Friday, August 6

Today I am grateful for:

A cooler day. It was hard to tell if it was overcast or if it was smoke, a little of both? It rained a little in the evening, but it likely isn't much total precipitation. We need INCHES of rain (not all in one day, though!).

My sweetie had the furnace guy come by and look at one more duct we need for ventilation. I stayed in bed, but I could hear the furnace guy's voice in the basement, and it was like old times. He and his helper came over for an hour here, and hour there for months installing our vents last year. They just let themselves into the basement when they had time between other jobs. It got to the point where Roxy didn't wake up, and it was hilarious when this guy would talk to our cats through the vents in the floor. He likes animals a lot. Today when he showed up, Roxy woofed once, recognized his voice, and went back to bed. Normally she goes nuts when someone comes into our yard.

We got some work done on some electrical work (for outlets on the outside of the house, mainly for when you have to plug in cars in the winter). We ran the wires through the walls from the basement and installed the outlet boxes on the outside of the house.

I went to see River, and it was nice to finally have him a little less crapped out from the heat, because it was cool today. We worked on all our homework from the lesson, and I could see some improvement in his halt to trot, trot to halt while lunging. Same with the leading work (also trot/halt). I felt he was doing a little better than our last ride with giving his shoulder in spirals.

The new horse, Big Al, was sure weird today. R was working with him and he didn't want to be caught (after them making good progress), and he was spooking at everything while she was leading him around, and just really seemed on edge. He's been there for a few weeks (he's the horse that flipped out in the trailer ride there), and R has been doing a lot of work with him trying to get him to relax and trust people. He's had very little training.

Then I came home, and we watched "'For the Boys" with Bette Midler. It's a pretty good movie, and I had forgotten what a truly amazing singer and performer she is.