Monday, November 25

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

Being at the barn for awhile even if I didn't ride. There are so many lessons that I lose track sometimes of when the arena is booked, like today. So, I put his blanket on anyhow since it's getting colder.

I don't know if this is "gratitude", but there were mice everywhere today, and somehow, even though it is grim and gross to have feces all over your stuff, grim that one of the rider's dog was killing them as we flushed them out, it was also somewhat comical that we were shrieking every time we found one. There were three in my locker, because I was stupid enough to think that closing up my bag of pony snacks was enough. They had chewed into the bottom of the bag and were having a feast. I took everything out and spooked out the mice, and the dog killed them eventually. I noticed one of the mice jumped into another locker, and I opened it (they're not locked), and that person actually had two pails of oats without a lid or anything. No WONDER we had mice! The other rider and I took the oats outside, and pulled everything out of that locker and there were mice in there. We looked at another locker right beside that one, and this one belonged to a rider who literally had not been there for a year. Her tack was all moldy, and there were old mouse nests in her blanket, her saddle pad, and under her saddle. She had a bag of treats that the mice were eating, and everything in her locker STUNK like you wouldn't believe. So, between these two lockers, I think this is where the recent mouse infestation is coming from.

Since I wasn't riding, I had lots of time, so I scrubbed out my locker, threw out some bottles from medicine and that kind of thing, and made sure all the bits of food were gone. I am grateful that at least for today, it doesn't look like they damaged my stuff. No insurance for that kind of thing.

I really would like the locker of the person who hasn't been here for a year to be cleaned out. It was just disgusting with mouse droppings and urine smell, and mold. It's right under mine. I know that there will be mice in it again right away, because there will be bits of food in it everywhere, even after we got rid of the little bag of treats.

The barn owner has always had a policy of no open food in the lockers, and is reminding everyone again, but I think we need to have a locker cleaning day to get rid of all the droppings.

That dog killed 4 or 5 mice while I was there, and several more got away. I hate killing mice, but there are times when there are too many to trap humanely and remove.

I had a nice evening at home, working on some drawing and gluing stool legs back together, and gluing the neck of a child's guitar I found in the dump a while ago. If it works, I'll give it to someone.

I watched the original "Flashdance" which I never did see way back when, and I have to say I was pretty underwhelmed with it. The dancing was pretty good, but the overall movie was kind of a cliche and not that interesting. I am surprised at how much influence this movie had back in the '80's. The soundtrack was a big deal, and everyone was cutting up t-shirts and wearing leg warmers because of this movie.