Riding my horse

All summer long, people have been asking me what I was going to do after Dover.

My answer for the first month was, "Collect some (f)unemployment and get my horse broke!"

Partly, I was being funny, but also, I really thought I needed a big block of time to push Sage - and myself - to the next level.

Happily, that turned out not to be the case.

In June, I started riding Sage in the roundpen little turnout.

In July, we ventured into the outdoor arena.

August has brought more and and more varied rides.

At this point, I would say Sage is broke.

Green-broke, for sure, but that still qualifies.

Yesterday, was the last day of Dover.

Today, I went riding.

Eventually, there will be another job, but for right now, this is okay.

End of the end

Today was the last day.

We got there early. 

So did the end buyers.

There were about four hundred individual items left in the store when we opened.

All of it was gone within twenty minutes.

After that, we locked the doors and started on the second part of our day.

We cleaned the store...

and completed some administrative tasks.

Goodbye, yellow clearance signs. We won't miss you.

While we worked, Puppy romped.

Go, girl, go!

When we were done, Brad took some photos of the cleaned and emptied store for his bosses.

I took some for my records.

Then we took out one last load of trash...

and posed for one more picture.

And just like that, it was done. We left our keys on the counter,

turned off the lights...

and went home.

Five years of photos

On May 15, my employer of almost five years announced they were going into liquidation. 

We were originally told we'd be open sixty, maybe ninety, days. It's been almost one hundred and five. Most of that time has been extremely busy, but this past week - which is also the last week - has been slow, slow, slow.

To keep myself occupied, I started going through my phone and looking at all the pictures I've taken at Dover.

Lordy, I take so many photos.

It's way too many, but some of them need to be shared.

It's actually a requirement.

So here's five years of Dover in pictures, starting with the first picture I took while working, or at least the first picture I took and did not delete.

I started in 2021, which was late pandemic. Masks were still a thing.

Here's a look at some of the products we carried.

All of those items arrived in boxes. Dealing with boxes was a huge part of my job.

Handled without care.

Although not locally owned, our store had deep ties in the local horse community. This collage shows photos from some of our events and community outreach.

The Dover daily.

A few of my favorite customers.

This guy, too.

And it wasn't just people who came to Dover. Over the years we saw a million dogs,

multiple turkeys,

one kitten,

one goat,

several parking lot horses,

and one amazing kangaroo.

Of course, the ultimate Dover animal was my boss's standard poodle, Puppy.

I took so many pictures of Puppy.

I always joked that she was my favorite co-worker, but I actually love all the human staff, too.

Working hard.

Hardly working.

I found pictures from the week I worked at the Sacramento store...

as well as pictures taken at Dover before I tied on my first employee apron.

The saddest pictures are from the last week or two.

Tomorrow is the very last day. I don't know exactly how it will go down, but I guarantee, there will be pictures.