Clean It Up

Along with fixing what I break, I find that it's important to keep things tidy. Since it was only marginally hot this week, I decided to give the horse-mobile its annual once over. It's a job I love to hate, but I force myself to do it every summer. 

It actually wasn't as dirty as it has been in the past.

If you've been following my blog for any length of time, you've seen tons of pictures of my horse trailer. I have a gooseneck, three-horse slant load that sports a rear tack and living quarters. It's a nice trailer, and I love it, but it is a bear to clean. I always start by emptying the tack compartment and sweeping out old manure and shavings.

The Poop Wall

Once the tack compartment is empty and the space is free of loose bits, I tackle the poop wall. Even though I have three stalls, I rarely use the front one. Instead, I've removed the rear divider which creates a double stall in the center of the trailer. If I do haul both horses at the same time, Speedy goes in the front stall. The horses like the jumbo stall, but it means that they both poop smack dab in the center of the trailer. 

Scrubbing that wall is just gross. I use a high pressure hose nozzle, but it only helps to loosen the caked-on poop. The only way to really get it clean is to roll up my sleeves and dive in with a scrub brush.

The same wall after scrubbing.

Once the walls and the top of the mats are clean, I scrub the floor. That's the hardest part of the job. The mats are heavy and very unwieldy. I drag them outside onto pallets, scrub the undersides, and let them dry in the sun. As they dry, I tackle the aluminum floor, scrubbing away the gunk that seeps under the mats while also checking for any corrosion or floor damage.

Clean and ready to go.

Before I put everything back, I took a scrub brush and worked on the outside of the trailer too. Since I don't tie the horses to the trailer very often, it wasn't that dirty. I mostly just scrubbed away some road grime and plenty of dust.

It was only about 11:30 a.m. when I finished, so I decided to go for broke. I grabbed my purse from my car and drove the truck and trailer home so that I could clean out the camper area too.

Freshly laundered and remade.

I took all of the bedding into the house and washed the dust out of the comforter, shams, and sheets.

Dust free!

While the bedding washed and dried, I cleaned my "kitchen" and used Pledge on all of the cabinetry and trim.

Clean bathroom!

I also washed the towels and cleaned the bathroom. After sweeping up all of the hay and pebbles off the floor, I also vacuumed and mopped. I am not sure why I bother with the mop, but it always smells nice the first time I use it. 

My bestie and I are going to Simi Valley on Saturday afternoon for a lesson with my trainer, and then we're staying the night so that Izzy and I can do a schooling show the next morning. I hope they both appreciate the clean digs!