The weather is horrible. Rain this morning, followed by gale force wind this afternoon. I worked Kip in the indoor arena, working on transitions and getting him to listen to my leg, but we were both bored and not in the mood, so I decided to take him for a ride on the roads. I think I suffered from MBTB Syndrome (More Balls Than Brains). So I added a back protector to my flourescent road kit and went out, to the horror of everyone at the stable who had more brains than I had. The trees were almost bent double, roofs were threatening to leave their garden sheds and go sailing, and Kip was tense. We made it out just a couple of blocks, when a yard with wildly thrashing pampas grass (that plumy white stuff) scared him silly and I bailed just as he was doing his best horse-being-electrocuted impression. I hand-walked him the rest of the way, and we came back in one piece.
Tonight, as Phil was getting ready to make his Special Chicken Burritos, the power went out. For a long time, over a huge area. So, there was nothing else to do but go and torture the Churbles. :)
I picked them up. They were in their tight balls, refusing to open their eyes, and I picked them up one at a time and sat them on my lap without either being bitten, or having them do triple-flips out of my hands as they panicked. It was so cool – they’re very heavy, and have very hard bodies because of the heavy muscling. They’re like little hard-rubber animals. When they move they kind of bounce along, because of all the power in thier small bodies. Now, if I could only teach Kip to move like that…for all his size, he tends to try to slump along like Johnny Vegas.