Truthful Tuesday

 

Heh heh... Today's confession? My quest for fun jump decor may be my undoing one of these days. So you know the palm trees that I was so ridiculously excited for? (I still am. They're probably one of my most favorite things.) Anyway, you remember them. Eros keeps plucking the fronds out of them when he's turned out. I keep sticking them back in, but I think I need to find a more permanent solution. Because today it was very windy and they kept blowing out. Which would also be fine if I didn't own Al... The flight response is VERY HIGH when those things go flying around! But also, E must have really pulled on the one tree because I didn't realize its base was no longer under the standards. And today was ridiculously windy. Which is a challenge in itself with this ridiculous herd of horses I have. (Not Shiny. She doesn't care about wind. Usually.) I can imagine you see where this is going... THANKFULLY I was on Shiny when it happened. I was cantering down the long side toward the barn and I heard the little skeletons moving around on the standards from the wind as I cantered by. When all of a sudden Shiny just BOLTED down the rest of the long side. I at first thought she was just spooking at the sound the skeletons were making which is unlike her, but we all do weird things sometimes. But no. What she spooked at was the palm tree falling over. (It was behind us so I didn't see.) She hates when stuff falls. That's the one thing she will spook at consistently. Rails falling, the hay tree falling, whatever. She doesn't like that. Thankfully it's Shiny so the bolt was short. And then she went and sniffed the tree and all was fine again.

But that's not all! You know my cute little autumn maple trees? The ones that are starting to look more like winter maple trees thanks to Eros the plucker... Yeah those. Well. I have water bags on them to hold them down because I learn from past mistakes. (To be fair, there is also a water bag on the palm tree but it was shifted thanks to the plucker.) Anyway, despite my water bags, one of the maple trees blew over during my ride today too. Only I wasn't on Shiny for that one. I was on Al! He also bolted away from it, but thankfully went straight and didn't spin. Much like Shiny, Al doesn't bolt and keep running because while a spooky knuckle head, he is also very unmotivated. So it was no big deal. He did have to very slowly go over and sniff the fallen tree, but once we got through that he was over it. The wind was a bit more of a struggle for him, but we actually got a lot done in our ride even if it wasn't quite the ride I had planned. But we'll chat more about that tomorrow. Hopefully. If I don't forget again! Ha! 

So yeah. That's today's confession. My jump decor was trying to kill me, and I have no one to blame but myself. And Mother Nature. I can blame her.