Yes, I'm meming a lot. And your point is?

I have no brain worth mentioning, but I can paste and click, so here we go.

This one, from windrose, made me laugh out loud.

In 2007, dancinghorse resolves to...

Stop writing with shanmuir.
Be nicer to alg.
Cut down to ten horses a day.
Volunteer to spend time with lipizzans.
Connect with my inner dressage.
Eat more rwglaubs.

Get your own New Year's Resolutions:

The Penultimate Day of the Year

Oh, look! It's not a meme!

We've survived the holidays so far. I will be more than glad to see the last of 2006, which was a very hard year and continues to be difficult as it winds to a close. In spite of everything however, we had a pleasant Christmas, and I managed to de-stress a little, which was a good thing. Now smoemeth is back home in the far East and it's quiet around the farm--for a few days, before the new year begins with a whole honkin' lot of things going on.

Weather was a highlight of the season. After two months of no rain at all, on the 19th the interesting clouds that piled up as I took my mom on her annual holiday mall crawl turned into a cold, wet storm that had me racing home to throw blankets on horses. Not much rain in that, but plenty of cold and damp.

It was most interesting driving home in that storm. I hit rain going up Broadway, then found Old Spanish Trail to be dry, with the whole valley off to the west dappled with sun and cloud-shadow...and the mountain to the east invisible behind the curtain of a blizzard. I was driving straight at it, then turned off toward home on a wet road and evidence of rain.

Then on the 22nd smoemeth and I enjoyed an outing in pursuit of fresh free-range Christmas turkey and good Mexican food. I noticed on the drive in that there was what looked like a wall of cloud off to the northwest past the end of the Catalinas. "Looks like a norther," I observed, but reflected that of course it couldn't be; there was nothing forecast. Must have been dust from the wild wind we'd had. Yep. A few hours later we came out of the restaurant to find that the mild, sunny day had gone cold and it was frakking sleeting. It was a norther and it had hit. Another mad race home for Blanket Brigade, this one in wind and hard rain.

I concluded that I should hire myself out. Want rain in the desert? I'll go shopping with you, then to lunch. That will do it.

The third storm hit this past Wednesday, which was quite a warm day--70s and sunny--that at 9 p.m. broke in lightning and thunder and wild wind and rain. I raced out in it, found Camilla out in the open, near catatonic and soaked to the skin. Threw her blanket on her and discovered that the others had had the sense to stay under cover, so were nearly dry. I got blankets on them all in the bitter cold, temps crashing in the 30s. They didn't get those blankets off again until Friday. Thursday was nearly nonstop raw, cold rain. We got over an inch all told, which was badly needed. I didn't mind at all, once the horses were covered up, and they were warm and dry in their blankets. We spent the day holed up inside, keeping warm and dry ourselves.

Friday we had a family outing to Tumacacori, which is a tiny town full of tiny houses (ginmar, you'd die of the Awwws) and the ruins of an old Spanish Mission. The sun was trying to come out, but storms were hanging over the mountains; we had rain while were at the Mission, but it blew away and the sun decided to stay. It hung around nicely today, though the air was still cold, the arena is a mudhole, and it's a chilly night.

Needless to say, Pook and Pandora's preparations for the clinic have been slowed down seriously--I've been rained out more often than not. We've got all the rides filled and everything is lined up, including our transport up there (whew!), and we've placed our order for warm weather, which we hope will be filled as specified. Our rides are in the covered arena, but the saddling and warmup areas and the spectators' gallery are not. It will be good if it stays nice all that week.

In crass commercial news, there will be a Horse Camp for Writers in the spring--March 2nd-4th. One overnight and four day slots available. I'm going up on the price after this and prorating it by how many people sign up, so this is your last chance to get in at the original pricing. Details here.

Lipizzan weekends are also available--check for available dates. We're nearly full, just a couple of weekends left for the spring, but the fall has some openings.

Last but not least, there is still time (and room) to come and audit the Florian Zimmermann Clinic in Cave Creek, Arizona from January 10th-14th. Florian is from the Spanish Riding School, and Pook and Pandora and Teacher and I will be there, as will raithen, lynnesite, and many more great people and some lovely horses.

And that's life here on the farm. I have good hopes that 2007 will be notably improved over 2006 on all fronts. It certainly will start off with a big social bang, what with the Florian clinic, the Lipizzaner weekend, the Flying Torture Lady Clinic, the Horse Camp, the Less Hectic Torture Lady Clinic, and just incidentally, you know, some book and story deadlines, some freelancing, lots of mentoring (everybody's waking up and hitting the pages), and all the rest of the things that keep me off the streets.