Operation Fuzzybutt and the non-used socks

I headed out of here Friday afternoon and drove the almost-all-boring 209ish miles north to the land of boulders and bears, better known as JC and DC's ranch. We were actually going to be doing our yearly trail ride thing (with Shylah, and now Dusty too!) at this time but that's been rescheduled for later in the year. However, I went up anyway because...

Saturday we left at the horribly early hour of approximately 6:15am and drove to Bend, Oregon (6 hours each way) to pick up JC's new horse. Thankfully I was only a passenger, but still... Actually it was a lot of fun. I like road trips, and I got to see an area I've never been to before (at least not while I was old enough to remember it, apparently I was there once when I was really young). It's high desert country, lots of sagebrush and scrubby trees, and long stretches of forest along the way in southern OR that reminded me so much of the drive through Yellowstone that I half caught myself looking for bison when we would emerge into an open meadow area! I did see two bald eagles!

Anyway, out in the middle of this scrubby BLM land up there is this area with gorgeous houses and spotless barns and perfect fences and green irrigated pastures and sprinklers everywhere. One has to wonder where that water comes from, considering the surrounding landscape. It was a very pretty area, looked like it would be a lot of fun to ride out there. The ranch where JC's new colt came from was absolutely beautiful, and the people who owned him were very kind and showed us all around and we met most of the horses. I didn't take many pictures there, but here's one of their mares:

We got back home (JC's home, not mine) late last night and that little colt is just so calm and sweet. He's a 5 month old Gypsy horse, doesn't yet have a barn name so was called "Fuzzybutt" all weekend, he's so incredibly plush you just want to pick him up and squeeze him. Obviously, a more manly name is needed, though it's hard to imagine this little puffy marshmallow horse turning into a majestic stallion. ;-)

He's now living with Doc, the dun overo Azteca colt, who just got weaned and isn't very happy about that.



I got home this evening, I'm tired. But I know you want to know about the other half of the title..

I wish I had a picture. Maybe I should have taken one but I was felt funny about taking The Beast camera into a truck stop store. We had stopped at a gas station/truck stop in Chemult, Oregon, and I noticed in the store this bin of packaged socks for sale (you know you can buy anything in those places). Anyway, on this bin of packaged socks the hand-written cardboard sign said:

"Non-used Socks $2.99"

The question that immediately came to mind was how much are the used ones?

Why is there a need to clarify NON-USED?!!? Seriously. Do they sell used ones? Does anyone know, I'm really curious. I mean, why not just "socks $2.99" or if you really wanted to be specific "new socks $2.99."

Non-used???

I dunno... I think we'll be laughing about that one for years to come. :-)