Hurricane ?

By tomorrow it will have a name, it's supposed to be a big one. It's so exciting. OK driving on the Autobahn with the wind and standing water lashing my car around in its lane was no fun at all, and for some reason the semis were feeling frolicky this morning. I prayed we'd make it alive.

I just checked our property and one of our ponds is running over its banks but no trees are down, yet. The donkey is staying in her stall and I treated all 4 hooves with Magic Cushion again. I have Magic Cushion *everywhere* now. Don't try to take hoof photos after using Magic Cushion. My poor camera. 

When I arrived at the barn my stall door was shut, of course, to my annoyance. My horse is not going to melt or die from a draft. Willy came in and said, "Hey, better that your door is shut, the wind was ripping through her so hard it would have taken your horse with it! You would have arrived tomorrow to NO HORSE!" Hrm, I shook my head.

I had only one hour but Tanja was there and agreed to let Mia and Mag play in the arena for the first time. I was worried cuz they'd never been loose together but Tanja was not worried. Her mare kept snaking her neck down low like a stallion at my horse! But after we let them roll and then walk very carefully for 10 minutes, they were fine. The walking was good for them cuz they got to learn a bit about each other without the stress of speed. Mag tipped his ears back too, both of them were being a little defensive.

When we asked them to trot we saw that we had to be very, very careful to not put too much pressure on them, because 15X30 meters is a very small space for two horses who don't trust each other yet. They humped their backs at each other but that was all, no hooves or teeth were used.

Tanja asked me what we say when we want our horses to trot, in English. I said, "Just like you say 'terr-ab' for 'trab', we say 'terr-ot' for 'trot'." I continued, "And we do not say 'gallop' like you do."

"What do you say for gallop?"

"We say canter. " (Well, or we make a kissing noise. I do both. I say canter and then kiss.)

"What do you say?"

"Canter. Western people say lope. I say canter."

Right then Mag started cantering and Tanja said, "Wow. He listened to you."

I said, "Could be!"

She kept brrr-ing to slow them down, and I kept saying "Easy." Germans say brr for whoa, with a rolled r. Very strange. I can't do it.

Mag was great. He kept staring at me with that look, "Are we playing, what's going on?" And I said Gooooooood boy a hundred times.

Then Bettina stuck her head over the door and started chatting with Tanja and as we all talked, our horses stopped working and came directly to us, "Done?" Mag got a snack and a rub under his halter. He was a little sweaty. Then the second round of rolling began. Tanja's grey mare turned black cuz she had been out in the storm all day with no blanket. Mag had black legs and face and tail. Then I took the rake and raked Mag's entire body, getting lots of hair up. Mia wanted nothing to do with my rake. Awwww.

I ran out of beet pulp and mentioned it and Tanja gave me a scoop of her fancy oat-free herbal musli. Mmmm smells so good. Then she said I could take some carrots out of her 20kg sack (they sell enormous sacks of carrots for horses everywhere around here, even at our local gas station). I said, "It's fine!" but she said, "I will sneak your horse some carrots tonight."

Then she could not get Mia into the large grooming stall. She didn't want to have Mia break another tie, so she wanted her in there, but that mare would not budge. I considered taking Mag in to see if we could lure her in, but she said, "Can you hand me a whip?" I tried to lead Mag behind Mia to get to the whip section and Tanja said, "That won't work, she won't budge." So I went around the front. Even with the whip that mare was difficult to get into that stall. She said, "What will I ever do if I need her in a trailer!?" Oh boy.

I had to run, so I hurried Mag back to his paddock.

Tomorrow the chiropractor comes. Tomorrow I have 7.5 hours at the barn, if I want them (J can carpool if I want to leave earlier than 4PM).

Tomorrow comes the hurricane! Woo!

Update - I just heard on the radio that several Karneval parades have been cancelled. Oh no, what will those Jecken do!?

The people in Duesseldorf laughed when this happened last time, they hate us. You know, like Oklahoma hates Texas. And I am not "us" - I find Cologne abhorrent.

In case you are new to my blog, I do not celebrate Karneval. I have been there, in the middle of Cologne, when I worked there, and observed it totally sober. Wow. But.....HORSES! YAY! Did you know, Karneval is not just New Orleans? : ) Got a passport!?

Sad to say, I must though, the police are working overtime cuz of the terrorists that hit Berlin a Christmas market. If I were such a blogger, I'd let you know what the Germans say about America on the radio this morning. *sigh* I will not go there.

Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt.