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   It was the afternoon of the day that my mom, oldest sister, and one of our friends got home from an auction in Illinois. We all enjoy going to that particular auction to look at the horses, yet are always sad from seeing the condition of the horses and how low their prices fall till someone will finally bid on them.

   Anyway, I was playing on the computer when Mom walked in and told me I needed to get my bum "downstairs" (aka to our arena down the hill). I asked her why, not thinking about the fact she had just came home from an auction. She told me there was a surprise coming. Of course I gave her a funny look. The next thing that came out of my mouth went something like thise, "What did you do?" So I slipped on my roper boots and plodded my way down our rock road. Went I got there...nothing. There were no people and definately nothing that seemed like it came from an auction. My sister wasn't there and our friend wasn't there. "This is a joke," I thought. Then I heard the familiar sound of a truck and trailer coming down the road.

   Eventually they got to the arena with the trailer, stopped, and jumped out of the truck. Both of them had the biggest smiles on their faces ever. I walked tot he side of the trailer and saw these two big eyes staring back at me. All I could see were the eyes up to the ears. I didn't know whether to be all excited or be like are you kidding me. But how could you be upset with your relatives for that when you look into those beautiful eyes of a baby horse? My heart was melted in an instant. They brought him out and he was all wide eyed and wild looking obviously scared out of his mind, but he didn't act up much at all. He was placed in our arena and the story of their Reno Adventure began.

   I couldn't for the life of me get them to admit to how much they paid for the darling that they brought home. All they could do was comment on how well built their new addition was. Finally I got some more information out of them when Mom got down the hill. They had been walking through the auction barn to look at the horses in the pens, when they came upon a pen of foals. I guess one look at that big butt in the pen had them hooked, lol! They got back to their seats and our friend asked Mom if she was comfortable bidding since she and my sister couldn't understand the auctioneer. The people at the auction brought out the pen of foals, two appaloosa colts and a sorrel colt and filly. The bid was on!

    Mom just sat there and watched the bids go I guess till the bidding dwindled down, then she made her move. She bid on him, then a few more bids were made by others. Everyone wanted that appaloosa colt whether they were bidding or not. She made one last bid, then no more bids came. Our mom had won the chance to choose whichever horse she wanted, and she chose the big appaloosa colt. The people sitting behind them congratulated them as literally everyone else let out a sigh of dissappointment tha they didn't get the horse. The previous owners of the foals were nowhere to be found. Apparently they had dropped them off and left. There was also no papers of registration for any of them. Help was needed to load the frightened colt. They tried to get him in the trailor and he, being scared, fell on his back. The Amish linked their arms behind him and pushed him in. While Mom, my sister, and our friend were coming home they came up with the name Reno.

   Their story was all well and good, but I really wanted to know how much they paid for him. They finally told me to guess. I started off I think with a high number, or at least in this dwindling horse economy would be high. I think my first guess was like $800, which was shot down with all three of them shaking their heads. I began to lower my guess until they finally told me they paid $80. I almost died. Then they said each. Like that was any better! So yeah, they paid $160 for their little Reno.

   We had been told he was a stud colt, but we couldn't find anything when we checked him. We also couldn't see or feel anything that would indicate he was cut either. Later on we had our farrier come by the trim our horses' hooves. We also had him trim Reno's hooves. Reno did a very good job for being so young...although how young we had/have no idea really. For being dropped off at an auction he seems to have to extensively worked with. Our farrier told us that he's seen colts drop from 3 months to a year and a half. He guessed that Reno was only about 3 months old. While I was holding on to Reno while he worked on him he told me about another man he trims for that was recently at an auction where he was bidding on an appaloosa that was with a couple sorrel foals.... We've come to the conclusion that he was bidding on Reno! ^_^ I had to laugh to myself when I heard that.

   Now you know the rest of the story to our new addition to our barn. :)