I forgot!!

In a first for the many years I have been doing this blog, I totally forgot to do a new post yesterday. It was a lovely long weekend but as long weekends can do, it left me a bit unmoored as to the day of the week, and it wasn't until I woke up at 2AM that it suddenly struck me that it wasn't Sunday, it was Monday, and I had missed my weekly blog update. Oh well, the sun still rose and the earth continues to turn, so apparently there are no serious consequences this time. If I make a habit of this, who knows?? 

Lots of horse photos this week. I did something terrible to my lower back as a result of spending the better part of two days sitting on wooden backless bleachers getting dressage show shots a week ago. I've been pretty non-functional a lot of the time since then as regards normal activities. I did want to try riding towards the end of the week, but knew that Alpac would need a bit of a blow-out before I got on. Here he is in one of the larger turnout pens where he had a good run to get rid of some pent-up energy. In this shot he is pausing for a brief scratch. Insect life is rampant these days and the poor horses are quite tormented by them. In his normal turnout mode Alpac has a fly sheet on, but there are still lots of bits sticking out for the various flies to get at. He's still pretty flexible for an older guy if this posture is anything to go by. 

This weekend saw the second annual gaited horse show at the exhibition grounds, and I stopped by briefly en route to a jumping clinic south of the city where I was photographing a few clients. This is one of the gaited horses (likely a Peruvian Paso), photographed as it cruised the warm-up ring outdoors.

 As I was getting the warm-up ring shots, there was a sudden clatter of hooves on pavement and this young Thoroughbred came pounding across the parking lot and over to the turnout where the Peruvian was. Loose horses can get into and cause a lot of trouble very quickly, so I grabbed the little bit of rope hanging from the halter and stood there holding the horse and awaiting further developments. Soon enough a "chase" car appeared and a man got out ready to take the horse from me. The man in question turned out to be a farrier friend of mine that I haven't run into for most of the past decade, since he no longer lives in this city. Small world. The horse had broken off the hot walker and headed west, but no harm done, and it was nice to get a chance to say hello to a friend I hadn't seen for a long time.

As I continued on my way south of town to the jump clinic, I had to stop and photograph this herd of paints as they stood by the water, keeping as cool as possible and trying to catch a bit of wind. It's been a hot summer with no end in sight, and indeed the weekend temps were in the mid to high 20s, with this week forecast to be even hotter, in the high 20s and low 30s (mid 70s-80s F) all week. Quite hot considering that in some years it has snowed in early September.  No frost yet, although we have dipped down into single digits a few nights.

 I stopped at an acreage antiques sale on the way home from the clinic shoot (searching rather futilely for a small bookcase) and paused to get this shot of the wonderful entryway of a new home being built on the country road. This was as good as I could do without trespassing, but you can get a feel for the nice use of materials in this place. I love the way the tree on the door extends over the windows to either side.
Neat place!