A quiet weekend in the country.

Last night there was a dampness in the air, not quite a drizzle. We were at the barn, nominally doing night check but really just hanging out. We were in jeans and Crocs so Anna's decision to climb on Dixie's bare back was certainly unpremeditated. Dixie was in a halter with a lead rope attached. Anna sat up there and Dixie nuzzled around the barn yard, it was all very mellow, we chated "I'm just the passenger, as the Parelli people would say". "It's ok Dixie, just follow Austin". At that point Austin was just nuzzling around. Austin however, can't just nuzzle around when there's a chance of mischief. He started to trot with Dixie alongside and suddenly they were cantering around the far edges of the field. Anna and Dixie looked great, the rider at one with the horse. It's not something you can do at a commercial stable, ride a wet horse bareback in near darkness. Anna seemed thrilled.

Earlier that day I'd been longed on Austin by the neighbour, Merv. We'd been over there for dinner and had talked about Austin's bucking, Merv wanted to see and to see what could be done. They owned horses for twenty-five years and he rode in the military for many more years than that so, now that they have no horses, he seems a bit at a loss and keen to be involved with ours. Alas, he's broken a fair number of bones along the way and is now a bit fragile so his wife cringed when he mused "Anna, if you wanted some weight in the saddle while longeing, I could do that". That may come but yesterday it was me in the saddle for the bucking demonstration. Austin did not disappoint, I went high and backward, luckily landing on his arse and not losing the reins. I was able to bounce back into the saddle leaving the horse as shocked as I was. I wasn't happy with the ride, I felt and, apparently looked, unsteady, but I was well pleased with my accidental correction.

Otherwise, country life went along as always, we picked the paddock:





sweated over the manure pile






and cut the grass,






not just the pastures (two done, one to go) but the lawn and the road verge and the vast expanses of grass between the trees that isn't really lawn but wants cutting anyway. Weekends in the country feature the constant use of internal combustion engines; tractors, lawn mowers, chain saws, snow blowers, our pastoral idyll depends upon all those noisy things people in the suburbs don't really need but use to annoy their neighbours.

It the last picture you can see that the horses are in the field with the tractor, it doesn't bother them, in fact Austin gets curious enough that I have to be concerned not to mow him. He's called Austin, by the way, as the short form of Austin-Healey, something I'm not likely to have while keeping horses. On Saturday we went to fetch a long hose for wetting the manure pile and, in the Home Depot parking lot, I experienced a pang of wistful nostaligia, the exquisite agony of feeling a dream fade to nothing. In the Home Depot car park there was this: