'The Noise'

After a fabulous weekend of horse shows, playing puppies and not-so-much-icing 'the knee,' I am one very tired gimpy kid. All was packed slowly today, methodically loaded in my '97 civic with 180k + miles on it. I pulled away slowly when it began...the noise. Nails on the chalkboard mixed with metal dragging across concrete, the wretched noise continues every time I put my foot on the gas. GREAT. Not so good. Before reaching the interstate, I turn around and headed back to my trusty farm family for the night. Oh me, oh my.

But like I said, we did have a deeply FABULOUS weekend! My trainer [who happens to be one of my very best friends] and her trainer [who happens to be her mother] went to a local show with SIX horses. After not a lot of sleep and a lot of packing - two horse trailers headed out on Saturday AM. In 100 degree Virginia heat and humidity, Nikki jumped more than 140 jumps, rode 4 dressage tests and only had one rail down all day long! EPIC! She won four blues, a second [with my new guy, Stew] and a third. Not bad for a twenty-something-young-lady looking to break into the professional equestrian business! Needless to say, we were more than impressed with her performance and took Sunday as a day of rest. Heck, even God himself took one day off!

Sleeping-in late, we moseyed to the lake and hung out on the dock with puppies dawned in their yellow life vests. We sunned, swam and slept. The only puppy who truly enjoyed swimming went in after fish, and upon putting a life vest on her, gave us quite a laugh: she turned around to swim back, lost her balance and rolled over while floating in the water. Her little rudder=like-tail was swirling and curling and her too-long body just kept rolling over and over again. Too funny! Later, we hung out and drank chocolate shakes with our store-bought-home-made box pizza! Excellent. What a wonderful day of rest it was.


My favorite shot of Catch 22 this weekend - He got 2nd!