Hobby Horse: Adventures of the Perpetual Newbie: I like watching the puddles gather raaaaaaaiinnnn

(Yes, another song reference. I had to. On a side note--although can it really be a "side" note if I haven't even started the main blog yet?--don't do drugs, kids. Freakin' Shannon Hoon.)

Day after Christmas. Sugar rush and crash cycle complete. Gift explosion and ecstasy-coma complete. Eldest son spent two days inside, building his new Legos and swimming in the bliss of New! Toys!

Then we went to the barn, and kept swimming.

Where are the sharks?

It rained Christmas night through the following morning, with standing water everywhere. The arenas had just dried out enough to be ridden in when this storm hit, so it didn't take much to put standing water in all of the rings.

The meticulously maintained main ring:

It was a pretty sunset, but I prefer not to have them reflected in the riding rings.

The smallest, yet-fastest-drying-trail ring:

Slooooosh.

And the peculiarly, perennially most flooded and slowest-draining warm-up arena:

Standing water alllllll the way along the rail. Excellent for training your horse to water ski.

Consider it our version of an over-water jump.

So now, what to do? Even the grazing part of the property was too slick for turn out. But I have a high-energy, playful, bored horse--can't leave him couped up and avoid an eventual cabin-fever-spaz-out vet bill. I opted to bring my eldest son over for an afternoon of just hanging with our horses.

It was enchanting. Memorable. Imperfectly perfect.

I tied Tril to the wash rack so he could graze while I assisted eldest with Firefly, and Tril proceeded to completely strip a six foot radius of anything and everything green around the rack.

Tied? And leaving me? What torture is--ooooh, hey, what's this here?

He strained to get under the rack--thankfully, my unselfaware, accident-prone klutz did not figure out a way to do that.

Must...reach...every...blade...

Meanwhile, eldest retrieved his red furball and spent a lot of time brushing her, talking to her, being with her.

"She really likes it when I brush her behind her ears."

"I see you dropped that. I'd fetch it if you'd just untie me. Really. No, I wouldn't run off to eat green things, no sirree! What makes you think that?"

And then we haltered our horses and took them on a hand-walk. I'd like to point out the mini was far better behaved than Tril. Head straight up, tail straight up, he was my snorty, prancy, giant brown grocery bag.

"THEY'RE GETTING AWAY! Quick, after them, fast! Then past them, fast! Then just keep going, fast!"

Still, after just a bit of walking (and a brief snort-spin-blow-WTF?!! at the Gypsy vanner mare that charged us when we passed her paddock), Tril calmed his hot blooded butt down enough to put that perpetual motion brain machine of his to work.

Alrighty, desert boy, we're walking through puddles.

"FUCK no! I'll drown!"

Get over yourself, Little Drama Boy. Now put a hoof in water.

"NOOOOO-hey, what's she doing?"

"Whatever this is, it's MINE and I am its QUEEN."

"But...but...she's not falling in...the sharks aren't attacking..."

*STEP* "Miiiiiine."

"Well, as long as she goes first, she'll get eaten by Bad Things first. So I'll give it a try."

I found that if I let Tril sniff the water and play with it first--taste it, even--he'd march right in. He, the ever curious one, simply needed to know what exactly it was he was dealing with. Then, he was fine with it. Ana was never so confident to actually get this close to inspect ("The sharks will bite my nose!"), and while Tril has a touch of that "OMG WTF!" in him, his general nosiness interferes with his panic button.