Things are moving right along here seasonally. Leaves are mostly out on the trees, garden is as planted as it's going to get, spring flowers are blooming, all a little late this year, and of course we've had the first big rain of the year, this past weekend being the first outdoor horse show of the season. Everyone at Ebon stables worked like fiends to get the riding rings and grounds looking good for the show, then the skies opened up, submerging most of the outdoor rings and causing general chaos. Since this is close to standard operating procedure at summer shows, everyone rallied and various work-arounds were arranged at the last minute, but it was a disappointment since when the weather co-operates, these shows can be such fun. As it turned out, it was just another endurance test for horses, riders and viewers, but that's the way of horse shows.
I just passed through the show site briefly due to the extremely poor lighting, winds and pelting rain of the first day. In addition, I had done something dreadful to my back the previous day and could barely hobble around, and certainly not in anything approaching an upright position, so I wasn't too sorry that the weather allowed me to cut short my show photos and go home to rest up. Day two was an improvement in that it wasn't actively raining, but the rings were still very muddy and mostly unusable. It was very cold, 5 degrees C /41 F at 11 in the morning when I headed out to do photos in the jumper ring, and at one point there were actually a few flakes of snow falling from the sky. I managed to log about four hours before my hands stopped functioning (not having thought I'd need gloves in June) and I called it a day. I only warmed up again that night after I crawled into bed as an act of desperation to get myself defrosted. Of course today, now that the weekend has passed, has been supremely lovely. It's hard not to feel just a *little* bitter, but we have to be grateful for every nice day that comes our way, whenever it appears.
Shot one was taken after a wildly windy couple of days that took the blossoms off the neighbour's tree. The petals were piled up in the driveway, as in this shot, and in great drifts all along the curb, still scenting the air with their perfume. This cluster caught my eye as it is almost in a heart shape. I thought about helping it along shape-wise before taking the shot, but the purist in me didn't want to adulterate the found image, so I didn't. Kind of an odd stance for someone so devoted to creating totally unreal visuals in Photoshop, but there you have it.
Shot two is from the weekend horse show, and shows the kind of slop the rain created in many of the rings. This was in a warm-up ring. The actual jump ring, with sand footing, was less sloppy and indeed I didn't see any horses slip or have problems with the footing in the jump ring, allowing that portion of the show to carry on without too many problems.
Shot three is a close crop of an incoming jumper just lifting off.
I always like to play with close crops at the shows. My eye was caught by the linear quality of the reins and breastplate on this horse, and I liked the lively contrast of the scarlet saddle pad with the black of the horse. The black horse reminds me that when I was at a meeting in the country this afternoon, I could view the highway from where I was sitting, and saw at least four big RCMP Musical Ride horse trailers heading west. They will be on tour to various small towns in Saskatchewan this month, and I hope to make it to one of the closer venues to get some photos. If it isn't raining, that is!!
Shot five shows the "lion dog" who is resident at the farm where my meeting was taking place. He apparently gets hot in the warmer months, and tends to have a lot of matts in his hair, so he gets this annual haircut for the summer months. Quite striking, to say the least! It certainly got *my* attention at any rate.
