Just Some Tuesday Thoughts

Those strands of grass grow in my wheelbarrow flower bed, which my sisters gave me for a birthday present a few years back.  I liked the clump of grass mixed in with all the colorful posies, so the grass has been allowed to stay. 

Each year the grass comes back and puts on an ongoing and impressive show of its own accenting whatever flowers I happen to plant in the wheelbarrow. 

Having gone to seed, the tall strands are particularly pretty right now.

Yesterday turned out to be a rather busy day around the place with Terra coming to work with Lefty and with other lawn grass in dire need of a trim. 

This is the final week of official 4-H horse activity for our young neighbor, Terra.  This weekend she'll show Lefty in showmanship at halter and in walk-trot at the annual 4-H horse show. 

For the past several weeks, she has become very accustomed to reminders from adults to "sit up straight," "collect," "keep eyes on where you intend to go," or "keep eyes on the judge and eyes on your horse."  

Terra's a 10-year-old trooper aka "sponge."  She happily takes in all the new and oft-repeated lingo and impressively applies it.  As a result, she has come along phenomenally in her first year of working with and learning about horses. 

We don't know how things will turn out when she goes into some actual competition, but those of us who have worked with her are very proud of her progress and especially her willingness to do what it takes to become an accomplished horse woman.

Terra has dealt with numerous responsibilities that go along with horsemanship.  That ranges from picking up poop to daily grooming to saddling to clipping, etc.  

Thanks to  guidance from several adults, she has learned to be as independent as possible for a 10-year-old, without someone hovering over her every move.  

Yesterday's session of grooming, showing and practicing equitation ended with a ride through our entire woods where I had brush-hogged trails the day before. 

I walked along with a set of limb trimmers, snipping off pesky branches that require riders to duck while plodding down the trails. Except for one small segment of the trail network, we won't need to duck on future rides in the woods.

At one point, I snipped dozen more branches in one section of the woods while Terra picked her pathways and rode and rode and rode with total confidence and control. 

It was fun to reflect while watching her and snipping those branches how just a few weeks ago, Terra had climbed on Lefty for the first time in the round pen.  

For the majority of that ride, Lefty took pretty much whatever route he chose, and often walked directly over to his human Mom standing at the gate.  

That's past history.  

Lefty now goes where Terra wants him to go and without much fuss. 

This experience has also taken me back to the days when I was about 10 and could not sew a straight seam, even after half a dozen attempts.  

Eleanor Delamarter---who with the patience of Job---spent hours and hours trying to help this helpless klutz make any remnant of progress at the sewing machine.  Indeed, it was an heroic effort on the part of Eleanor but lost cause, or so it seemed. 

Now, 60 years later, I so appreciate the sacrifices that Eleanor made in my behalf and kinda think that the lifetime friendship that evolved from all those hours spent in her bedroom at her sewing machine may have made up for what failed to happen with needle and thread. 

In my case, I think there's obviously substantially more aptitude and skill.  Could be, too, that Terra might have a bit more passion for horses than I did for sewing.  

After all, during that third year of sewing tackling those insidious flat-felt seams on flannel pajama legs, my mother did promise me that if I completed the project, I would never have to take sewing again, thus freeing me to concentrate more on my horse project.

I've never have asked Terra if she likes to sew, and I don't need to ask her if she likes horses. Her smile and the fact that she would have ridden for hours through our woods yesterday tells me what I need to know.

It's been a phenomenal and wonderful experience. 

Happy Tuesday. 

Thanks, Barbara and Laurie for the new splash of color next to my wheel-barrel posies.  

And, I must say that it's really special to have a sister who knows how to use her dexterity much better than I did at the sewing machine.

Laurie is the beader in the family, and I wore my new birthday bracelet with pride yesterday afternoon, while driving around taking photos and listening to Ed Sharon.

This "old-as-a-rock" soul truly appreciates her more youthful "but retired" sisters.