A proud day

I think I can understand, marginally, how parents feel when someone says their kid did well today in school. Although since I did not actually birth him, I know their achievement is greater.

I was talking to Gabi as she cleaned stalls (Willy is still gone!) and I said how I'm hearing wonderful stories of the experiences of the boarders, for example, how Claudia brought Argo along, what a freak he was 5 years ago, and now she canters down the trail worry-free. And how Angela rides that blue-eyed horse and says convincingly, "I am never, ever afraid on him!"

Hm, wouldn't that be nice. I told Gabi it has been a long while since I felt regularly safe in the saddle.

She stopped shoveling and said, "There is bravery and there is stupidity. Angela is stupid. She has no clue what a horse can do, she's new to riding, and has never seen anything bad happen. And it's gonna happen, you've seen the way Blue rips the lead rope out of her hands!" I said, "Yesterday, I did."

I said, "Well then, she'll learn fear eventually. It cannot take long."

It's always the same, I bring up a nice story about a boarder, and Gabi turns it into gossip. Which makes me distrust her, because I can imagine what she says about me when my back is turned. I hate gossip.

She said, "Angela's horse is such a brat to handle. He's not like Mag, who if you just touch his lead line he says, 'Yes Ma'am yes Ma'am, what would you like?!' when Mag is worried about something!"

I was so flattered, because although Mag and I don't do many things excellently together, his manners are the one thing where he excels, and since Gabi and her employees have to manually move him every single morning and evening, I assume they appreciate that he is a light-leader.

I arrived early enough today (still dark!) that I got to see the mass turnout for the first time. Gabi went around opening all the stalls of all the geldings and they filed orderly the snow-covered hill path to their Winter paddock. I'd missed the mares. But I'd never seen it, and it's so cool how precisely it works, they all know where to go. And in the evening, it's even better, how they all know which stall to enter! My horse of course is excluded from this.

I saddled him up and put my helmet on and lunged him a little and did some ground work but he was so good today I let him off easy and waited, and waited for any other boarder to arrive.

No one did.

There was this guy there working, doing Willy's job, and he saw me with saddle and helmet and said, "You're going to ride?" and I said, "If someone is there, if not, I'll stay on the ground, cuz he's young and unpredictable." He said, "Mag? He's great!" and he cuddled with him a bit. : ) : )

I put Mag in his stall and tied him up, saddled, with the rest of his beet pulp, in case I would still have a chance to ride. But time was ticking, I needed to pick up J from school at 2.

I was slowly turning into a popsicle again - well, it had snowed another few inches last night - so I went into the lounge and drank tea and ate my hard boiled egg and a few slices of cheese.

Mag waited patiently in his stall, nickering at me when I appeared. OK what now?

Well, let's just go for a walk then.

The streets were full of snow but it was all melting so I felt safe to walk. As we turned a street corner, there was a huge orange city truck there with a lift with a man in the bucket, raising him up to the powerline to work on it. I said, "Mag, look, look! You've never seen this before!" And Mag saw the bucket going up above his head and said, "Yawn." Man, nothing worries this horse out in the world.

I hung out a while directly next to that truck, to see if anything they could do would affect him. No, but I got lots of strange looks from the orange-clad city guys. The exact same looks I get from the garbage truck guys when I follow them through our town with Mag. I think Mag's an expert on government trucks by now *lol*

Mag and I took a nice walk to a place where I wanted to see a view but it was completely foggy out, no view. I pointed to some grass and said graze and he did, but it was hard to get to the grass thru the snow. Poor Mag has not had grass in his mouth in so long!

On our way back through the slush, some meltoff was running down the street in rivulets. Mag stopped to drink from them. I love that Mag drinks whenever he can.

I let him visit with one of the school ponies he likes once we arrived back and then I saw the flood.

Someone had left the water running and it had run all through our little barn area, soaking the hay, haylage, and straw, and entering into 4 stalls, including my own. Oh no!

My stall was only flooded in one quarter, no big deal, but the other three, Bettina's horses, and Christina's Fjord Maja, they were under water.

I asked a lady who had just arrived what to do, and she shut off the water. I took Mag around the farm looking for Gabi to tell her, unsuccessfully.

When I got back Jana was arriving and I said, "Your stall!" and then Gabi was there and I said "It's flooding, how can that be?" and she admitted she'd forgotten to turn off the water.

The way Gabi can yell, I admitted to Jana, "I'm so glad it was not my fault!"

But then they all started scraping out the soaked bedding, and Jana called Christina on the phone to explain, and Gabi took the phone and explained further, and I thought to myself, "I'm done today. I've been here since dark. I cleaned out Gabi's school horse paddock yesterday to help, but I'm sure no one noticed. I'm done." I sat down and started drinking my tea, and then I realized that only having 10 minutes to help was no excuse not to help.

I jumped up and grabbed a rake and started shoveling soaked bedding out of Alex's stall.

Only 10 minutes, but at least I tried, because my brain was humming with, "Everyone here helps you constantly, do something!"

Anyway, even though I was all set up to ride (and it's not easy, bringing all my tack down the stairs and up again), I am happy with the way the day turned out, and proud that two people told me how good my horse is.

It's ridiculous to me that I'm at the barn from 8 to 1 and no other boarder is there to just...be there! But I think Mag would call it a good day. He is such a pleasant horse to lead through the city streets, and a big old UPS truck skittered by us on a snowy street and Mag stood to the side politely. No fear.

I am thinking Tuesdays might be a good day for me to stay home, especially when it's under zero.

Tonight I'm just proud of him. I tell him so, and I hope so much he understands.