Line in the sand

-

“Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its place, and this will be carried away too.”

- Marcus Aurelius






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Early mornings and deer flies

-
Image
Holy camoly did I have a good ride today! We are thick in the middle of our second scorching heat wave (and ensuing forest fires) of spring, as summer just started yesterday. It is an unusual weather pattern. So I planned for an early start to get on the trails for a quick ride before the sun started beating at 10. I was back at the barn with a sweaty horse in tow by 945. I had planned for a short loop of mostly walk and trot with a bit of canter. I wanted to check in with my buddy Q as our last trail ride ended in a “discussion” about key principles when heading home, and our ride after that was a tough cantering session that left Q with sweaty eyeballs. So it was time for another trail diagnostic. He was brilliant. An angel. The deer flies were out in abundance so by the second mile I launched us into lovely jog that Q proceeded to maintain in rhythm without prodding, holding or any aiding as he was on the buckle for two miles. It was so smooth and relaxed that I was able to ...
Read more

Sailing

-
Image
A proper vacation for me means good sleeps, multiple novels, fresh produce and maybe an occasional adventure. So this summer its sailing from London to Amsterdam to the fjords of Norway and then around Iceland. But the weather turned sour this week and so we got quite the jostling in the North Seas with twenty foot swells tossing us around for 30+ hours. Temperatures are now in the low teens (Celsius), cloudy and ready to rain at any minute. But Ive been getting lots of sleeps, lots of reading time, lots of sauna/steam room time, and my skin is softer than ever. 🤷‍♀️ 
Read more

Section 4, Le Grand Tour

-
Image
The weather was so pleasant today that we did the big loop from section 2, through section 3, and section 4. Its about a 20 km loop that took us 3 hours to do. I had water bottles, an apple, my phone, and a few peppermints for Q. The first 30 minutes was solo as I went to pick up trail buddy C with her azteca mare. Much of section 4 is on gravel residential roads, or on trails next to residential homes with pools, trampolines, treehouses, and all kinds of stuff sitting in someones backyard. Its a good test for how desensitized your horse is. Q was awesome, occasionally trembling when a dog lunged at us but quick to get settled again. Lots of pretty homes and horsefarms in this neighborhood, and very polite drivers. We got to visit lots of backyards and gardens. Trail is on the right. Oh and it must have been garbage day! They were all over. Q did fantastic with the traffic, on the buckle most of the way. It was a quiet weekday, but those pools and trampo...
Read more

Anomalies of Argentina, Part 2

-
Image
What a funny country. Somewhere stuck with one foot in the past and a delusion of the future. No wonder they have the highest number of psychiatrists per capita in the world. They seem to suffer from fatalism, and its contagious. Being a huge metropolitan city of 15M, public transit (and subways) are the backbone of transportation. While taxis are very cheap (2$ for a 15 minute ride), transit is even cheaper at 0.10$ and abundant for us as we are downtown. With rampant inflation and deflating currency, the government wisely decided years ago to remove cash payment and replace with a transit pay-as-you-go card called a SUBE. That way they could increase prices on a monthly basis and it would be seamless. But finding a place that will sell you the card? Turns out, thats the problem. For locals, its no big deal since they keep the cards forever. But tourists? Good luck. I had heard echos of this problem online, particularly exasperated by the pandemic. But Argentina had also shut down bor...
Read more

Ho! Ho! Ho! Secret Santa showers me with gifts!

-
Image
This was my first Secret Santa experience having experienced it vicariously through Teresa at Journey with a Dancing Horse last year . So when I saw the announcement floating through the blogland last month I jumped on the opportunity.  I was tickled pink to come home this week to a big box filled with very important things for our nordic winters. My secret santa was Alaina at Alberta Equest and she knows a thing or two about winter.  A beautiful hand-made and closed loop (this is so important for us nordic riders!) scarf in Qs color of blue (and it matches his saddle pad), a bag of yummy horsetreats made by the Gheeky Chesnut, and a cozy keyhole quartersheet for those days when the mercury drops to -20 degrees (this happened twice this week). Q does love his treats but I wanted to get a video of his first reaction. This is one happy customer! Thank you Alaina for organizing the secret santa, and being my special santa this year! I really enjoyed the giving and receiving and ...
Read more