A good do-over day

At the (almost) end of the day, I'm glad I declared a do-over. Even dinner ended up being a semi-repeat. I tried making red-hot chicken bites last night, and H informed me they were okay, but soggy. Tonight I went a slightly different route, and seared them on the stove but let them finish in the oven. No turning required, evidently = crispy chicken. Who knew?

We tried the riding thing again tonight after supper, and although I bagged saddling, and just hopped on bareback with a halter, it was good.

A brief snippet

After I rode we fooled with the rest of the horses. I'll miss them this week so I wanted a good horse fix before I left. And I wanted some good shots to show the folks. Too, having read about Chase over on Less is More, maybe I wanted some time to just be grateful. Horses are so big and real, it's easy to forget just how fragile they are.

It's incredibly scary to watch a horse go down and get up hopping. The farm lost a yearling filly that way a couple of years ago. Out playing with her yearmates, one minute they were tearing around letting off steam, and the next she was rolling ears over teakettle. She came up with a broken leg. It's tragic and awful and scary to contemplate, and I'm so sorry to hear it's happened to someone else.

Visitors! And a plan for the week

I'm a horrible correspondent. I like to write, don't get me wrong; I've started more letters to various people than they'll ever know. I'm just slow to finish and usually fail to send them. Cards for birthdays, anniversaries, and graduations are routinely belated.

Since I also loathe, detest, and despise calling people (although I love it when they call me...), I'm just not very good at staying in touch.

Which brings me to the visitors - a couple of weeks back I had a letter out of the blue from a very good correspondent, who also happens to be my college roommate. She writes lovely long letters, which I read, enjoy, and to which, with great frequency I generally fail to respond (guilt, guilt, guilt!).

Long story short, she and her family are coming to SD, and stopped in for a visit. We're just on the far western edge of their loop. They're doing a Laura Ingalls Wilder-tracking trip - how cool is that! In the process they've covered multiple states (all the way from Massachusetts).

They camped (in a covered wagon) at the Ingalls Homestead in De Smet - their three girls, who are absolutely adorable - were fascinated by the giant Percheron teams, the calf, the sod houses, and especially taken with the kittens :) M, their middle daughter, starts school this year. She was thrilled with prairie school, ringing the bell, slates, and carrying your lunch in a syrup pail. As her mom said, the first day of modern school may be something of a shock, but hopefully not a disappointment!

After joining us in Mitchell for a supper and a quick (and damp) visit to the (World Famous!) Corn Palace in the pouring rain, they headed back for camp and one more day in South Dakota before trekking homeward. It was wonderful to see them, and I've renewed my vow to be better about writing.

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Tonight the farrier comes back to finish the four untrimmed horses. Hopefully, he'll be on time and I can get a ride or two in post-trimming. Here are my goals for the rest of the week:

• Sunny: continue working across ground poles, and on circles & bending & transitions
  
• Lace & Pennie: clean up manes & thorough grooming, and some good pictures
• Riding
  
• Star: thorough grooming & some good pictures.
  
• Thunder & Amyra: "post time" saddled & groundwork

Ideally, I'll actually accomplish most of that!

A change of plans

You know what they say about best-laid plans and contact with the enemy? Well, our plans to attend the rodeo last night didn't survive, either!

We have a book of tickets... somewhere. Of course, it would be helpful if we could find them. Sigh. We turned the house upside down, checked work offices, and then gave up for the evening. Hopefully they'll turn up today. Otherwise we'll go with Plan B, once we decide what that is.

To be perfectly honest, I think I'd be happy enough to get up early, take the kids fishing, and then to the rodeo parade, and spend the rest of the afternoon doing hores-y things.

I got a phone call last night asking if I wanted to ride in the parade. My trail-riding friends are representing a boarding facility where she works part-time doing books, and I have ridden through with them a couple of times in the past. On finding out that they're entry number one hundred one of 150 entries, well... I told her I'd think about it.

The parade starts at 10:30 AM. Logically, they want everyone lined up well in advance so as to minimize the obligatory confusion as much as possible. The last time I rode, I think we waited 2 hours in 109' heat before our part of the parade so much as wiggled. The blacktop was melting under the horse's hooves!

Here's a map of the parade route:

View Larger Map

All the horses unload at the high school and then trek to wherever their entry number designates they line up. The parade finishes up somewhere around D, and everybody meanders back to trailers & cars by whatever route.

I just don't think I'm up to it this year. Maybe I'll do the Parade of Lights in November. That's fun, although chilly, and since it's after dark no one's allowed to throw candy which means there's less chance of a toddler darting out and squishing under Sunny's hooves. I don't worry much at all, notice!