Fun Show at Sundance Arena

 

      Darling Girl had a show yesterday, the first one I've been able to attend in months, and she had a good day! The weather has been such that she and Buffy haven't been able to practice for a few weeks but, even so, they managed to place in all their events and even won one or two - I sort of lost track. I just love watching her do what she loves. Horses are her happy place, the ribbons are just her validation that she's good at it.

 

          This is the barrel race, running a clover leaf pattern around three barrels in the shortest time possible. Buffy was feeling his oats, as they say, as evidenced by that little side kick between the first two barrels. Darling Girl called that one before it happened, saying, "He's going to buck today." She definitely knows her pony!

 

     The down and back, just what the name implies - race down the arena, around the barrel and back to the starting line, as fast as you can. Buffy loves this one!

 

     And, finally, the keyhole race, which is pretty similar to the down and back. The difference is, you have to go down between the barrels, spin and come back through the same way. Again, as fast as you can.

     I'm so lucky to have this child in my life. She is everything a granddaughter should be - smart, funny, loving, resiliant, brave and, if that weren't enough, beautiful, too.

Finally Got a Little Snow!

 

 

 

     It has been an unusually dry winter here, with very little in the way of rain or snow.  Particularly snow. Finally, midway through January, we have some! It started night before last, and by yesterday afternoon there was enough on the ground that I shoveled the walk and knocked the snow off the Jeep long enough to make a quick run to the drive thru for cigarettes and milk. Not because I was afraid of being "stranded for days" but because I was out of both. The nicotine is a filthy habit that I haven't been able to kick and the regular application of it keeps me happy and those around me, safe. The milk I needed because I was planning on making a skilletful of sausage gravy.

 

     I honestly thought that was the end of it, as the snow had tapered way off and whatever little bit might come would be negligible. Ha! That's not the first time in my life I've been wrong, and it probably isn't the last.  Long about four o'clock, snow started hammering down like something in a Norman Rockwell painting. By this morning, that little Jeep looked like I'd never touched it, and the only reason the walk isn't in the same condition is because I salted it after I shoveled.  I'll touch up the walk later, but the Jeep can wait - I've nowhere I have to be today.

     

Baby, It's Cold Outside

 

      Winter has taken it's own sweet time coming, this season, but it finally got here. First the wind came, groaning in the tree tops and growling through the hollers. Some of it still lingers but, for the most part, high winds have been replaced by plummeting temperatures. Today is cold, but sunny, and the little bit of snow we did get, sparkles in the deceptively warm looking light. The sky is a bright, clear, blue with a few scattered, high-up clouds. Current outdoor temp, at 9:24 a.m. is 17 and is projected to go all the way up to 19 this afternoon. Cold? Well, that's a relative term. It's cold compared to what we've been having, but a far cry from years past when we would spend a week or so in single, or even minus, digits. Let's just say I'm not looking forward to going out in it, even for a little bit.  

     Snowfall, so far, has been the bare minimum, with the biggest one measuring in at a whopping two inches. Again, I can't say I'm sorry we didn't have more, but I've been remembering snows of my childhood and missing the fun and adventure they brought with them.  I'm not sure if those long ago snows were so big because I looked at them from a small child's body, or if it's due to my aging memory.

     I remember snowsuits, and rubber boots that were hard to put on, and even harder to take off, over our shoes. I remember plastic bread bags worn over our shoes when we didn't have boots, and snowmen with faces made of little chunks of coal from the bin. I remember the igloo my dad made for us one year, piling up what seemed like a great mound of snow, packing it tight, then hollowing out a space big enough for two little girls to crawl in long enough to pretend they were Eskimos for awhile. That was when we still lived in Shippingport in the little, three room, tarpaper house.

    A few years later we had moved to Medicine Woods (named for a place in a Harold Bell Wright novel) and there was a worn, rutted track that ran back over our hill.  When we had a good snow, my sister and brothers and I would drag a toboggan almost to the top of the hill and position it carefully to "ride the ruts" to the bottom. That took a little cooperation and teamwork because, on the bends, we all had to lean just enough in the right direction to keep the toboggan riding the rut instead of careening off into the brush. Most of the time we made it!