I had a dream the other night that I was riding Archie in a lesson with my trainer from Augusta.  And I started crying because it was a jump lesson and only one fence was a crossrail.  The rest were set to three-feet, with fill, and she wouldn't lower them.

I take melatonin to help me sleep, which means that occasionally I have cracked out dreams.

Part of this is probably related to the fact that I have never gone this long without jumping.  Even with our plans for fitness completely derailed by heat (you really can't ask a horse to sustain a canter for a long period of time while said horse is swimming), I still plan on doing our first cross rail in about ...oh... ten days.

This.  This was over a year ago.

My husband, who has been oozed in affection this week, is a gorgeous man.  (WTF, where did this tangent come from?)  In 2012, he lost a hundred pounds.  In 2013, we started going to the gym together.  In 2014, he started working with a nutritionist and trainer.  And in 2015, he'll be doing his first physique competition.  We're eight weeks out.  So what does this have to do with ponies?

Hubs has to work out twice a day, six days a week, until he competes.  Fasted cardio and then weights and cardio.  This means that our new schedule (for Saturdays, at least), is for us to wake up early, me to drop him off at the gym near the barn, ride, and pick him back up.  Then a few hours later, we'll go to the gym together.  This ensures that if the weekdays are shit with too hot weather, I still have the weekends.

Because I mentioned that it rains regularly, it hasn't rained at all.  The downside to this is that there is no break for the unrelenting heat and we can't get away from the heat advisories.

This leads to a lot of cold hosing and very little actual work.  I effing jinxed myself, but I'm also enjoying the downtime of splitting a beer with my pony on a hot day.  He started his double-dose of OneAC last month and started the beer the first week of June.  For new readers, my horse was anhydrotic.  In Georgia.

My schedule has been off-kilter this week, anyways.  I was supposed to get a(nother) tattoo last night, but my artist had a family emergency, so we've rescheduled to next Friday.  Since I'd shuffled around my gym day and my pony days, it left me with an unexpected free time.  Fortunately, I had a shipment of charms come in, so I photographed those.  Branching out a little bit, but still focusing on the badass equestrian.

Many of us know Julie and her mare Mexi.  The barn at which Mexi is boarded burned to the ground this morning.  Fortunately, Mexi is a pasture pony and was not in the barn.  But Keith, the owner and Julie's trainer and Mexi's breeder (you get it, right?), lost everything including five horses.

Here's a new article:  Community Rallies

And as soon as there is a means to donate (goods or monies), I'll share a link (or Julie will and I'll refer to it).  Go hug your ponies and keep this barn family in your thoughts.  :(

I don't know about other places (except Augusta, and Augusta was not like this), but come summer, we get summer showers.  Like every day.  Like an angry thunderstorm that suddenly appears about the time that you want to go home from work and then drenches you.  Angrily.  And once you decide that you can't ride, it magically clears.  Like the weather man is bipolar.  And angry.

Gratuitous photo of local wildlife.