Author: Elaine

I wouldn’t have believed it would be possible to drive seven splinters into your hand without noticing. I usually wear gloves around the barn and garden, so I was astonished to look at my right palm today and see it riddled with splinters. Fortunately, my friend was able to remove 6.5 of them, as Jack is too squeamish to be much help. I’ve covered the .5 that remains with antibiotic ointment in hopes that it will pop out.

In other news, I rode today. This is only noteworthy because I haven’t ridden since before Christmas. Even today, I didn’t really have more than about 1/3 of an arena in which to ride, counting the part of the arena that was only two inches deep in snow. And I didn’t ride my own horse, since she was too much in touch with her inner saddle bronc to be a horse I wanted to ride. However, Major, a Percheron cross that belongs to a friend, took good care of me, so at least I got some riding muscles used. He seemed fairly enthusiastic, probably because he hadn’t been ridden since Christmas. He is my favorite horse when I want to be baby-sat, even though he is the only horse who ever jumped me off. He was very green at the time, and my trainer said, as she picked me off the ground, “he looked as though he jumped higher than the standards.” Funny, the jump didn’t look that scary to us.