Monday-morning debrief

~~~Lovely Miss Lily before the horse show.~~~

Laurie always starts her each ride with the snaffle bit. Then comes the hackamore.

Laurie has a brand-new bosel for the hackamore (it's the rawhide noseband). Lily has a brand-new raw spot on her nose from the hackamore, so the hackamore now has some padding.

Yesterday was a busy day. Up at 4:45, on the road to Coeur d'Alene at 6:45.

As usual, the horse show was a "hurry up and wait," but it's nice to be there in time to settle nerves and make sure everything is in place.

After Laurie worked Lily from the ground and in the warm-up ring, I climbed on and rode her around for about an hour before my class.

Finally, we were called into the arena, which Lily had never seen before. She immediately shied at the announcer's stand, right in front of the judge. Shying is uncharacteristic for her, but ya can't blame a young horse when they're seeing some stuff for the very first time in their lives.

Other than the initial infraction, she performed well with her old sack of potatoes on top. We took third in a class of six or seven, which was fine with me. I just didn't want to embarrass my sisters.

Laurie rode her in three classes, two very competitive with veteran riders and horses. She took a third in Appaloosa pleasure and did well in the other two classes.

My sisters want me to start pouring the grain to Lily and bulking her up. Laurie's even talked about a fake tail for shows next year. I'm not thrilled about that prospect, but these days fake tails are in---------and ugly, if you ask me.

All in all, we had a great day at the Coeur d'Alene show and came home quite satisfied with Lily's behavior and her performances.

On the way home, we stopped at Wendy's and had lunch. Before leaving, Barbara went back up to the counter and ordered a single hamburger---no lettuce or tomatoes----for her Blue Heeler Pita who accompanied us to the show.

~~~~~

We arrived home in late afternoon, and Bill arrived home with Kiwi and Kea an hour later from a fishing trip up Grouse Creek.

We had tickets to the last night of The Festival, compliments of Trish and The River Journal. Thank you, Trish.

I was dead tired, but I knew Bill wanted to go listen to the Spokane Symphony and its Benny Goodman theme. So, we took off and arrived in time for Dyno to be making announcements and introducing a young pianist, Zach Baker, who won the Festival music scholarship this year.

He played a piece by Chopin and then the symphony came to the stage. Shortly into the program, the symphony conductor Gary Sheldon introduced clarinetist Richard Stolzman, who wowed the audience throughout.

I don't even have words to describe the phenomenal drummer who almost stole the show.

It was a great performance, punctuated profoundly at the end with a rip-roaring fireworks show.

Long day, lots going on, but some fun memories.