictures later.
Pending Al's arrival home (and one other event I'll share in a moment) I wanted to put a sheet on him to keep him clean. Now you may or may not know that my stable colors are navy blue and gray. I'm not fond of red (my sister was the one with scarlet in her room and wardrobe), but the smallest sheet I could find was a 78" and I knew that would be a tent. So I borrowed RT's little, and I do mean little, 68 inch red and gold one (from when his girl used to show him). Jackson wore a 68" blanket as recently as February, but it looks like he's ready for a 72", the big galoot.
When Al got home, I went inside for a late lunch (standard schedule in summer).
And waited for 4:00 o'clock.

"Why?" you ask (all two of you).
Well, because I had a potential buyer coming to meet Jackson.

I had let the ads on DreamHorse lapse over the winter: I was waiting for Jackson and the others to finish shedding out, and for some decent weather for baths, so I could take some new photos, especially of the rapidly growing youngster. But there was one set of ads on a free site called "Horse Clicks" that was still posted (since they didn't have to bug me for money to renew it, I'd forgotten it was even out there).
D had contacted me a few weeks ago, saying she just loved the looks of my little guy. She was, however, getting married in July, and had some fence to repair before she could think about another horse (she had lost her long-time heart-horse last year). D lives about 70 miles away, but works and has family here in Ellensburg, and I invited her to stop and visit anytime she was around. But she was young, and in the midst of wedding plans (and expenses), so I filed her emails in the "inquiry" folder and sort of dismissed her as a "Looky-Lou."
Then D called the other day and was going to be in town Saturday for a cousin's birthday. Could she come by? Sure!
Her plan was to drop her fiance, R, and some cousins off at her mom's place and come out alone. But they were running late (and I think she really wanted R to meet Jackson, too) so they all trundled straight out to the farm.
Well to make a long story short, if D was in love with Jackson before she met him, she was intoxicated when she got close enough to hug him and smell his clean-baby-horse aroma and let him wuffle her hair!
After a bit of showing him off, I left the three of them alone for a minute and went in to print her out a copy of my sales contract--meaning only to give her a chance to take it home and look it over. But I did tell her that this is prime marketing time, and that I would need a deposit to pull his ads. Her response was "I get paid next Friday and I could bring something out then."
R's response was "I've got some money I could give you right now."
(Note to D: He's definitely a keeper!)
She filled out the contract and he brought me the deposit, and pending reference checks, Jackson will be going home with them in August (after the wedding). In the meantime, D is welcome to come play with him when she is town, and I strongly suspect she will! (I'll have to get some photos of them together--they were really cute.)

Since, for all intents and purposes, I have a sale, I no longer needed to stand Jackson up for a photo shoot, so Al stayed collapsed in the house, trying to catch up on his weekend.
I was gushing to Al afterward about how good he looked and behaved (Jackson, not Al, tho he looks and behaves very well, too, thank you), and Al wondered if I was already having seller's remorse...Not yet, but I will miss the little squirt!

At the end of the day, Jackson was not all that impressed with the extra attention:
After I turned him back out with the girls, he needed to take a nap to recover from his busy day.