which_chick | (no subject)

I had a lovely day today on the ponies. La and I took Mariah and Nick (respectively) out for airs above the ground. Mariah bucked during the warm-up phase of the thing because Nick was cantering away from her and La wasn't letting her canter along. Mariah did not win that one. We started with the inviting cross rail, progressed to a straw bale oxer (bales set on long, narrow edge), then combined the cross rail and the straw bale oxer into a two stride double (36') which everyone managed to jump even after it morphed from starting with a friendly cross rail to starting with an exciting 18" vertical.

Eighteen inches is not a very big jump but we're n00bs. I'm a n00b, my horse is a n00b. We are starting small so that we can succeed. That's what low expectations are all about -- success!

Special for my mom: These are not big jumps. The ones I popped over, back when I was eleven and riding the exceedingly kind grey pony, those were six inches bigger than these.

Again special for my mom: I am not four years old. I am almost forty. At this point, worries about my childhood death involving horses have gone on for far too long.

Thirdly for my mom: My name is not Bonnie Blue Butler.

After that, we had coffee and gingersnaps. Yum.

Then we took a horse over to Dee's and brought back a different horse. I rode Ceres over and rode Thyme back. Ceres is an uncomplicated ride. Thyme was looking at way too much stuff on the way over but she wore herself out with that and was more sensible on the return trip. (I need to spend more time riding green-ish horses. My patience with them is limited b/c Goof does more with less. It's easier to ride her because I can be more subtle and because she's so very light.) Lordy, does Thyme need mileage before that kid is going to want to ride her.

I also went grocery shopping, did two loads of wash, took pictures of Boda, Peake, and Te (but can't do shit with them because my camera cable is in Harrisburg with my external hard drive and thus I have no way to get the pictures off the camera), fed the last of the Brethren apples to the ponies, and brought my pickup home for the winter. And I played some more Thief.

Regular readers will recall that I was supposed to sneak through the mines and the factory to get to the prison and break out Cutty, the fence, who had gotten locked up by the Hammerites (religous zealots) for his sins. Well, I did get to Cutty, but he died while telling me about a map to some other damn treasure. Rescuing him after his death seemed kind of pointless. So, then I had to go find the damn map, which I did. That ended Mission 2. I was all kinds of excited to be done with Mission 2 because it had zombies in it and I do not like the zombies. So, y'know. Mission 3 briefing starts up. Using the aforementioned map (of course), I'm supposed to go into a graveyard ossuary crypt thing and steal the Horn of Horniness (or something). Rumor, says the smug (male) narrator who is supposed to be my character, has it that the place is haunted. I just fucking bet that this means more damn zombies.

I need to be home on Saturday next for trick-or-treating (Where I live, the houses are too far apart for the kids to walk from door to door. La's house is four miles from mine, with a free trip up-and-down a mountain in that four miles. Therefore, trick-or-treat involves cars.) with Theron's kids. I also need to (overachiever alert) make some candy so that I have something to give out. I was thinking caramels.