Gloomy November

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I feel like I am in good company when I say that life and work has taken me away from riding these last few weeks. I finally made it back to the barn during an epic windstorm with over 1,000,000 homes without power. No surprise that I didnt ride that day.

I did make it out to the woods yesterday for my first time in two weeks and boy has the scenery changed. From golden colors to barren trees, from sandy trails to muddy bogs, from blue skies to hail storms. It’s time to be well dressed, with jackets, gloves, and good socks.


I have been dutifully practicing the long reins every day for 15 minutes, and Q is a quick study. We now do nice transitions between collected walk to collected trot, and during one of our teardrop turns Q offered me a leg yield to my squeal and delight. He stopped and raised his head to me, saying that if I was going to squeal that much he deserved a mint. I obliged.

He also taught me a lesson today. Yesterday, I was doing our standard trick at the fridge for carrots. A fellow boarder asked when I was going to teach him how to open the fridge. I joked that he was going to need to learn how to bridle himself before I taught him any new tricks. Today he showed me he already knew how. I decided to video it with the help of another fellow boarder on his third demonstration.
Imagine the possible. Lesson learned.




Comments

  1. TeresaANovember 3, 2019 at 6:54 PM

    What a smart cookie. I also love his head- very handsome. We had the windstorm as well but not as bad. Our power stayed on.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nat DNovember 4, 2019 at 9:28 PM

      They say it was the worst power outage since ... the ice storm!

      Delete
  2. lythaNovember 4, 2019 at 4:12 PM

    Great inspiration for me to teach Mag to take the bit.

    Did you know, power outages are not a thing in Germany? I'm from the PNW so I know them well. But since I've lived here, 12 years, there has never been one, despite windstorms. I think the reason is most of the power lines are underground. But...not all of them so I cannot understand why. In fact, there are no "disaster preparedness" things - no stocking up, nothing. Once I saw on the news where they tried to show Germans what to do should they lose power. They had no idea. They couldn't imagine where they'd plug in a cell phone. Indeed, it just doesn't happen here.

    We did lose water for 4 hours last week when they repaired a water line. It was odd not to be able to brush my teeth. But the horses had water cuz I'd filled all the tanks the night before.

    I remember growing up we couldn't run the washing machine and the dish washer at the same time, or take a shower while one was running. Why? No idea. Germany is back in the dark ages in so many ways, but we never run out of hot water or power. My house was built in 1890. It's just so odd for me to live like this in a crooked tiny house with unending power and water.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nat DNovember 4, 2019 at 9:30 PM

      It does make a big difference to have the lines underground. Having the powerlines above ground, with lots of old aging trees ... makes for a havoc during big storms. We get used to it. And we have lots of candles, battery packs, ups systems for the computers, and gas for heat/stove/hot water. So, losing power is no big deal.

      Delete

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