Car Trading

Over the summer, I shocked the entire horse staff by a little horse trade I did. Horse Buyer came to buy Horse A from me. She brought along her horse, Horse B, to trail ride with Horse A and Horse B on the way home. While she was there, I showed her Horse C. She asked me if I would trade Horse B for Horse C. And I said, "Sure." So Horse Buyer went home with Horse A and Horse C, and Camp got a great new lesson horse.

When people prepare to buy their first horse with me, I always warn them about horse people. "They're worse than used car salemen," I tell them. Really -- horse people will tell you just about anything. Horse people talk, too, so I've been involved in or heard about lots of horse buying and selling, whether or not it was personally my horse. (I do try not to be like the horse sellers I warn clients about, by the way) :)

Thanks to my experience buying, selling, trading, ect, I wasn't too unfazed about going to a car shopping by myself. I picked out the car I wanted, had my brother-in-law the mechanic look at it (thank you Bryan!!), and made an offer.

The car salesmen obviously thought he would have an easy time with me. I was female and alone. He wouldn't take my offer and when that didn't work he brought out the sales manager so they could both gang up on me while they tried convincing me not to barter on the sticker price. To make a long story short, they both were running after me as I was leaving, and they ended up coming down on the price after all. (That's sarcasm) I got a hellava deal on a 2004 Honda Accord. My brother-in-law should be happy 'cause its a Honda, and I'm happy 'cause it's got heated seats. Lilah's happy 'cause she got "a new car ride??" , and Nick's happy 'cause it seems like a good car that should hopefully last us the next several years.

We also hope to take better care of it than we did the Avalon. Nick tried telling me not to drive it to the barn, which lasted about three days. With his blessing, I do drive it to the barn occasionally, but I will try really hard not to transport grain, hay, tack, or even the dog in it for a little while yet!!