Downtime and Done Time

Another weekend bites the dust. Shoot!

Do any of you make “To Do” lists? Well, I do and I managed to knock a few things off this weekend, but still fit in some doing nothing time.

The weather on both Saturday and Sunday was gorgeous, although at this point of extreme dryness and dead pasture and bushes, I’d rather have a weekend of rain. But since we had sunshine, one does have to make the best of it.

Much of Saturday was just slow moving relaxation. Saturday morning, I went to an art show called “50 on 50th”, held in Edina, MN. Portions of Edina are pretty upscale and I always feel like a country bumpkin when I see all of them, there, fancy, city folk.

My friend Sue had her art at the show. I really wanted one of her leafy tree branches but she had sold out most of her art pieces in the first hour the show was opened so I’ll wait and see what she has at her summer sale. You can see a video of Sue’s welding process on YouTube.

After that, we ate at the Edina Grill, where I had a delicious chicken salad and had a primo view of the passing peoples.

Back home, played Java frisbee for a bit, tried to get my bike rear brakes to work but they seem to be broken, got my planters filled with black dirt, rested and enjoyed the sun for awhile, put planters around the pool and house, and yelled at Java to get off the pool cover.

She is so anxious to be back in the water. The snow melt must have put quite a bit of water into the pool as Java’s weight on the cover brings the water up through it, and she thinks it’s very amusing to splash across the surface. I try to keep her off but it’s somewhat of a losing battle and well, kind of funny, and you know how much I enjoy something funny.

And all of this fun was followed by grilled hamburgers and baking a batch of cookies. There’s nothing quite like a beer and chocolate chip cookies to make the day so gosh darn perfect.

Sunday after church, I first rode Luke, who was his usual hard working self.

Then I rode Murphy, who was his usual lazy self. It was his first time under saddle but he’s so lazy, I just got on him and rode. Murphy felt kind of odd and I plan to try some glucosamine to see if that makes a difference. He wasn’t off-off, but he wasn’t quite right either. This is me scratching my head trying to figure it out.

The neighbor and his little bitty daughter came over to see the “horsey”. Murphy was very thankful for the petting break.

These are my two lovely boys after I’ve washed them and they’ve thanked me by rolling in the dirt. Just lovely…

I hope to do an actual trail ride in a couple more weeks. Yeah!

The saddle girth and the two pads I used were so hairy and sweaty that I decided to try and clean them up a bit.

I then used some of the Super Poo horse shampoo (hey, I didn’t name it!) so if there was any residue, it wouldn’t be some detergent that would irritate their skin.

Then I hosed the shampoo out and hung everything on the fence to dry.

I went out to check the fence line and discovered an extender was pulled off a t-post but realized I hadn’t shut off the fence and didn’t feel like getting jolted so I left it for another day to fix. The horses won’t be out in that pasture for quite awhile if we don’t get any rain. Nothing is growing out there.

I finished off the day with coffee ice cream with Heath bars broken up on top. The best!

Food, frolicking, and special folks made for another great weekend!