October 2011

October 31, 2011: Happy Birthday Thunder!

Can you believe that my little handsome colt is a full twelve months old today? I can't. I can't wrap my head around the fact that it was a whole year ago that Mom shook me awake, "Skye has foaled," and I ran outside and there was my shining mare all aglow with motherhood under a sky that smiled as broadly as eternity, and the little bay foal at her side with his white nose and gorgeous dark eyes.

Thunderbird has grown from that adorable, ever-trusting little foal into a magnificent yearling colt with the gentlest of temperaments, those dark eyes deeper than ever, and the makings of a fine horse. Just scroll down to see. Skye's son has inherited some of her heartbreaking beauty. He has his mother's beautiful eyes, golden coat and star; also the way he whinnies when he sees me, and his utterly uncomplaining, ever accepting attitude towards anything I do to him. He also has Skye's loyalty; he's never run away from me, not even when I led him away from his mother for the first time as a tiny foal.

He has his father's size. Kevin reckons he'll make at least 15hh. He also has the big Friesian neck and broad back, and the heavily feathered feet. Like his dad, he's not the brightest horse in the whole world; but his gentleness makes up for it, and the way he never challenges or questions. He freaks out now and then, but he's not rebellious.

Conformation-wise, Thunder is also a handsome boy. I'll admit that his back is too broad and his movement would be a lot better if he picked his knees up higher. Also that he really needs to grow into his Roman nose, though it's a lot better than it was a few months ago. But he's got his mom's short cannon bones, his father's strong neck, and a nicely proportioned build. It all makes for one extremely special colt whom I love to pieces. Happy birthday, little guy! May God give you many more birthdays and a long and happy future that has me in it somewhere.

It was a quiet-ish day today. I took Skye for a short ride out, basically just walking because of the vaccine, with two short trots. The flies ate us alive and the paraffin clearly wasn't doing its job on Skye's face, so I asked Rain to bring us Skye's fly mask. I bought it for her ages ago but she's never actually worn it, so I decided to try it out. You can actually see a lot out of the mask. I should know, I wandered about wearing it for a while and attracting very odd glances. Anyway I put it on and she said Take it OFF! for the first few minutes before figuring it out and relaxing. It worked well, even though after a while we were referring to it as Skye's Alien Hat because few things look weirder than a horse wearing a fly mask.

Apart from the flies, the ride went well; we are dying for a gallop but we stuck to a walk, though a very fast one in some cases. The green grass is coming out nicely now. I love this horse to bits, I really do. She was just fabulous today, just the right balance between steady and spirited. She's the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

Then I saddled the fat grey mare and Rain rode around on her for a bit. Rain is strange to teach, terrified and reckless by turns, extremely obstinate and necessitating a lot of tact. But she's improving massively, her heels were down and her back was nice and straight; I had her ride Arwen with a whip as fatty bum has been so lazy lately, and they gave me a few very nice canters (all of them being about four strides long). Then I climbed on Arwen and cantered around the jumps for half an hour or so. She was superb actually. I made a big mistake by putting her straight at a 90cm jump from her least favourite side, she refused that but then I saw sense and turned her towards the set of three 60cm jumps three strides apart and she popped through that one better than she ever has, putting in three nice canter strides between each jump. After that I turned her down to the big one again and she felt absolutely superb. She has an unhappy habit of approaching the jump more or less straight and then swerving hard right during the jump, but we worked on that and she did improve. Rain got the most AMAZING photo of us. She deserves a medal because not only are we in a cool position over the jump, but she actually got a picture where Arwen and I both look good. Generally in pictures Arwen looks like a mule and especially in jumping picture I look like a real old ape, but here we look pretty good, for us. Arwen's taking off at a nice-ish distance from the jump, she has room to spare but is not over-jumping, she looks keen; I'm not flat on her neck or left behind, my heels are down and I'm giving her enough reins to do the job. I hereby applaud Rain massively.

Usually in jump pictures I look more monkey like, see below.

Poor Arwen, I would hate to jump with an idiot like that on my back, but anyway we're still a work in progress and I'm very very proud of Arwen, she hasn't jumped like this for ages. Even though what with going to town and getting Skye a new fly hat (and watching Rain do ballet, she is awesome) I didn't manage to squeeze in another ride, and though I was terrifically stupid and managed to pay the poor lady at the biscuit shop R4.50 instead of R54, I'm quite happy with today. I caught a late wake-up about school, but I got through most of it, so yeah. A good day.

October 30, 2011: Freedom

We had loads of the loveliest quiet soaking rain last night. Needless to say the mares are enjoying their shelter, but the foals are really enjoying the rain. It went straight to their heads after their breakfast this morning, and off they went. Let the pictures speak. (Yes, I know I'm making it really slow).

And here is my personal favourite. Pity I cut his ears off, but the way everything blurs except his face and eye really grabbed me. He is his mother's son.

October 29, 2011: Happy Day

Today was one of those days that nothing spectacular happens, but everything just seems to work. No drama of saving a desperately sick animal, or having a magnificent breakthrough with a difficult horse. No collapsing in a heap, and no leaping about in wild ecstasy. A beautiful, peaceful day that just went well.

The wind was blowing us right off the hill this morning. Rubbing the horses down with paraffin was a mission because everything wanted to blow away. The flies are driving Skye bonkers, sitting on her eyes and trying to drink her tears, and the paraffin seems to be doing its job on her body but not really around her eyes, so it's time to dig out the fly mask thingy. I hope she doesn't do a nutter with the fly mask on, knowing her feisty mood lately I think it's more than likely. She always has trouble with the flies in summer, so she'll have to get used to walking around looking like she's stepped out of a rather odd sci-fi novel.

One of the buckets nearly blew away and the horses and I had some entertainment watching Cyke chase it all the way down to the bottom of the big electric fence, where it got stuck against the fence and she managed to retrieve it, then trotted all the way back up again, fighting against the wind and holding her head up high to carry the bucket in her mouth, to loud encouragement from me. Dad remarked that running off to fetch the bucket myself would have been less work than screaming encouragement to Cyclone was!

I am very guilty and haven't been working with the foals nearly enough lately. They're not exactly unhandled; they get caught and rubbed down each morning, but they need more than just that.

Then we all had to trundle off to Balfour to get noserings for the wayward calves that suck their playmates, damaging the heifers' udder tissue for life. They do look weird with their big orange noserings in, but they get used to it very quickly. I still managed to squeeze in a short outride on Arwen. She was always such a total prat with being ridden out and now suddenly, thanks be to God, she is an angel. The neurotic spooking? Gone. The running away? Nonexistent. The head-tossing? All but vanished. I can hardly believe that Arwen is now happy and settled outside all by herself! It's a massive breakthrough. She never rears and refuses going out as she used to; she seems so relaxed and I am desperately pleased. Ever since Achilles I have become a nervous rider, which is deeply inconvenient for someone who likes to train young horses. Arwen's going-out-alone thing was scaring the pants off me but now she's behaving herself so well and the scary times have paid off.

Yes, I know it looks like the world is standing on its head in the picture, but I had my reins and whip in one hand and was trying to take a picture with the other, which is not easy. As you can see the wind was blowing quite a lot, but Missy didn't turn a hair. I was delighted to say the least. We stuck to walk and trot with a bit of canter; I used to try and ride her as fast as I could to get her energy down but it just fizzes her up and drives her nuts so we're taking it slow for now.

I didn't ride Skye today, because I'm still paranoid after her having her vaccine almost three weeks ago. Man but I am a twit. We'll go for a ride tomorrow, for today she got thoroughly brushed and fed carrots until she stopped sulking. She's lost her winter hair now and is once again as bright as a firefly.

I schooled Arwen again this afternoon. On Kevin's advice I took my riding whip along because she has been so epically lazy lately, but she took one look at it and decided to behave so I hardly needed to use it. I even got an extended trot out of her, which is more than I can usually do. She has such a fabulous trot, I wish she would show it more often. We did a lot of figures of eight today and even in canter she behaved herself and wasn't too lazy. She was in a wonderful mood for jumping, but I'm petrified of boring her like I bored Skye, so as fun as jumping is, I'm sticking to just one or maybe two jumping sessions a week.

So yeah, I'm impressed with the little fatty bum today.

I really really miss those long, fast outrides Skye and I have, where we'll canter the width of the farm without stopping. Oh well, it's but a small price to pay for her immunity against AHS and she's so happy and healthy that I can't help but be happy with her. Feeding time is so peaceful when the milking machine has gone off, the sky is somewhere between day and twilight, work is almost over and the whole world just settles as the creatures of the day are off to bed and the creatures of the night have yet to awaken. There is a special kind of silence then; a time when the world just breathes and enjoys this beautiful, unappreciated feeling that we all take too much for granted; the feeling of being alive and part of the greatest of all adventures.

Just listen to this lovely rain we're getting...

October 28, 2011: News of Many Species

The good doggy news: Everyone has totally recovered from deltamethrin poisoning. The bad doggy news: Cyclone has bad hip displasia and nastily crooked hindlegs.

We tried everything. Like all her breeder's dogs, Cyclone's parents both have A hips, as do their parents and their parents' parents and... But it happens, especially in big dogs, and German shepherds seem to be especially susceptible.

I love that crazy, wild natural disaster of a puppy so much and it's such a shock to find out about her poor hips. We took her to a vet who does a lot of German shepherds in Krugersdorp, he X-rayed her legs and found all those problems with her. He said that surgery wouldn't benefit her at this stage. She's not in pain yet; arthritis has not yet developed, but it will in all probability, later on. There are operations for hip displasia. It's not the death sentence it once was. Our 10 year old German shepherd, Bekka, also has relatively severe hip displasia, but she lives a happy and active life without any medication or surgery for her hips and despite a problem with her heart. So Cyclone can still lead a normal life as a happy pet, but she'll never ride out with Skye and I. She'll never have puppies. Later, she will be in pain.

But more and more I'm learning to wake up and smell the roses before the frost bites them. The sun may never rise tomorrow, but it's rising today in a blaze of glory. And today, Cyke is happy and free.

What's that in her mouth, I hear you ask. Well, I measure out the horses' feed in those plastic one-litre yoghurt cup thingies, and Cyke has now learned to carry them home in her mouth. If left to her own devices, she also brings in flowerpots and sits by her food bin wagging her tail.

On the horsy front, good news is the rule. It's been a little more than two weeks since they were injected, so Skye gets to be ridden, just a smidgen, to alleviate my Lack of Riding Skye Depression. I had almost forgotten how awesome she is; my head can't quite hold that much. We go on short little outrides, mostly walking, a bit of trotting and one very short, very slow canter per ride, I think I might cut the canter because though it makes me feel like I hold the beating world in the palm of my hand, as though my horse strides from star to star, light as air, alive with fire... although in the moment it gives me all that, I am still paranoid and even though she doesn't even break sweat it still makes me worry that I'm working her too hard. So yeah. I'm stupid, I know. But anyway, Skye is so happy and healthy that she could burst; she is so fiery on outrides, alternating between her four-year-old impression and her spirited destrier impression. She prances a lot and arches her neck until the bright, bending bow of its goldenness, clad in the starlight mane, is so beautiful it hurts. I know I'm raving, but she's a horse to rave about. She feels like she's going more up than forward. Further up and further in.

We had some lovely rain this evening, too. The mares stood in the shelter, smirking. There is something very picturesque about these lush spring mornings of golden contentment, the roof, the shining horse champing her feed.

I really need to get that missing sheet nailed back on again. Mercifully it didn't hurt anyone in its rampage, nor did anyone tread in the nails, and though we had a bit of a gale this evening, it held.

So apart from Skye's prancing outrides, the only horse doing much at the moment is Arwen. At our lesson yesterday we were doing a MASSIVE jump, 90cm at the least, but honestly I don't know how she heaved herself up there because if someone knocked Arwen over she'd roll away, she's so fat. It simply can't be good for her joints when all that extra weight comes slamming down from a jump. She's only getting about 1kg of feed a day, and though I could easily cut it waaay down, for now I'm going to try and fix it with exercise. Arwen is now on a diet and rigorous exercise; she has been sentenced to two workouts a day instead of just one, and since I don't have any horses in full work for the next four weeks, I can afford to do it. Fatty bum got jumped yesterday morning - and I must admit that though she was dreadfully lazy, she cantered through the treble combination very nicely - and lunged yesterday afternoon. I was a bit nervous about the lunging because my lunge ring didn't survive Siobhan and has fallen apart, and she was last lunged at the age of two when she was backed, but I gave it a shot in the arena anyway and she surprised me by behaving herself impeccably at the walk and trot. She's not half as lazy on the lunge as she is under saddle, though things fell apart a bit when I tried to ask her to canter; she tried to canter off in a straight line and when I tried to get her to go in a circle, she panicked, shot off, galloped a few steps, skied to a halt and stood pop-eyed and waiting for something to eat her, which is a typical Arwen reaction. Honestly, if she ever confronted a real lion I think she would just pass out. After some time I convinced her to canter a full circle on both sides, though, so we made some progress.

Today my whole herd got a day off since I was helping with lessons and riding at Bushwillow Stables all day long. I'm becoming very fond of Double Reef. Recently Kevin changed his pelham to a normal snaffle and he seems a lot happier in it and controllable. The worst thing about Reef is that he's massive. I tentatively guess him at over 16hh and climbing on is something of a mission for 5ft me. Sometimes Kevin takes pity on me and gives me a leg up, but usually I fail to attract his attention and have to claw my way up Reef as if he were a haystack, poor creature. To Reef's credit, though he bites when his girth is being tightened and makes flat ears when his stirrups are run down, he stands dead still when I scramble on. Seeing a three-year-old perched atop that tall, dark horse, and watching his epic patience, is quite inspiring. I rode out on him today, in the company of Kevin, Sunny, Pumpkin and one of the livery owners, Colette. Reef dawdled along behind the other two until I said, "Double Reef, you're a racehorse, honestly," which wasn't the brightest idea since it made Kevin clap heels to Sunny and shoot off. This went straight to my mount's head; he shot off as well, and I nearly shot off in the other direction (i. e. over his tail), but luckily Reef caught up with Sunny in about three of his huge ground-eating strides and once next to him, he decided to keep pace with him, so I managed to sit up straight and pretend I had planned this. This fizzed Reef up so much that while Pumpkin and Sunny walked home, Reef cantered, very slowly, at about the same pace as the other two walked. Big dumb racehorse.

Colette is also the proud owner of a thirteen-day-old foal. Storm was almost killed before he could even be born; his mother, Spirit, and father, Samurai, were both destined for slaughter when Colette rescued them. How could someone even consider killing something this innocent?

Writing-wise I am struggling a bit with the two novels, Sparrowhawk and The Last of a Legend. I need to get my butt in the chair and get a move on with those two. Revisions are so much harder than I'd thought they'd be. Worse than first drafts. And The Last of a Legend is giving me the usual problem, pacing. For some reason I can't pace a novel to save my life. Either we're walking through treacle or zooming along too fast. Though usually it's the treacle. However I suddenly got a great idea for a novella that really kicked my butt and made me WRITE. It seems very very promising; so much so that only three days after writing the opening, I submitted it to one of Magical Words' mini-critiques. I think it's my personal best opening and Faith Hunter (author of the bestselling Jane Yellowrock series) liked it. Click the links for more info. But "Squeee!!" pretty much sums up how I felt about it.

Oh yeah, I have a username on the site. But you'll recognise me. I'm the only one who has a horse for a main character...

And why are the photos back? Because the phone is back. The phone fixing people gave it back and said they couldn't fix it. Dad left it on his desk, whereupon it promptly turned itself on and cheerfully announced that it was All Better Now. Welcome to Hydeaway Farm.

October 22, 2011: Good News

While Mom, Rain and I were busy at the crush, Dad went to fetch Cyclone. I never thought I'd miss her as much as I did; but she follows me everywhere, so every time I turned around and she wasn't there I missed her even more. Being stressed half to death didn't help much, either. Anyway I left Mom and Rain to it and charged off to greet my puppy; Dad opened the door and Cyclone, whom I'd last seen two days ago and so sick that she couldn't stand, launched herself out of the car and came flying towards me. I was crouched on my heels, which is not a good position for being hit by 25kg of frantically happy puppy. She was incredibly pleased to be back home again and after greeting me she immediately attacked Apollo and attempted to chew him up in little pieces, which is her way of saying that she really missed him.

Cyke seems 100% sound again, not a trace of wobbliness, though she is a touch constipated but the vet gave us some medicine for that. She even came with me to feed the horses and finished her lunch. She is such a gorgeous dog; she won't be as huge as Apollo, and isn't bonny like Flower or exotic and lovely like Hope, but she has a long, slender nose and amber eyes, which made her look like a wolf cub. Her face is strikingly pretty.

Skye also seemed glad to see her; she let her come much closer to her feed than usual before making flat ears at her. Skye doesn't mind Cyclone at all; the wolf cub has even been on her back without Skye making any sort of a fuss at all. She just doesn't like Cyke to try and eat her feed. (For some reason, Cyke likes horse feed). When she comes too close Skye just pins her ears down and pushes her out of the way with her nose and Cyke quickly learned to keep her distance.

Arwen used to chase Cyclone around; when it comes to actually dangerous things like strange horses or fires, Arwen just runs away, but when dreadful monsters like rolling tyres or puppies turn up, she decides that she is Captain of the Guard and tries to chase them away. Thankfully the silly thing got used to Cyke and now flatly ignores her.

October 21, 2011: Where do I start?

Man oh man these past nineteen days have been totally nuts. I know that that sentence doesn't sound like the usually quite grammatical Firn Hyde, but I think my grammatical brain cells were fried alongside most of the others.

Okay, bad news first. The tick dip we use for our cows has an active ingredient called deltamethrin. It comes in big 20l drums, which are very handy for holding the milk we can't sell between coming out of the cow and being thrown away, so of course we filled a few of the dip drums with mastitis milk. When our backs are turned the dogs think that drinking the milk out of the drums is great fun, so they drank some of the deltamethrin-contaminated milk and as a result pretty much the whole lot got deltamethrin poisoning.

Thanks to God, deltamethrin is not very dangerous in dogs, but the symptoms were quite heart-stoppingly alarming. Poor dear Cyclone got it first. She was fine when the two of us fed the horses, she didn't eat any breakfast at about eight o' clock, and an hour later she couldn't get up. Her pupils were dilated, she was severely dehydrated and she had no control over her legs. We rushed her to the vet who said uh-oh, that's not good and hospitalized her.

Scarcely had we gotten home when Becca, our older German shepherd, suddenly couldn't stand up either. We phoned the vet. He said, give her a shot of penicillin and antibiotics, it might be acute food poisoning. (Hope, my greyhound, had had food poisoning only a few days before). We gave Becca the shots and three hours later Rain's collie Lady had no control over her legs. And about an hour after that, my collie Flower was staggering about a little bit. Thoroughly freaked out, we rushed Flower, Becca, Lady, and Mom's enormous German shepherd Apollo (who seemed fine, but since five of our dogs had been sick in under seventy-two hours we wanted to be safe) to the vet. The vet was rather baffled and so were we. He said it looked a bit like Atropa belladonna (deadly nightshade) poisoning but where in the world would our dogs get hold of deadly nightshade? It was possible that someone would try to poison them by feeding them the seeds or berries in meat, but surely if you wanted to poison a dog you'd give them rat poison or something lethal?

At last, by a sort of team effort but mostly because of my heroic Mom, we figured out that it was the deltamethrin.

The whole family was very miserable, with Becca, Lady and Cyclone all in hospital. This morning, Flower was normal again, which was really heartening. This afternoon Becca and Lady could come home; Lady is normal (well, as normal as she ever is, anyway) and Becca is just the slightest bit wobbly on her feet. Apollo, Hope and my great-aunt's sausage dog/pug crossbred Misha are still fine. Cyke is still in hospital but the vet says she should come home tomorrow morning and is waay better. So I've said it before and I'll never stop saying it: Thank You, God.

I am feeling a little drained at the moment, worry does that to you. I love all our dogs, but my own trio are particularly close; thankfully Hopey never got deltamethrin poisoning, just a belly-ache, and Flower's case was extremely mild, but Cyke scared the pants off me and frankly I'm still rather stressed out. I've only had little miss Cyclone since May, but one thing that I really adore about German shepherds over collies and greyhounds is the way they follow you around everywhere without having to be trained. Cyke goes everywhere on the farm with me, except when I ride (she will come with me then, too, but the strenuous work is bad for her hips at such a young age), and she is such an angel around the horses, she gives them her space and they leave her alone. I really really miss her, but I know she'll be okay, because God loves puppies too.

Furthermore there haven't been more crises than usual, though one of poor Kevin's yearling colts broke his leg. Luckily the colt is still young enough that his leg could heal, so he's wearing a cast, but broken legs are horrible things in horses. We lost Rain's old thoroughbred, Rivr, to a broken leg. The little Nooitgedachter colt is in my prayers as well.

Things have been rather quiet on the horsy side, mainly because my whole crew have just been inoculated for African Horse Sickness and have two weeks off. All except Arwen, because I wanted something decent to ride otherwise I mope and drive my parents up the walls. I would have loved two whole weeks of just gallivanting about on Skye, but after her scare with AHS last season, I'm not taking any chances - she's getting inoculated sooner rather than later. And since I'm not really riding Achilles, and since Siobhan might as well be done to get it over with, and since it doesn't make much difference with the foals since they're not working yet, they all got inoculated as well. I was really nervous about the foals getting their first injection. When Siobhan got her first injection she reared up, almost clouted Kevin on the head with her forelegs, broke her halter and zoomed off. Eventually we managed to cram her into the crush and she tried to kick that to pieces as well. Her second injection was a nightmare; Kevin gave it to her while she was staggering about on her hindlegs, since we couldn't get her into the crush. This made me rather jumpy about doing the little foals for the first time. I haltered Thunder and gripped him tightly, one hand on the lead rein and one on the noseband of his halter. He looked at me with his gorgeous soft dark eyes from under a fluffy, pitch-black forelock and began to lick and lip my wrist. (He's a baby and likes to put things in his mouth, but I don't like the teeth getting involved, so he received a smack each time he used his teeth. Now he just licks me.) Kevin stuck in the needle. Thunder stopped licking for a split second, then transferred his attention to my other hand. I abruptly felt deeply foolish for clinging on to him as if he might go off like a rocket and let him go. He just stood there. I was simply amazed.

Dancer was almost as good; she raised her head and I thought we were going to have fireworks but she didn't move otherwise. Dancer is finally outgrowing her ugly stage, though unfortunately she'll never outgrow her boxy feet, long cannon bones and fleshy shoulders. Thun had a tremendous growth spurt after he was weaned and now he's gone into an ugly yearling stage with big legs and a big head, and he's a little ribby at the moment, probably a combination of the weaning and the growth spurt. I worried about it for a while, but he is very happy and sprightly and eating really well; he was also dewormed in August and doesn't have one of those dreadful little worm bellies, so he'll get over it.

It's a pity Skye's going to lose some of her fitness during her AHS vaccine period (though it's a tiny price to pay for immunity), because she looks even more stunning than usual at the moment; fit and strong and hard, with neck and quarters bursting with muscle. I can just feel her last ribs when I lightly run my hand down her side. She is in great condition and finally losing her winter coat; she has a lovely sleek body up to her middle, where she becomes fluffy down to her hips, when she is sleek again. My horses seem to have a huge tendency to get depressingly porky, though admittedly it's better than them getting depressingly thin. If Achilles got any fatter he would roll instead of walk. Mind you, he's lost quite a bit of weight; he's on a teensy handful of meal a day with ad lib hay, and since we moved him from the old camp - where it was far too easy for him to get hold of cow feed - he has lost enough weight to make a huge difference in the ease of pulling up his girth. Siobhan is also a typical little fat pony. In fact Siobhan has been a little fat pony for ever, though she has now reached her very fattest, and with the summer grass coming out it will only get worse. The answer? Exercise, of course, but I can't do that right now, so she'll have to stay a fat pony for the next six weeks until I can start riding her a lot more.

Arwen blows up like a balloon given half the chance; I halved her feed shortly after moving onto the Spurwing and her workload has become much heavier, so she has slimmed down a little, thankfully. I don't want to cut her feed any lower since she runs out of energy when we jump if she doesn't get enough. Once she's lean and fit life will be a lot easier for the two of us. It's a tricky one because I want her to have enough sparkle in her to get around a jumping course, but not enough to make her jump out of her skin, which she does sometimes when we ride out. At the moment she's been rather lethargic under saddle; I would think that she's sick except that she seems perfectly fine in every other way. I think it's a combination of unfitness, possibly some boredom with the arena (I'm definitely going to ride her out more often), being too fat, and being simply a lazy horse; she has improved by miles since she was backed but some kicking has always been required.

Only three days to go before I can ride Skye a little more again. The next two weeks we'll be confined to walk, some trot, and a tiny little bit of canter. I didn't ride her the first two weeks because a) I'm paranoid b) life has been very hectic c) I'm paranoid d) she is fit enough to start jumping out of her skin a bit after some time off, especially on windy or rainy days, and I don't want her to jump out of her skin when she's supposed to be just walking, and e) did I mention I'm paranoid?

Last time I rode Skye was Tuesday two weeks ago. We had been away for the weekend, so come Monday I had a very energetic horse on my hands. She even bucked. Skye does not buck. We cantered, she got excited, she kicked up her heels, I squawked "Skye! What are you doing?!" and she decided to just canter in a straight line from then on. Tuesday Kevin and I rode out on Swaelkrans (AKA Piet's farm next door) and had an absolute ball; Skye was exploding with life. We ran a race, Kevin on Arwen versus me on Skye. Skye might look like a solid, furry-legged carthorse but she is way faster than Arwen and always has been. Poor Arwen was puffing along like a steam train, going at her best gallop with her dished face outstretched. I was eyeing the end of the road and wondering if I would be able to apply the brakes soon enough, so I had a firm hold on Skye's mouth and wasn't letting her go yet. Then Arwen got a nose in front of us and I decided to let the end of the road take care of itself so I let Skye out a notch and squeaked some encouragement. We were already going at a good gallop but suddenly Skye just flattened out and boom! we were a head in front of Arwen. The rest of the race was highly enjoyable; once or twice Arwen crept up on us and I'd let Skye out another notch and she would reach into some hidden reservoir of speed and stamina and go boom again. It was amazing. Skye adores running even more than she adores carrots. And trust me, Skye really adores carrots.

Oh yes, and the magnificent shelter has been wonderful. At first the mares were a little wary of the sound of rain drumming on the roof; Skye decided to keep her distance, arching her neck, raising her tail and snorting like an Arabian, while Arwen walked right up to it and then said I'm not going in There, thank you very much. It had started to rain in the middle of a ride and I didn't want my saddle to get ruined, so I dragged her inside and fed her bits of carrot. Food always wins Arwen over and I left her in the shelter looking for more carrots. It eventually dawned on her that she was dry inside and wet outside, which is quite an intellectual feat, for Arwen. Some rain later, Skye decided that since whatever was making that funny noise hadn't eaten Arwen yet it certainly wouldn't be able to eat her; Siobhanny felt left out and toddled inside; and then the three mares stood in the shelter looking smugly at the very wet heifers and telling them how wonderful it was to be dry in the rain.

A freak wind came whooshing over the farm and took one of the sheets of corrugated iron off, thankfully it didn't hurt anyone, so we just need a few longer roofing screws. Otherwise the shelter is holding up really well, though it wobbles a bit when Skye scratches her butt on it. She has decided that it's the most wonderful butt-scratching device ever.

So the horses are living a life of luxury at the moment, except of course for poor Arwen, who is on a diet and a rigorous exercise regime. Skye's morning starts at about 6:45 with a feed and getting rubbed down with some paraffin to keep the flies off. At twelve noon she gets lunch, and sometime in the afternoon she is given a thorough grooming, her coat massaged and brushed, her mane and tail brushed out, her feet cleaned, and fed two carrots (yeah, yeah, I know you're not supposed to give them treats, but carrots are good for horses. They're vegetables and contain lots of nice vitamin A). Supper arrives at about a quarter past six. In between she grazes the fresh new grass that's coming through, or eats hay, or rolls, or chats to her companions, or sleeps in the shade of the shelter. Usually her routine is much the same except for a ride of around an hour, and if she's really sweated up, she gets rinsed off with cold water. She rather likes that.

Luckily I still get to do loads of riding every Friday at Cheryl's. Double Reef is really growing on me. He's really not a very comfortable ride; sitting on his trot is rather a nightmare for me and I'm nowhere near as still on his canter as I am on Skye's or Arwen's or even Sunny's, but he has a lot of power. He still takes off way too early if we jump from a canter and the sheer power of that jump is quite awesome. Of course, my being only about 5ft 2 in. at the most and his being over 16hh also contributes to the feeling of strength. (Climbing on him is a challenge when a leg-up is not available.) I think I'm beginning to figure out the jumping thing, though; he jumps well from a trot, so I took him to the jump in a really, really, really slow canter and held him back until we were a stride from the jump, when I let him go. He speeded up, but put in the extra stride and popped over with perfect rhythm. After the jump I had to sit up quickly and hold him back again, otherwise he charges around the arena at a frightening pace; it's a small arena and I don't want him to fall. I let him canter too fast once and he exploded again, taking off way before the jump and throwing himself at it as if he was jumping a Normandy bank at the Olympics. I'm afraid I caught him in the mouth a little bit with my right rein, but luckily he was in a snaffle and not his usual Pelham, so no damage was really done. I even kept my stirrups, which I didn't manage last time he took off like a rocket.

Sunny was super lazy with the other students today. I was thoroughly unimpressed with him when it was my turn to ride him and when he decided that trotting was not on his agenda I gave him a smack with the reins. He woke up pretty much instantly and was very responsive - for Sunny - for the rest of the ride. Sunny jumps well. He's not as explosive as Reef and I think that if push came to shove, Reef would jump far higher than Sunny (wild guess there, I'm clueless), but he does it in the same way as he does pretty much everything; he potters steadily along and never really makes a fuss about it. Laziness is Sunny's worst vice.

Writing-wise it is also pretty quiet. Sparrowhawk's revisions are going at about the same pace as continents move. The unnamed WIP finally has a name; it's called The Last of a Legend and it is at least making some form of progress, even if it is at about two thousand words three times a week or so. I really need to get a move on when it comes to the writing, I'm breaking the unbreakable rule: BIC. Butt In Chair.

Oh, though I did manage to turn a school assignment into a short story that is, by my standards, quite magnificent. I hurriedly dubbed it Real Paintings. I think it might turn out quite nice given some polishing. It's almost sci-fi, which is a first for me, but I quite liked the effect.

The ideas and the characters are still there, of course, and I'm building stories in my head a mile a minute; getting them onto the page is, as ever, the hard part. Oh well. It's getting really late and I had better fall into bed. Oh yeah, and excuse the lack of pictures, I let my cellphone get wet and it promptly gave up the ghost, and frankly cameras confuse my technologically disadvantaged self.

October 2, 2011: Look What I've Got!

At long last, after years of worry when those big Highveld thunderstorms come roaring over the hills towards us, the mares have a shelter. A real proper shelter too with a corrugated iron roof, comfortably large enough for the threesome to fit under.

After watching me reduced to a nervous wreck at every thunderclap, Dad decided to put my mind at rest. It was an expensive venture and a pretty time-consuming one and amidst all the other farm projects I know that it was very tiresome indeed for him to be building a roof for his neurotic daughter's horses, so thank you very very very much, Daddy for everything.

We spent the week before last planting poles and worriedly watching the sky. Yesterday afternoon Dad had a Feeling that it was going to rain cats and dogs. Dad is a farmer and therefore when he Feels it you take it seriously. So we started work on putting up the roof.

First, the horizontal poles had to be bolted onto the vertical ones. I dashed to and fro, bringing Dad all his stuff, even though I occasionally confused the washers and the nuts.

I'd just taken Skye for a ride to fetch the cows; it was brilliant as always and even though we came within ten metres of the two foals, Thunder and Skye just neighed at each other once or twice but no one got frantic. She watched with interest while Dad drilled away.

Then, the corrugated iron had to be nailed onto the poles. The wind was picking up so this was a little bit nerve-wracking but we (i. e., Dad) got it right.

And this is the safe, wonderful end result:

You probably all think I'm mad now, raving about a roof. Understand then that riding is an extaordinarily expensive and time-consuming hobby. In fact it's not a hobby at all, it's an obsession, and, to the parents of the horse-crazy person, it's a deeply inconvenient obsession especially if the horses live at home and not at livery, and when facilities still need to be built. My parents are already working their fingers to the bone since dairy farming is just as expensive and time-consuming as horses, so this shelter is a lot more special than the twenty-horse stable built by a millionaire dad for a spoilt rich kid. There's no sacrifice in that, and family is all about sacrifice.

I'd been praying all spring, asking God to keep the thunderstorms at bay until we had some protection for the horses, and He did; we've had only a few drips of rain and only one ten-minute thunderstorm. Three hours after the last nail was whacked into the roof, the rain came down in a torrent. It rained all night long and the thunder was bellowing all the time; the sky was white with lightning and I slept through most of it because my horses had a roof and wouldn't be struck. God is real, and He loves us!