I started going through some old pictures this weekend. We tend to keep our pictures in boxes here at our house and some are labeled and some are not, so while dragging out the pictures is fun at the time, figuring out what the heck to do with them can be a chore later. [...]
Yesterday we rode to music! Leah started working with another student on a show piece, so she had the boom box out in the arena and was playing some new-age, sorta Lord of the Rings type music. As soon as Mo heard it, he started trotting away — or as soon as I heard it, [...]
The week before last, I was out of town on a work assignment (and was it tough! I learned a big huge bunch about some stuff and it’s no exaggeration to say that I’m grateful for the opportunity and that I hope to repeat it). I had three free-time highlights and the first was a serendipitous [...]
Yesterday I held Gabby while she was shod. I was so glad to be at the barn, I’d missed her so much, and it was so wonderful to stand around with the horse, the farrier, and his assistant and listen to them talk about horse hooves. Really. It was wonderful. Honest and I kid not! [...]
This morning I took in an hour’s ride at the barn. There’s no instruction or supervision, just the use of the horse for an hour. It was sublime. At 10:00 a.m. on a rainy fall morning, there’s few humans and most of the horses are munching hay. No one was kicking his or her stall [...]
When I step into the tack room to fetch Mopey’s bridle and girth, I smell leather and a wonderful musty smell. It makes me happy every time and while I do sneeze at lots and lots of things, I don’t sneeze in the tack room.
The scent always takes me back to two places. The first [...]
. . .about gaining competence in some area.
No, wait. That’s not it. That’s not what I meant at all. What I mean is:
I’m gaining competence and I recognize it. I feel it. I feel it when I ride, when I think about riding, when I get out of the car at the stable, tack up [...]
Wow! I had class on Monday and on Tuesday this week! By the time I got to bed last night, I was too tired to sleep!
(Isn’t that weird? How can one be too tired to sleep? Yet, this thing is true).
I rode Mopey (the old Morgan with scoliosis, a fear of brooms, cataracts, and a [...]
So far, two of my lessons have ended due to thunderous downpours. And they are thunderous. Storms are bigger out in the country than they are at our home in the ‘burbs. The tilled fields give the viewer a broader look at what’s incoming (big dark clouds) and the trees seem to flail more than the [...]
The day after a ride, when my thighs are sore, I feel fabulous. I feel fit. I feel . . . Utterly Beautiful! I mean stunning! A beauty queen, Ms. America, Marilyn, Angelina, like …. like…. like Aishwarya Rai! Yeah! Like her! Riding, balancing, working, being outside (or inside if the the weather’s bad) gives [...]
