First Exhausting Day

Where to begin...
Well I guess i could mention my moving in day yesterday, but there's really nothing to mention. Living in the third floor of the Annex with a lovely view from my stairs of Phillip's desk/office.
Today started out at 3 a.m. when i woke up due to activity outside (I think that's what it was) and never really got back to sleep (not the greatest thing). Ended up going out to the barn about 20 min early because i simply had nothing else to do. When the others started showing up the day began very quickly: bring in horses, muck stalls (staw?? what??), sweep aisle, look busy...wait what? By the time Boyd showed up we had finished our morning chores and were just waiting for further instruction as to how the day was going to go.
Talked to Boyd a little about Apollo and decided to do a bit of flat first thing. We then headed down to the indoor and agreed that a full on lesson may not be the best thing to do the day before a show. After a few amazing tips (Apollo got lil 'cited bout life) Apollo was going nice a forward into a stretching, rounded contact. Back up to the barn where after about 10 mins of down time the action started back up (and never really stopped).
After clearing out two stalls (there's a camp coming in on sunday), I pulled out the tack that was salvaged from the fire. While it had already been hosed down, there was still a lot of soot on it. After an ingenious idea from Boyd, and a trip to the store for me, I put the bits (which were just plain black) into a bucket of cola ("hey it takes off battery acid doesn't it?"). Surprisingly it works!
Hacking horses around for Boyd before and after he rode 'em, jump crew, braiding horses for the show, and a myriad of other tasks and then before I knew it, it was 4:30 and i was holding a horse while we soaked his feet in ice. After that i grabbed a quick sandwich and an orange and scurried on over to Plantation to do some course walks with Boyd.
Sidenote: may i just say that it is incredibly strange to me to be able to run over to an event after working to walk a course. We usually have to drive up the night before if I want any hope of walking before the event.
Lovely show jumping and cross country course walks left me feeling prepared and ready for tomorrow... and also with a list.
Things I learned on my first day:
-Straw is quite different from other bedding
-Sweeping skills are mandatory
-Always be prepared to jump on a horse to hack it
-Ground poles are important
-If you figure eight, and wrap your noseband then your bridle is fireproof
-Cola can remove burn tarnish from metal
-When pushing on a 17.1 horse, you will most likely lose
-Jumping a corner so that a tree is in your path is not advisable
-Course walk stories never end well ("and this is the ditch I nearly broke my neck at. Couldn't walk for 2 months!")
-There is such a thing as too much angle
-Some times a jump is just a jump, so stop thinking about it
-"Chances make champions" (when presented with a corner in the middle of a corral, we had advice to "just jump the fence line, then you'll definitely win" regardless of the fact that the fence line was never intended to be jumped)
So while my first day now has me begging for sleep, it was at the same time pretty darn good.