Another Christmas for Dolly at Windflower
Minka, Our Very Own Christmas Elf
For those of you new to my blog, Minka is our calico kitty that we adopted from the MSPCA at Nevins Farm little over half a year ago. She'd been found wandering around outside the shelter. (People often abandon animals at shelters during non-business hours to avoid paying a surrender fee.) When found she was wearing a collar and smelled of perfume. Perhaps the person who abandoned her held her during the car ride. Minka is a calico, and though I've heard from a number of sources that calicoes can be quite nasty, Minka is a love. She is also the most psychologically secure cat we've ever owned. She's interested in anything and everything that I, Jim, or the dogs happen to be doing, and is more than happy to introduce what she, no doubt, believes to be a better project or game.
Here's but one example: years and years ago Jim's uncle built a beautiful wooden play wagon for Jim and his brother when they were little boys. After it had served its childhood duties, it was put away, only to return to Jim years later. I had a glass cover made
for it, and we now use it as a coffee table. For each major holiday or season I remove the glass and decorate the interior. This fall, for example, pumpkins, gourds, and miniature Indian corn were bedded down in hay requisitioned from the barn.
For Christmas I decided to fill it with artificial snow and a mirror serving as a frozen pond for skating. Of course, while I turned away to collect figurines and the mirror, little Miss Minka decided to fill the wagon with . . . herself:
Minka in the Christmas wagon Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2013
Adding figurines met with additional interference:
from wandering onto my mirror pond.
Yielding to Minka's determined sense of play, I pulled the wagon a few feet, sure that she, made nervous by motion, would hop out. Au contraire, she loved it, and so I spent nearly twenty minutes giving her a wagon ride around and around the house. Eventually the glass top went on and Ms. Kitty was decidedly put out. She furiously scratched at the glass, hoping to banish it so she could get back in to demolish a few more figurines, or perhaps catch another ride. The glass would not yield. I'm keeping my eye out for a Minka-sized doll carriage so she can be wheeled around the house in a manner befitting a royal member, in fact, the only royal member, of our household.
Morning Becomes Electra
Last week we had our first real snow, and by "real" I mean deep enough to trot or gallop my horses through the woods and not worry about their hooves whacking New England rocks. I wish I had pictures to show you, but you can't be a jockey and a photographer at the same time. That lesson I learned over ten years ago while riding Tica in the ocean at Crane Beach. I was determined to take a shot of the shadow cast by her head on the churning surf. Quite stupidly, I was leaning over to get a better angle when a sizable wave spooked Tica. I went flying off head first. Cold water (it was November) and bubbles everywhere! When I surfaced I had a hard time staying on my two feet with the waves rolling in. My shoulder felt like a hot poker was being repeatedly jabbed into it. After a two-mile ride over bumpy sand in the rescue jeep, followed by a couple of hundred feet of bone rattling on a small gurney--broken bones rattle more--the ambulance ride was sublime. While apologizing to the nurse for dumping a couple of pounds of sand in the ER when they got me out of my sopping wet clothes, Tica and beloved Amada were being trailered back to Acton. Jim was en route to the hospital.
So, no riding shots this time, but lots of pasture ones of the horses and dogs the morning just after the winter storm named "Electra" exited stage northeast:
Dolly breaking hay with Logan:
Firefly
Sweet Dolly almost always comes running when I call:
Now Off!
Firefly:
Bella and Clem take refuge in the barn:
And, finally, Juliane's horse Logan's special Christmas wish:
"Logan, she really is taking you. Just hang in there, buddy, only one more storm to go--and it's named 'Falco'!"
However, between the storms Electra and Falco I took a quick run up to the Costco store in Nashua, New Hampshire, to order some eyeglasses. There was a customer with her young son ahead of me. While the technician placed her order we had the following brief exchange:
Customer: Snowstorms are tough when you've got to deal with four cars in your driveway.
Me: And it's tough when you've got to feed and water your horses, too.
Technician: You've got horses? I love horses.
Customer (with great animation): You're a rider, right?
The only thing equestrian about me were riding tights and the coat I wear out to the barn. But perhaps I was emanating some sort of classy equestrian vibe.
Me: Why yes, I am.
Customer: I knew there had to be a reason you were dirty!
Some of you may remember the story I told in my entry about taking Elementa to the University of New Hampshire dressage show (http://windflowerfarmweekly.blogspot.com/2013/09/my-young-horse-elementa-and-her-first.html). A volunteer at the Show Secretary's table said that she had read my novel Trophies over twenty years earlier. She said her mother read it first and blacked out all the sex scenes with a magic marker. She then said, "And that's why I remember your book!"
So, my novel was remembered for over twenty years because of marked out "dirty" sex scenes, and now I'm identified as a rider, because I had a swipe of dirt across my winter riding tights. What can I say other than I now feel a great deal of empathy with the Peanuts character Pigpen.
Snowstorm Falco
So now we had a total of fifteen inches on the ground. Then the temperature went up to a balmy thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit (3.5 Celsius):
Logan breakfasting with Elementa
Dolly and Firefly decide to have a race
Dolly (I used some Photoshop filters on this)
Here are Juliane and Elementa enjoying a snow ride:
We did manage to keep our lesson program going. Zoey (pictured below) is one of the ones I call our "Intrepids," students who ride through the winter. She came inside to wait for her father and to warm up. She did this with loving help from Minka and Clem.
Juliane and Logan To Florida
This past week a huge horse trailer pulled into our cul-de-sac and picked up Logan, Juliane's horse. His Christmas wish came true, and he is now in Florida. Juliane will follow him down after the Christmas. She will be a working student for a dressage trainer near Wellington. It is a fabulous opportunity for her. Many top dressage trainers and riders--a number are Olympians--migrate to the sunshine state where they enter first-rate competitions. I'm sure Juliane will advance quickly in this sport, to which she plans to dedicate her life. She won't be back until May. Her students and I will miss her acutely.
Finally, I want to leave you with some lyrics I wrote to be sung to the music of The Twelve Days of Christmas:
A Dressage Christmas Carol
Lyrics by Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2013
(To be sung to the music of
the Twelve Days of Christmas)
The
first show this season was not the best for me:
It rained
so hard we couldn’t even see.
The
second show this season was not the best for me:
My
horse lost two front shoes,
And
it rained so hard we couldn’t even see.
The
third show this season was not the best for me:
Was
that the judge’s bell?
My
horse lost two front shoes,
And
it rained so hard we couldn’t even see.
The
fourth show this season was not the best for me:
My
stock tie came undone.
Was
that the judge’s bell?
My
horse lost two front shoes.
And
it rained so hard we couldn’t even see.
The
fifth show this season was not the best for me:
Where
are my gloves?
My
stock tie came undone.
Was
that the judge’s bell?
My horse lost two front shoes.
My horse lost two front shoes.
And
it rained so hard we couldn’t even see.
The
sixth show this season was not the best for me.
My horse was a-leaping.
Where
are my gloves?
My
stock tie came undone.
Was
that the judge’s bell?
My
horse threw two front shoes.
And
it rained so hard we couldn’t even see.
The
seventh show this season was not the best for me.
The
judges all were sleeping.
My horse was a-leaping.
Where
are my gloves?
My
stock tie came undone.
Was
that the judge’s bell?
My
horse lost two front shoes.
And
it rained so hard we couldn’t even see.
The
eighth show this season was not the best for me.
The judges now are sleeping
The judges now are sleeping
My
horse was a-leaping.
Where
are my gloves?
My
stock tie came undone.
Was
that the judge’s bell?
My
horse lost two front shoes.
And
it rained so hard we couldn’t even see.
The
ninth show this season was not the best for me.
Fifties
we keep scoring
The
judges now are weeping ,
My horse was a-leaping.
Where
are my gloves?
My
stock tie came undone.
Was
that the judge’s bell?
My
horse lost two front shoes.
And
it rained so hard we couldn’t even see.
The tenth show this season was not the best for me.
Debts
are a-soaring.
Fifties
we keep scoring,
Judges now are weeping,
My
horse is a-leaping.
Where
are my gloves?
My
stock tie came undone.
Was
that the judge’s bell?
My
horse lost two front shoes.
And
it rained so hard we couldn’t even see.
The
eleventh show this season was not the best for me.
Dressage
I am deploring,
Debts
are a-soaring.
Fifties
we keep scoring.
The
judges now are weeping.
My
horse is a-leaping.
Where
are my gloves?
My
stock tie came undone.
Was
that the judge’s bell?
My
horse lost two front shoes.
And
it rained so hard we couldn’t even see.
The
twelfth show this season marked a change for me.
Now
we are passag-ing,
So
well it is alarming.
Leads
are a-changing.
Extensions
are amazing.
Piaffe
is beguiling.
Judges
clearly smiling.
We
are the best!
I
can’t believe we won.
It
was so much fun.
My
horse was such a dear.
And
we can’t wait to show next year!
Dolly and me James Engell copyright 2013
Have a wonderful holiday and Merry Christmas!
Ainslie, Dolly and all the critters at Windflower Farm.
Thank you for reading The Windflower Weekly. See you soon.
Ainslie
http://www.rubysvoiceequine.com/index.asp
Have a wonderful holiday and Merry Christmas!
Ainslie, Dolly and all the critters at Windflower Farm.
Thank you for reading The Windflower Weekly. See you soon.
Ainslie
http://www.amazon.com/Trophies-An-Equestrian-Romance-ebook/dp/B00998J2B2
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-kaleidoscope-pony-ainslie-sheridan/1114272809?ean=2940015948592
http://www.allhorsestuff.com/
http://www.facebook.com/YonkersShelter
http://www.saveyourassrescue.org/foradoption.html
