Unorthodox Auxiliary Aid

MEGAN: The morning began as usual- feeding, turnouts, and raking the mounting area in the indoor. Then I did my stall, water, and walked and grazed my horse, though the flies were terrible this morning! Once he was all taken care of, I did laundry and cleaned the trunks of two clients- I am frantically trying to finish all the services people asked us to do for the fundraiser! Around 10:45 am I tacked up Simba and rode with Annie. We really worked on the counter canter, voltes, and mediums in the canter. She gave us two good exercises- counter canter, then go across the diagonal and do a medium onto the true lead. Second: Counter canter and change between shoulder-fore and haunches-fore in the direction of the lead, and be sure not to challenge him too much by going too far into the corners. The right lead counter canter was much more difficult than the left, and we both worked very hard! At one point Simba was losing energy and Annie told us to go forward- just as a gray squirrel was climbing up the back door and was level with Simba’s face!!! He shot into the air- and forward- and Annie was quite proud that we had used a squirrel as an auxiliary aid, though it is most certainly not listed in the German Principles of Riding!!! After that excitement we cooled out, bathed, and ate some grass. Then, I grazed both Tawny and Danny while they dried- I could make my living as an official horse grazer! Once they were both cared for I finished cleaning one of the last trunks and tacked Simba up again to go on a walk with Annie and Bentley out in the field. At one point Simba tripped and Bentley spooked, jumping into the air and quite nearly running into Simba! It was highly amusing, once I was sure neither Annie nor I was going to die. Simba barely broke a sweat so I pulled off his tack and put him away, then washed one of the client’s cars while Rachel did another trunk. Mica gave me a ride home, hurrying so I could run… and it promptly began to thunderstorm. Hmmm, how nice. Luckily it stopped thundering about 5:20 pm so I could run, shower, and be in a dress (yes, a dress) at the girls by 6:45 pm. We went to the Meetinghouse with Heather and had a wonderful time- For appetizers we got thin bread pizza, mussels, macaroni and cheese, and a Caesar salad. All three plates were delicious. For dinner I got a grilled turkey burger with shredded carrot cooked in the meat, brie, Portobello, and apricot-dijon sauce and sweet potato fries. Yum!! The table got Crème Brule and Apple Crisp a la mode for dessert and I tried both- Sooo good! Stuffed, we went home and I wrote out receipts for the clients, did thank-you’s, and organized the last of the fundraiser information. Off to bed, and it is storming again…

SIMBA: Those flies sure are annoying! They were driving me crazy this morning; a horse can barely walk straight for all he is bitten and pestered by those awful things. Mom, in conjunction with Annie, made me work really hard today. Phew! When do I get a rest, Mom? This had been a continuous summer of hard work for yours truly. One good thing from all this work is that my haunches are beginning to fill in- like I said, when I get home they won’t even recognize me! Oh, and Mom- don’t ever let me see another of those little scuttling rodents again, or you might just end up in the rafters. Just a fair warning!