Thursday, April 8, 2010

Rain Day

I just walked down to the barn for the morning feeding of the horses and I could see that the morning's rain had put serious weight on the blooms of the wysteria that covers the arbor in the garden, which also serves as the run in shed/shadey place for Tony, my Shetland pony stallion, ruler of this farm and of all the visable country side. This particular, and very vigorous wysteria is actually two plants, one is a purple variety and one is white. They are both large bloomers, big, heavy, massive and terrifically fragrant cascades of color blending together in a huge unkempt mound that is rapidly getting out of control. I did mean to prune it this year but one thing distracted me and then another and now it is the point of no return and the plant has escaped and run over it intended boundary and soon will be in a town near you. Beware.

Today is the day for my veterinarian to come to do the biannual routine of immunizations for the horses, general health check up, ect. The horses will get today off as well as tomorrow to recover from such trama they will endure today. Not really, but I figure they deserve time to let medications do their thing and let sore needle sites get over it,  and besides, it is raining.

I know that a better portion of the previous blogs I have written in the past months have been my whining about the rain, but that has been a pretty good while back now and I am over it. Things have pretty well dried up and life has been easier for it.  Since the last wetting, tho, the oak trees and pines have been putting out flowers and pollen like nothing I have ever experienced, covering any and every surface with a granular yellow/green sticky powder, totally filling nostrils (and you know what that means), and coloring everything with a sickly and palid patina. So today, the rain is a good thing. Sometimes it is good to take a bath, even for  Mother Earth.

Spring rains are really pretty here, especially when the leaves still are bright green and the flowers, like the overwhelming wysteria, are blooming. There is a peaceful and different sound to it, the dropping rain being slowed in its descent by the newly formed leaves. Thunder rolls somewhere off in the distance and the weather channel shows that this is a narrow front line and won't be too long in the neighborhood, nor too violent. The occasion of a rainy day is now a good thing, allowing me the excuse to be inside and tackle those things that I perpetually postpone on days of nice weather, like laundry, bill posting, house cleaning-NOT, some time spent pushing my water colour brushes, or maybe sewing a runner for my mother's dining table.

A glance at my dirty fingernails just now, shows my recent scratching on the silly fillies, the soon to be three year old half sisters, Cupcake and Cistine. It is just impossible to have clean hands around them. They are like monster size puppies, sometimes a bit rude but in a childlike way, in their demanding attention and a good thorough scratching of their necks, shoulders, and especially under their chins. They are shedding their winter coats and are just beginnning to emerge, like butterflies from coccoons, revealing the changes in their growth from the recent winter months. Soon it will be time for their innocent and carefree world to change. They will do like all the others preceeding them, and go thru the process of learning to be a working horse, ridden, maybe driven, and hopefully become trustworthy and a safe partners without too many bumps along the way.

Since the passing of my gelding Atlas,  a good thing is that I have found myself getting reaquainted with his mother Robijn. Robijn was one of the young mare mares I bought many years ago now, to be a baby hotel and just keep pushing new foals into the world. She did this quite well up until the last few years and for unknown reasons has not been able to keep that which she concieves. My intention then had been to sell her and move on to other things, and nearly did. In the process of cleaning her up though, getting her tidy for presentation to a potential buyer, and also giving her the short course in how to be ridden again after years off, I made a surprising discovery. It is like working with a ghost, she is so much like Atlas, hardwired the exact same way in action and reaction. What I had been puzzled by with her when I broke her as a three year old, I know now how to handle, having just spent the past year dealing with her son, who had the same reaction to things. Usually its the other way around, that in dealing with the adult first, you have clues as to the offspring. Robijn has been delightful to work with, and so this has been a nice unexpected gift.

After a break here to go get all the vet stuff done, back in the house now, rain is over and puddles are lined with yellow powder, and the air has thankfully been cleared. Heidi, my German Shepherd, is softly snoring on her bed in the corner of the living room and the tea is steaping, waiting for me to finish this, so I can do some of those things I said I might get done on a rainy day. Maybe. I will just have to see which distraction gets me first. There is always something. 

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