Before & After

The weatherman warned us that we'd have yet another round of afternoon thunderstorms this weekend, so if we wanted to get outside to do something fun, we'd better do it first thing in the morning. I got up at 4:30 AM to feed the horses with great plans to take them to the Fairgrounds for a morning of riding once they finished eating. However, once I got outside I found that Bombay had managed to rip a panel of fence off and was trying to squeeze through the missing section.

The panel he tore off had rusty nails sticking out, so I had to repair it as soon as possible. I fed the horses, but couldn't get the rusty nails out without pounding. I know I hate it when my neighbors wake me up on the weekend with their construction noises, so I decided to at least wait until the sun rose before wielding my hammer.

Once it got to be a decent hour, I pounded the old nails out and got as far as pounding one nail in, but the wood was too hard for me to pound the other nails in. I hammered as hard as I could, but that nail wouldn't budge. I noticed Gabbrielle watching something and looked to see what she was looking at. I had managed to wake the one neighbor who I least wanted to wake, because this lady gripes about everything I do. I wasn't in the mood to hear her complaining, so I went in the house and talked my son into finishing the job for me.

By the time we finished the repair job, it was quite hot and I was dripping sweat. I gave up on riding and went indoors to read some blogs. After a while I decided not to let the heat get to me and just go to the Fairgrounds despite the miserable weather, because I knew I'd be in a grumpy mood the rest of the week if I didn't at least get one good ride in over the weekend. Since no one was coming with me, I just loaded up one horse. This is what Bombay looked like before our ride...

He was really excited to see the animal shelter volunteers walking their doggies on the trails.

These are pictures of him after our ride...

You can see that he was wiped out. I got so out of shape just from not riding regularly over the past few weeks. All I could do was walk, jog, and trot him. I was wearing extra-slippery jeans and was having a hard time sticking to the saddle, so I didn't try to canter. Have you ever noticed that? Some blue jeans help you cling to the saddle while other blue jeans make you slip and slide. I need to start tagging which jeans are which, so I'll only wear the sticky, clingy kind when I ride.

Before long the ATVs, motorcycles, work carts, and water trucks started showing up, so I called it quits. Bombay was more than glad to jump into the trailer and go home. It's always easier getting them in to go home than it is to get them in to go for a ride off the property.

As I was driving off, I was trying to pay attention to the trails around the Fairgrounds, because people keep pressuring me to ride out there. However, it seems that more two and four-wheeled animals frequent those trails than horses do. Just as I was leaving, a woman drove up to one of those trails, opened up her door to let her dog out while she was still driving, the dog took off running like a bat out of hell down the trail, and the woman chased after it in her car. I don't know how fast dogs run, but the vehicle looked to be moving at an unsafe speed for off-road driving. I started thinking about how much that would upset a horse seeing a dog charging it with a vehicle kicking up all that dust right behind it. No thanks. I think I'll stick to the arenas for a while.