April Showers...

April 4, 2024
Peering down from the warmth of the big red truck, Skye saw the tiny tracks of a hopping rodent in the snow.

"I've never loved the Pavement Queen as much as I do this morning" Skye said.

Grace smiled.

"Wouldn't be so bad but for that little breeze. It'll warm up quick though. Not a cloud in sight."

"Are we going to the track day with the boss?"
Grace thought for a moment.
"Honestly, I'd rather stay here and hold down the fort."
"You mean look for Petrichor" Skye said, smiling.
"Yes. I would really like to find Petrichor."

"Just right now, I would like to find Petrichor from the warmth of the truck" Grace confessed.

The day had been lovely - but as finding Petrichor, or any wild horses for that matter, the girls had been unsuccessful.

"You know there's an eclipse tomorrow" Skye mentioned as the sun made its final appearance on the horizon. "We won't be able to see much of it from here though, I guess."

"We could try" Grace said.

April 8
The wind blew in strong, icy cold gusts and Grace struggled to keep her feet and focus the image.

"Where'd that camera come from?"
"The boss gave it to me. Said it was her first digital camera. And she thought it still worked okay."
"Well, don't point it directly at the sun."
"Actually she said she didn't care if I did, but I should be careful of my eyes."
"Good advice."

Grace struggled in the wind with a white sheet of cardboard, trying to focus the image of the partially covered su on another, much larger piece of white cardboard.

"I can't get it quite perfect. But you can see it, right?"

"So that's the moon shadow on the top?"
"Yup."
Skye tried to photograph the pinhole image, but Grace was having trouble getting it to come into good focus.

"Well, I can sort of get it" Skye said.
"When is our next chance to try again?"
"In twenty years" Grace replied.
"Oh. Well. I guess don't need to keep your pinhole device handy then."

April 13
It was a wind-blown mist...like being inside of a cloud. Skye decided to take the camera and a couple of dogs and go for a walk. How bad could a little mist be?
But as they faced into the wind, the mist came in harder, stinging cold and driven by gusts of impartial wind. Skye tried to get a picture that would do it justice, but it was difficult. Soon her hands were beginning to feel numb.

And soon the mist became rain.

Skyre retreated to the warmth of home.

"We haven't been riding all month!" Skye exclaimed, hair slicked down with moisture.  "And that was the most miserable walk in the rain I think I've ever taken. It was freezing cold and painful!"

"Maybe tomorrow will be better. But you know, as soon as the rain is done, it'll be hot, and there will be a thousand biting insects, and rattlesnakes and coyotes and bears..."

"I know. There's maybe one or two days where you can lay on the green grass and take a nap...and then it changes..."

"Thursday was nice" Grace reminded Skye.

"It was! And then Friday was cold! See what I mean?"

"We'll see what tomorrow brings. If the weather isn't cooperating maybe we'll ride in the arena or something."

"By the way, have you noticed who found the lower bunk bed?"

It took Skye a moment.  

"Vinnie?"

"Yup. He looks pretty comfy."


April 14
The air was still, and cloud cover muted the colors of dawn.

Crazy's band looked fit. The foals moved confidently in front of their dams.

Highlander and his mares were not far behind. In much the way Highlander had shadowed Petrichor, he now seemed to be shadowing Crazy, but with a slightly greater distance between them.

The girls emerged above the horses, in plain sight, but also safe. It was good to see the wild ones again. But the absence of Petrichor and his band left a hole in Grace's chest. Skye loved him too, but not the way Grace did.

The snow began to fall again.  The girls retreated to the arena, where Anoush, Anahit and Lousin found them.

The arena was no warmer than the air outside, but it was dry.
"I think I need a therapist" Skye exclaimed.
"Naw" Grace  said,  "the boss runs around in her pajamas all the time. You're fine."
"No, that bridle! It has more buckles and straps...and then I got it it all done and I realized I attached one of the reins backwards..."

The english bridle Luna wore was far more complicated than any western rig.

"It's okay" Grace reassured. "You did a great job. I think the...cavesson?...could be a little higher, but don't even worry about it."

"What is that for?"

"Ground work, I believe. You can put a long line on the nose band and use the reins to set the horse's head, or let them be loose."

"She's very nice" Anoush said of Luna. "Someone has definitely put some some work into her."

Grace noticed that Anoush wasn't posting at the trot.

"I couldn't get the left stirrup to adjust" Anoush explained. "It's okay, this is good practice for me. Skye is this your saddle? It seems the stirrups were set for someone about your size."

"Oh no ma'am" Skye said, laughing. "I wouldn't have a clue how to sit in that saddle."

Anoush rode Luna a bit longer before encouraging Skye to give it a try. Skye's feet were a little wide in the stirrups and her reins were a touch loose. But her seat was good. Comfortable. Natural.

"Create a little bit of contact with her mouth through the reins. Just ever so slight. She's very responsive. Point your toes more inward. Beautiful. Very nice."

"Now bring her down to a walk using only your weight in the saddle."  Skye knew how to do that. Luna immediately dropped to a walk as Skye released the reins. "And there you are" Anoush said, "riding on the buckle."

The snow came in thick flurries all afternoon.

"For my next equine experience, I'm going to try trick riding" Skye told Lousin and Anahit.

"I looked everywhere for your trick riding rig that you used with La Barilla for the review" Skye said to Grace, "but I couldn't find it, so I made another one. Do you think I could try it?"
"On who?"
"How about this guy?"
"Uhhh...maybe..."

Clay was a good horse. If he had any quirks, Grace hadn't encountered them. She helped Skye into the saddle, then watched as she fitted her rig over the saddle horn.

"I think you made the same mistake I did Skye. It's too short. And that leather is super thick. Where'd you get that?"
"The boss. She thought it might have been upholstery leather. It's like water buffalo or something. Super thick."

Grace looked at her mount. His eyes were calm. "Clay no matter what, you just hold still."

Grace was right. The leather was too thick, and too short. Getting from sitting to standing was the hard part. And not using the reins for balance. But then, after a few false starts, Skye did it.

Clay kept all four feet planted.
"Let's call this success" Grace said.
"Okay!" Skye agreed.

At last, the cold won out, and the girls were content to call it a day.

A good day, by all accounts. Perhaps they would find Petrichor soon.

April 15
The helicopters were working as close as Skye ever remembered. She convinced Grace to come out with her and watch.*

It was impressive, to be sure.

"Is that little helicopter the kind they use for wild horse round ups?" Skye asked.

"The ones I've seen in pictures are usually even smaller. Bubble shaped and very manueverable."

""Would our wildies even know to run away?"

"I think they'd get the idea when the helicopter started approaching them. And then once one horse starts running, they all run."

Skye thought about it for a while. "Our horses...Francis's horses...I think we can be pretty sure they were originally Francis's horses...they wouldn't know about being chased by a helicopter, would they? They have no freeze marks. Don't they always get freeze marks if they're captured?"

Skye had a good point.

Grace replied.
"So, if our wild horses are Francis's wild horses, unless there were new horses added to the herds recently, these horses would be several generations removed from the original horses she rescued and brought to her sanctuary."

"And as much as I don't really care for having the helicopters around here" Grace continued, "I wish I could get a ride in one and go look for Petrichor."

April 20
It was suddenly spring...insects and all.

Grace and Skye rode the familiar places, looking for signs of wild horses in the quickly fading light. They came up empty handed, although any time spent on a horse was usually good.  They would try again tomorrow.

April 21
On Sunday, as the sun slipped low into the western sky, the girls headed to Mustang Rock.

Skye had an eerie sensation.
"I feel like we're being watched" she said.
"We probably are" Grace replied. "It's going to be dusk in a moment, so all the night things are getting about their business."

The moon was brilliant in the soon-to-be-dark sky.

"Is tomorrow the full moon?"
"Tomorrow or the next day" Grace replied.

Ladyhawk was doing a lot of dancing around.
"She sure is antsy" Skye said.
Grace watched. Ladyhawk was always a lot of horse, but she did seem even a bit moreso tonight.

And then they saw something moving through the rocks, a shadow against shadows. The mare Skye named Thorn.

They hesitated for a moment, and then followed her.

The mare was not interested in letting them get too close. She broke into a gallop, and with a clattering of hooves on rock scrambled up a steep escarpment to the top of the rock formation.

"Did you see that?"  Skye shrieked.  "That horse is nuts!"

Nuts might have been an understatement. Grace stood in the saddle, looking for the other horses she'd hoped the black mare was leading them to. She strained to hear. But all she heard was the occasional clattering of Thorn's hooves on the rocks above them.

The black mare spun around to take a last look at her pursuers before disappearing into the fading light.

The sun slipped behind the mountain, the cool, soothing sound of running water trickling into the girls' consciousness.

They paused for a moment on their way back to the ranch to take it in. Seemed like spring was here now, and the sound and sight of running water all around might soon be a memory. For a moment, the creek's melody took Grace's mind away from her thoughts of Petrichor. But only for a moment.


April 29
Outside, the day was picture perfect. A cool morning warming gently under a clear blue sky.  But the girls were inside, helping the boss get ready for the upcoming horse show.

"I like them so much better out of their protective sheeting" the boss said of the Sacha Phariss prints. "I know it's going to be a lot of extra work, but I think I want to take them all out of their plastic sleeves and mount them onto their backing boards. Otherwise that reflection...it's just so distracting."

The boss turned to Skye.  "Do you think I'm being too OCD? Should we just hang them in their plastic and forget about it?"

Skye was watching the foals in the arena introduce themselves.  She was much too distracted to have an opinion.

"Grace" the boss said, "why don't you answer? I'm being too OCD, right?"

"I love my job and I love my life" Grace responded. "And you aren't wrong, the reflection definitely takes away from being able to appreciate the work. Whether or not that makes you OCD is...ummm...outside the limits of my expertise. But it sounds like you've already made up your mind anyway, and the plastic is coming off. "

The boss smiled. Then she frowned. "They might get dusty. That would be terrible."

Grace replied quickly this time. "We can wet down the arena."

The boss smiled again. "Yes we can."

                                                                                                       #
​