Trace clipping gone wrong...

I mentioned recently that I was going to clip River..  Well, Saturday was the day.  Armed with my $60 clippers from the pet aisle at Walmart and a new blankie, I set to work.  Unfortunately, I didn't have the most important part of a decent trace clip:  Tape.  It's best to use masking tape on your horse to show where you want to clip, and to create a barrier preventing accidentally clipping.

Since I didn't have tape, I had to free-hand it.  I'm not very good at free-handing.  Things get crooked and lopsided and I go back and forth trying to make things match and it just doesn't work.  After clipping, I put his new blankie on and put him back outside... he took off bucking and galloping, apparently trying to get as far away from me and the terrible clip job as possible.

I stopped back Saturday evening to get pictures and make sure he's warm enough..

 (It's green because the lights hadn't fully turned on.)

Lest you think "oh, that doesn't look so bad!"..

It's okay, he's warm and cozy and the bad clip is totally hidden!

I'm just going to have to tack him up in his stall, in the dark, and use a quarter sheet so no one can see, lol.

I have to say, the cheap Walmart clippers did a much better job than I expected.  Don't judge the clippers by the quality of the clip, that's all my fault.  $60 for cordless clippers with an adjustable blade is a pretty good deal.  It took maybe 40 minutes or so to clip him.  Would have taken longer if I'd, you know, done a good job.  I didn't do anything to get him particularly clean, but the clippers had no problem.  So two thumbs up for Wahl pro-series lithium ion clippers!  We're not discussing a finger rating for my clipping.....

Poor River.  He suffers so much. 

In case you were wondering, The Mare is alive and well.  She's actually looking almost fat.  Yay!  She's wearing clothes now, too--the 100g shell of her Rambo Duo.  River is sporting a medium weight Rambo Plus turnout. 

My horses have better quality clothes than I do...  For example, the work pants I'm wearing are missing a button and one of the belt loops was torn out when I got it stuck on a door.  They're like $20 pants from Target, so not like it's a big deal to replace them.  To be fair, I've decided that I will not buy any more pants in this size.  New pants must be a size smaller.  For some reason, my jeans are all perfect in a 16.  Work pants (khakis and the like) are better in an 18.  What??  Sigh.  Someday I'll be back down to a 12.  (Which I know isn't even really skinny...  Even when I was a 12, I was 20 pounds "overweight", but it was the best shape I'd been in my life and I was totally happy with it.)