Prancing and homemaking in the same day

Whoever gave Baasha a bucket of espresso for breakfast this morning, very funny. I hope you enjoyed watching my emergency dismount, my face colorless as I truly feared I may not make it to the ground in time.

It all started out with my separation plan. Taking Ronni from the paddock to the barn (basically a trip through the neighborhood) is a pain cuz he doesn't lead. He runs right through the fences, the only reason he's there at all at any given time is cuz Baasha is his big doting hero. What about that portable stall/shelter thing, that might hold him...hey, it worked! I lured him in there with breakfast, and boom, locked all locks on the doors. Then to test the strength of the building, I took Baasha away. I expected to hear Jurassic Park noises from in there, as the little devil found himself suckered into a trap with stall doors way taller than his head.

Baasha helped, by calling to him every so often from where I tied him to a tree. I was gonna call that tree the Patience Tree, but Baasha really messed it up today, whirling circles around it, squealing in anger, and tossing his head in the branches in disgust. I cleaned up the paddock waiting for him to give up. It took forever. No pony came charging through the walls. It's all good.

Once in the barn, I worked the knots out of Baasha's mane and trimmed his feet. His feet look amazing from this ice and snow.

We shared some special moments and lots of carrots before I finally took him out for a ride.

I guess I should be more in tune with my horse's moods, cuz although I noticed how happily he strode along at my side, it didn't occur to me that he might be feeling a little too good. He started to pass me, as we were leaving, and that's not allowed, but it showed me he was really happy to be out there. Snow melting everywhere was no problem for him, but I was thinking about how poor Dr. Atkins died.

When I finally got on him, I made the innocent mistake of closing my calves on his sides to cue him forward. At this, he threw his head in a big circle, and leapt forward to canter. I pulled on his halter and wished for a bit. I took off my gloves cuz I had no grip. I thought to myself, and him, "Walking, placidly, as we always do, across this sheep field." The sheep field is a little too near home, and he was considering a gallop in that direction. I aimed with my entire mindforce at a tree in the distance, and he held to the course. He walked as if he wasn't touching the snowy ground. It was that floating walk Arabs can do when they've had too much coffee or something. I was in awe. "You're really old. Too old to float around like this!" No, it wasn't jigging. It was just a really airy walk, with his neck straight up between my hands.

Gotta find a hill. This is dangerous, with all this ice, and his mood.

So I found the biggest hill and let him canter up it. Then a hand gallop. At the top, he was still prancey. More - go up the next one. It was so steep, and he just glided up it. I was thrilled. How can he feel this good? What happened this week?

He wasn't even breathing hard when suddenly he panicked. It was a bathtub in a field at the top of the hill. He couldn't decide which way to bolt, and I wasn't making it easy by trying to break his flight. It wasn't just any bathtub, no, it was one of the seven bathtubs of the apocalypse. And even worse, it was lying UPSIDE DOWN in that field. The horror! Baasha's brain was gone. I leapt off of him, trying not to get crushed by his swirling. Once I was on the ground, he stopped and snorted at it. I took two fingers, flicked him in the nose, and yelled at him, "WERE YOU BORN YESTERDAY????" and then in a normal voice, "Now let's go meet this bathtub personally." It didn't get any less apocalypty, but he obliged. Goll he looked like a picture out of AHW, as he stretched and stared at that thing. We stood and talked to that bathtub a long time.

The rest of the day I called him my one-day-old horse. Everytime I got back on him, he just got so full of himself. He just wanted to go! I let him wherever safe...oh yah, at one point, this lady was whistling, whistling for her dachshund, who had spotted us. His little legs carried him nearer and nearer and when our paths intersected at the street, I told Baasha to go. He trotted gaily up the street, and that little dachshund was right at his heels. Under his tail, even. I couldn't believe it. We made that dog's day - he thought he had sent the enemy fleeing. I thought "two-inch long legs, he can't keep this up long" and I was right.

I find it interesting that Baasha, after 21 years, can still scare me under saddle. He's concerned I'll get lazy and forget my equitation, so he gives me a reason to ride properly.

Baasha was very lovey back at the barn, and we went and released Ronni from his dark prison together. To see if Ronni would fall for it again, I stuck his dinner in the stall. He rushed in after it. Whew, this may really work.

***

Remember that mailbox photo where Mr. S taped it shut? Well, he used the wrong tape. He used really evil tape that doesn't come off! We have these big brown marks all over our mailbox! So we went to the hardware store to get a new one, and they're freaking 60 Euros. I told my man that our mailbox is our face on the neighborhood. If we have a crappy mailbox, we may as well have a car junkyard. I unscrewed the mailbox from the house, and took it home. Three different soaps and scrubbing did not work. Grrr...Last night, I sat it on my man's desk. He got out his little bottle of isopropyl alcohol and his kitchen stove knife. A little while later it looked like new again. WOO! Today I made a sign for the little window that says our name in big black all caps, it took me a long time to decide on the perfect font. It shouldn't be frilly, it needs to be very easy to read. Arial is too common. I used Verdana. PERFECT!

Tonight in the darkness I used our new battery power screwdriver and put it back on our house. Now our face on the neighborhood is clean and says exactly who we are.

Don't worry, I'm taking lots of "before" pictures of whatever we do at the house, cuz I'm gonna make a slide show of fixing up this old house.

I find it amusing how my woman instincts are driving me. Home making is a chemical in my brain, making me work sun up til too dark every day of the week. I just want to be there, enjoying it, even though it's empty and half painted. It's gonna be exquisite with my man's furniture, and when the IKEA bedroom set get here. Here I am doing my least favorite thing - removing wallpaper.

We decided to have the bedroom and kitchen floors redone - see, after I painted, I realized the floors look shabby next to new paint. I didn't intend to paint, I just wanted to do some touch ups. But here we are. Here's a pic of my man taking off remaining bits of wallpaper. We hated that task but doing it together was much more fun. Yes, he purposefully would drop sticky paper bits on my head: ) If you're wondering why he's wearing a scarf while he works, the answer is - he's German: )

What's this under the linoleum? Newspaper? Too funny! Bad luck, it wasn't from before war. Either war. The house saw both.

My man spent a long time on the phone with the owner of a local horse-sport firm that builds barns and fencing. The owner had a lot of horsekeeping opinions, and this really irritated me later when he told me about the conversation, because the man didn't like my idea about installing a gravel area with geotextile, saying gravel isn't good for horses' feet. He also said that spreading manure spreads worms. I told my man that the guy doesn't know much about barefoot horse care, nor proper composting of manure - things I've researched extensively in the last year. So when my man called him back, he had a nice long talk with him, including a discussion about barefoot vs. shoes. (Don't worry, my man was diplomatic - he said horse care philosophies are debateable, but that research leads people to decisions about what is right.) I wasn't home at the time, I was out at the house, trying to affix a mailbox in the dark, but I was thrilled to hear my man's story of the conversation.

The moving truck comes on March 13, so I guess that is the official moving day. Cool, two days before our one year wedding anniversary!