RWD: Riding With Distractions

Here you may contemplate the tastefully decorated front yard of the property across the street from our outdoor arena. It belongs to a mother and two middle-aged sons who have come home to roost with mom and have brought along their collection of half torn-down vehicles. The young lads are pursuing career training in Recreational Noise-Making, with welders, blowtorches, steel hammers, enormous drills, and other important career props.

Today their mom joined in the fracas, deciding to do a little RV practice-driving on the front lawn.



For forty minutes she backed around & heaved forward without leaving her own driveway, keeping up a constant barrage of screams for directions at her welding and hammering offspring; she backed it into a tree branch SKREEEEK CRACK, she turned it laboriously around and managed to hit the front stoop somehow WHAM, and this all went on for the entire duration of my little dressage practice ride on Montana. Maybe she read some article about "take a vacation without leaving your home!" and kind of put her own spin on it.

It then became necessary to move some cars which lack various crucial parts like exhaust systems and hoods, so that she could maneuver her little toy into and out of their parking spots. Yes, the inmates were having a lovely Sunday morning.

RWD or Riding With Distractions is always great training for the horse and rider, that is if they can manage to concentrate at all! I didn't do too well. Partly, I am fascinated by these people, whose lives really do seem to revolve around car projects that never progress, not one iota, in fact the cars get more discombobulated by the month. And the strange cacophony of noises keeps me guessing: What on earth??!! But we did get some work done.

Here's my big orange baby having a cool drink after his hot muggy noisy work session:



And notice who is standing there with an accusing stare:



No Johnnie it is not your day; storm clouds were rolling up in the western sky by then, and within an hour it was dark as night. Then the most refreshing sky-cracking thunderstorm cooled off the world and drove the recreational noise-makers indoors (what do they do inside? I wonder); I love a good storm.