Monday at the horse show…

On Monday, the small squeaky kid competed in a day-long horse show. She competed in a walk trot event and cross-country, coming in second in both and placing second overall in her class. It was a great day for a hard working little girl and her pony Clifford (show name: Devil in Disguise).

The small kid wrote this about her competition day:

Clifford refused a jump and I fell off.
It was hot and I got sunburned.
I have been practicing since late February.
Grooming him took a long time.
A friend came over to help prepare for the show.

sunday at the farm

Another weekend has wrapped up around here and I have a few more photos to record for posterity. The girls finally got on their horses and had a riding lesson from their Grandma. With a little encouragement, they were both convinced to walk, trot and canter. It’s a big deal to get back on a big horse after months of not riding and convince it to go fast.

It’s a big deal most days to convince me to walk fast. I haven’t been feeling great lately, but keeping busy with the house and kids keeps me motivated and moving, which is the biggest challenge when the first instinct is to sit still and rest. MS hits me the worst with season changes, and add to that any kind of bug that the kids bring home from school and kindly share with us, and a full blown exacerbation usually follows. Hopefully this one eases up quickly, but in the meantime I will keep things as normal as possible (just maybe at a slower pace).

The small squeaky kid is riding Dillon, a pony who may or may not have started out life as an expensive show pony before he changed owners several times and came to live at the stable where we purchased him. He is a calm and gentle pony who seems to know his dressage moves. The tall hormonal kid is riding Dali, a celebrity in his own right. His previous owner wrote a book about him, called Little Horse of Iron. He’s also pretty quiet and gentle, but then he’s an old horse who moved to the country to retire.

opaque memory

Just at that point of the evening when I was banging my head against the table in despair of my children ever having an ounce of common sense and wondering when their brains would finally start to develop (they were extra-special tired and discombobulated from being at riding school/camp all day), the small squeaky kid came out with this:

“I’m going to give Dylan a new name for competitions.”

(Dylan is her pony)

“I’m going to call him Opaque Memory.”

Why would you call him that?

“Because he’s an old show pony that has forgotten a lot of things. We just need to remind him how to do them again.”

Or something to that effect. I think she used bigger words.

Good grief. My kid is going to be smarter than me before she turns 10. I had to look up how to spell opaque.

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