Current

The Weather I think every place I ever lived had the saying "Don't like the weather? Wait 5 minutes!" Yesterday was freakily gorgeous. It's the end of January in Nebraska for heaven's sakes and it was in the mid 60's - very warm, and no wind. I decided to ride Murphy up the hill and spend some quality time with him. He seems happiest when he's doing something. So after grooming and tacking, I let him warm up in the roundpen for maybe 10 minutes. All looked well, and as I was about to mount and ride, a wind came up! Ack! Oh well, he's not as weird about wind as alot of horses I've ridden, and it really wasn't that much wind, so off we went.

He was about like I expected, a little jigging 'cause he wanted to move out. I wouldn't let him because a) I wanted to walk for a bit and b) we have tons of gopher holes and since I was trying a new path, I had to look out for them. Oddly enough, I was pretty confident on this ride. (I don't know why I keep scaring myself; I am a decent rider.) I got him to relax and actually walk, we accomplished what I wanted to do. I decided to ride past his paddock and down the driveway to get the mail. I think my next trick is to learn how to open the mailbox without dismounting - it's a little low, but I think it's doable if I get Murphy to mind.

Oh yes, I called this "The Weather", and I'm wandering about on horseback. Ok, so about an hour after our ride, Dick says "Honey, want me to bring in the laundry? It's really blowing out there." I look out the window, and all I can see is dust!!! oh and tumbleweeds in fast motion. So he brought in the laundry and I went out to find the dogs. I got the dogs, but it's so windy I can hardly see! The horses are frantic in the paddock. There are (heavy) steel sheets that are flapping around. Better bring the horses in. The pony came right in and turned to watch the weather. Murphy ran into the barn once but got scared and ran out. It took some coaxing, but I got him in to his stall, where he paced and shook his head and tried to pee. Dick came to check on us - I decided to close up the whole barn and get into the house. We didn't know if this would be a tornado or what!

There was a little rain, but not much. 15 minutes later, the sky was still a little cloudy, but the wind was back to normal (not dead calm), the air smelled sweat and we could see sunshine in the distance. I think it was just a squall! I opened the barn door, but kept the animals in, since it was only another hour til sunset.