batten down the hatches

There’s a super epic winter storm expected in Sacramento starting tomorrow — 5″ in 24 hours, which is hardly a lot of rain but in an area that gets like 30″ a year, that’s a lot of rain — so we’re going all out at the barn. We closed all the paddock doors (so our precious event horses are now stuck in their luscious 14’x14′ stalls), closed the barn doors, and blocked off some of the areas of the barn with sand bags to prevent flooding.  California barns are built like California highschools — outside affairs meant for sunny weather — and so we are just…. taking this seriously.  With gusts expected u to 60mph I won’t be riding tomorrow, but probably will suck it up and dressage a bit on Friday.  I re-dug the drainage trenches in Murray’s paddock so it won’t be a big fat puddleswamp at the end of this downpour.

I got all up in my own head today about riding in the 3′ jumper class at the first local schooling show of 2015 (Superbowl Sunday, without fail), and let Murray just lose all power to three jumps in tonight’s lesson. I also started our warm up with a bit of a fight (listen to my leg MEOW, not when you want to!), so M wasn’t exactly pleased with me.  I shook it off and started singing the Jeopardy theme song to keep a rhythm and calm myself down.  (If you have rhythm problems you should totally sing aloud! It’s a crazy magic trick, I swear.)  We did a couple of bending lines — yellow to red and yellow to blue oxer — and the turns from the red to the left and right were pretty tight. So good work all around.  The best line was the diagonal combo — a 3 to a 2 stride — which Murray absolutely attacked. After a lackluster lesson to that point, I was pretty pleased.  Jumps were about 2’6″+ (our holes are drilled funny), so lots of room for confidence building and nothing scary.

We’ve been doing a little amateur whorlology at the barn, inspired by Foxpoint Farms and a blog post I read today and then promptly forgot — please link it to me if you know what one I’m talking about!  Murray has a single medium whorl in the middle of his forehead, so… according to swirlology he should have a pretty steady single personality? Yeah, not so sure that’s true.

He’s also got a sweet triple-ish whorl on his chest. Starts in the middle then feathers out on both sides, but unevenly.

Murray’s new BFF Connor has two high, tight ones so clearly he’s destined for greatness. But you could basically tell that by just looking at him.

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? I don’t know. Maybe I should call out the horse communicator.

This weekend I’m doing Second Thanksgiving, which is not unlike Friendsgiving, but I basically control the menu. We’re doing “Turchetta,” stuffing waffles,  and all kinds of extravagant foodstuffs.  I currently have two 13 lb turkeys thawing in my bath tub. It’s a good life.

My roommate and I like to stack our cats for fun.  Adopting a mini-me of my roommate’s cat was a good call.

That is all.