Sundays in My City

We were invited to a Christmas party today with the Pony Party people and I have been feeling really festive this year so I decided to dress Baasha and myself up a bit.

A very dignified bit - no antlers or Santa pants (really Aarene!), just some bells and felt ornaments and ribbons.

I put Baasha's red "robe" on too, so he looked the part.

As I was searching through our winter stuff, I discovered that my man has a Santa hat with bells! Never in my life have I worn a Santa hat, but I just had to.

As I brought Baasha out into the blizzard (the snow was coming down hard all day), he shook his head, cocked his head to the side, and tried in every way possible to show us that he didn't want to be out in it. But we had a party to go to! And he looked so cute with his bells, and "ivy" in his browband. (But I do regret bringing him out into the weather in retrospect...)

People stopped what they were doing (sledding) and said, "LOOK! A Christmas horse!"

I said, "He's the horse of Christmas past!" No one laughs when I say that.

Anyway, when we arrived at the barn, all the horses were frolicking in the snow, but there were no people! There were light chains hung on the barn, and wreaths and bales of straw set up like chairs, and no people! How sad we were! (In this photo, Merlin is eating snow off the fence.)

Then this man walked out from cleaning a stall, and tried to tell us that yes, there is a party going on. I didn't believe him. What, the invisible party? This was getting sad, because we'd tromped our way through a blizzard to get here. I was completely sweaty and exhausted from walking up hills in deep snow. My horse was miserable (but way less miserable now that he was at that familiar barn!).

Finally the Pony Party people came out of nowhere and said the party is downstairs in the tack room. But first I was to give Baasha the royal stall - a stall as big as four normal stalls, and twice as tall. He was agitated about being left "alone" even though there were two horses nearby (they weren't the Pony Party horses, so they didn't count?) and he started cantering around the stall. Kerstin jumped back, thinking he was gonna leap over the wall. I said, "He doesn't jump" but I thought, "Gee, he's never been in a stall so big he can canter!!"

German Christmas Traditions

An indoor party, woo! We walked into this cozy heated room and were greeted by lots of people! From experience I knew that this party was gonna take a while. Germans do everything very slowly. First there was a huge spread of homemade cookies and bakery breads. I added my christmas cookies and christmas muffins to the table. Then there was soup - two kinds, a white cheese mushroom soup that had ground beef in it, and a gyro soup, a Turkish thing I think. Both good! We all had bowl after bowl and I was sitting there in a tshirt and vest, and everyone else had several jackets on. Yes, I'm rarely cold.

Then came the Gluehwein, which is warm spiced wine. And Kinder Punsch for the kids (and my man, who doesn't drink alcohol). Kinder Punsch is totally disgusting, never try it. It tastes like Gluehwein without alcohol. EW.


Winter Dienst

After the party we got to rescue two cars stuck in snow, both from party guests. It was so fun. I thought we should have vests that said "Winterdienst" (Winter service). We dug and dug and pushed and pushed on those cars, it was so fun and rewarding when the cars finally got over the hill and the people could drive home.

Leopold

On the way home, my man led Baasha, and I snapped photos of our neighborhood in snow. So pretty!












Eventually the neighbor with the terrier, Leopold, joined us and we talked and talked.











I finally got a picture of Leopold!












Leopold is so small, and has "bangs"; do you know how low I had to hold the camera to get a photo of his eyes? Snow level.










Baasha's eye was bothering him, he was squinting again, and he hasn't squinted since Summer. What happened today? I couldn't figure it out. Then my man said that his old eye injury was bothering him from the snow (and probably the extreme dryness to the air, which is giving me skin issues). It must have been the snow. Poor Baasha's eye is itching and hurting and there is nothing I can do. I mean, tonight I gave him a warm compress, cleaned the eye thoroughly with saline rinse, and buted him, but I am very worried. It looks like I'll be calling the vet in the morning. Poor Baasha, he'd probably be fine now if I'd just left him inside today. *sigh*


That's a sad way to end a Sunday in My City, I'm sorry. Here are some more pictures from our walk.











This was my view most of the way home.













"Have I eaten all the carrots in your pockets yet or are there still some waiting for me?"












Sunday in Our Field, with sledding tracks all over it (the kids rang our doorbell to ask if they could sled here, isn't that sweet? I said, "Because you asked, YES!"










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