Torrential Downpours and Tales from the Funny Farm

The city I live in is very odd. It is on a river (like my hometown) and so it should have a nice breeze in the summer. Instead the summers here are usually blistering hot, and the city is like a bubble with the temperature being sometimes very dissimilar to other cities in the province. It also doesn't rain here very much, but when the skies open up, it usually results in a torrential downpour like today.

I wasn't going to ride today mostly because I hurt my back yesterday cleaning up the indoor arena from the loose hay that some of the horses had demolished on their night free in there. In fact, apparently it has been quite entertaining at the barn these last few nights. When I got there yesterday, my barn owner's husband was fixing one of the stalls. It is the only stall without bars and the horse in that stall can put his head out. I always wanted one of those for Walker but I now understand why it is a problem. Apparently the horse in that stall was letting the horse in the stall next to him loose in the barn every night! Quite an impressive talent, I must say, but the first ones to get into the barn the next day would find the horse wandering the halls and were also usually met by the donkey who was drop kick opening the door to the indoor arena (where he was turned out with another horse) and was wreaking havoc on the barn.

For all of you people out there who think donkeys are cute, let me just say that they live up to their stubborn personalities. I have led that donkey down the hall a million times and he walks at a snail pace - unless of course he's free and then he'll tear around the yard like lightning. He's also strong, and although horses are strong as well, horses have boundaries which donkeys clearly do not. I have been drug down halls and slammed into walls by that donkey too many times to count and apparently there isn't a farrier in the whole city who will even go near that animal's feet. There is never a full moment in a barn.

Anyway, unfortunately I'm not going to make it to the barn tonight because of the downpour and the rain - also because I'm swamped this week with law school and some of the committees I'm on. I probably won't make it out until Thursday and I'll definitely miss my lesson Wednesday. Hopefully Walker will stay in a somewhat well-mannered mood so that we can pick up where we left off :s

But for the meantime, I'll leave you with a quote from John Wayne:

You have no idea how true that is, John!