The Days Are Just Packed

This week Annabeth is attending a beginner's horsemanship clinic in the mornings. This sounded like a great idea a couple of weeks ago when the weather was cool; now it's so stinkin' hot and humid that it's in the mid 80s by the time we get there at 9:30ish and climbs on into the 90s by the time we leave 2 hours later. So, we're expending a lot of energy just being hot.

The clinics are based on Parelli horse training methods, so the first day the students and horses played some Parelli games




and also learned about grooming the horses.




Then we zoomed home, threw on clean clothes, and headed to Shakespeare auditions -- this year's play is Comedy of Errors. That took up most of the afternoon.

Then up again the next day and down to the farm (which is in Jefferson County) where the kids worked on balance



and finally got to mount the horses ... bareback. Not even any reins -- if they wanted to hold onto something, they held onto the mane ...


or not, if they felt like they could balance (you can pick the Irish ceili dancers out of the crowd -- they're the ones who can hold their arms up in the air for long periods of time while smiling the whole time whether their arms are tired or not)


Then some work with reins


And finally, some more Parelli games with one student on the horse and one on the ground. Note that by this time they'd moved to the shade, which also featured long grass. And the horses had reached the point of, "okay, enough of this -- I'm gonna hang out in the shade here and munch some of the excellent grass while you try to get my attention".




Then home, immediately take Thalia to her choir director's house for a rehearsal followed by a pool party (side note: the cicadas were so loud over there you could barely hold a conversation, but out in the country they weren't that bad. The difference? The choir director lives in one of those neighborhoods where it looks like everyone has a lawn service, and out in the country the folks have chickens and guinea hens running around gorging themselves on the 24 hour all-you-can-eat cicada banquet. Obviously more people need to stop worrying about appearances and let chickens loose in their yards.) Home again, talk to neighbor about pet sitting, then to piano for Annabeth only (since Thalia was at the pool party) home from piano, pick up Thalia, go to grocery and Target, home, and ...

just hanging around the house speculating on Shakespeare casting (should be announced tomorrow) and reading No Fear Shakespeare. Too tired to even go to the pool. I didn't even wake up for the earthquake last night, at least not that I recall -- I vaguely recall thinking the cat was jumping around on the bed.

I feel like my new hobby is sweating. And driving -- I've put an amazing number of miles on the car in the past 2 days. Today it was all accomplished without a single cicada splattering on the windshield.

Coming up the rest of the week: more horsemanship clinic, more choir practice, shopping for more clothes for Thalia's trip to Colorado, more sweating, and more driving.