It was supposed to rain today, in the afternoon. It did not. I don’t know if this was just a break in the rainy weather and more is to come, or if this is a trend. I hope that it’s the latter.

I’m getting wiser as I’m getting older. I did some project administrativa in the morning then headed outside in the afternoon. I did not come back inside for any length of time until it was dark.

Our friend Daniel came over with his three children. I hadn’t seen him or the kids in 5 years. He was persistent – he called often this past week, wanted to see if I could give his daughter Piper, age 10, riding lessons.

Hrimmi with pack saddle

The father, daughters, and one son appeared around 2 p.m. Piper was the one in the battered cowboy hat and wearing oversized glasses. Daniel and I quickly sorted things out. Lessons for Piper, in exchange for giving me an assist with the horses. An assist means helping me brush them and tack them up. Eva, age seven, said she wanted to watch. Bubba, age three, he wanted to check out everything but the horses.

The first thing I told all the family members is that if you are going to have horses, you have to have a manure management plan. I added that they ought not patronize those places in which horses are hanging out in their poop because such horses are unhappy. I don’t think this registered with Piper, Eva, or Juda (I called him Bubba). But it did resonate with their dad.

We started out brushing Tinni, so that he felt like he was a part of things, then I got Hrimfara out. She was extremely dirty – I figured I’d take advantage of the free labor and get her cleaned up. Piper is, as I was as a child, is a reader. She actually knew the names of the parts of the horse, saddle, and bridle. The kids came with treats, both Tinni and Hrimmi got some.

Piper immediately had an affinity with Hrimmi because they are both the same age, 10.

The brushing went well, as did tacking up Hrimmi. I lead Piper down the road after giving her a brief lesson in mounting up. I asked, and she said that she was nervous. She said this was because she couldn’t reach the stirrups. So I shortened them for her.

The riding lesson went really well – Hrimmi was a superstar. We went down the road a bit. Hrimmi walked, whoed, moved sideways, and backed, with just a smidgeon of assistance from me. I’d actually never seen her do this well with someone else on her.

After, Eva said that she’d like to go for a ride. She got really nervous, so we cut her ride short. What I learned from this is that 10 is a good age to start to learn to ride.

After, I took Hrimmi, Tyra, and Raudi, in that order, for rides on our trails. The hunters were noticeably absent today. Just 11 more days to go. . . .

Next: 253. 9/15/22: And again, Rain