Backhoes and Clinics

What is it about cold weather that just shuts me down?

As some may have noticed, every time I comment on a fellow blogger who is in the midst of snow or freezing temperatures I post (rather unimaginatively) that I can't even imagine living in a place that cold.

This is not completely true. I lived in Chicago for two years and was forever cured of my need to live in a place where snow and freezing temperatures are a three, four, or even five month affair.

So, I confess, I can imagine it, I remember the night in my metallic green Datsun pick up when I couldn't feel my toes, and wondered if this was God's way of telling me to move my little desert rat butt back home.

I could take a hint.

It's been cold, to me anyway, and I've barely made it over to see Cibolo and Lily. Saturday Cibolo and I did some brief carrot work, then decided to visit the big noisy thing which had finally stopped moving around. The noisy thing was working on a Sisyphus level effort to remove the mud from one of the paddocks.

This big noisy thing is our big noisy thing (we have a concrete construction company - just a little one), so my hubby was driving it back down the road at the barn to park it. Cibolo and I followed it, since it had been quite concerning to all the horses.

Then we went all around it.




And, after a while, through it.



Not nearly as scary when it's quiet.




I dropped by the barn tonight, just for cookie distribution. It's going to get into the teens tomorrow which is my definition of uninhabitable. I'm planning on wearing 17 layers of clothes and a hat.

And I drive from garage to garage. I'm such a wimp.

The horses are in the barn - Lily in her stall, Cibolo with an in and out option. He, of course, is in and out. Hopefully he'll have enough sense to come in out of the sleet.


I resisted the urge to fulfill my horse need by shopping (which my budget will not tolerate) and instead wrote out my check to hold a place at this clinic in April with Kathleen Lindley.

Here's a little about Kathleen:

Once the decision was made to improve her horsemanship, she found author and clinician Mark Rashid, with whom she spent the next 10 years studying horsemanship, the last two years as his full-time assistant. During her time with Mark, Kathleen wrote her first book, “In the Company of Horses” and with Mark co-authored “A Life With Horses”.

Since I'll be attending a Mark Rashid clinic in the Summer (Carmon - is there a date yet?), I think this will be a great precursor. I hope to see some friends there, at least auditing if not riding (Mindy? Rudy? how about it?). I considered auditing, but I know if I do that, I won't even go. Escaping my family requires much more of a commitment, and there's no way I'd get away to just 'watch.' I'd end up at the zoo, at a birthday party, running errands...

I've never attended a multi-day clinic. I have been to one despooking clinic, have a handful of lessons under my belt. Now I feel like I'm diving into the deep end. But I know I can swim.

I'm really looking forward to it - excited, nervous, but glad to be taking this step.

Now if it would just warm the heck up.