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Learning to drive

Category: Ramblings | Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 9:28 pm

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This is what I'm struggling with this week-end. How to master a horse and a carriage. The worst thing was to sort out the harness. There are so many bits and pieces to it! I'm very glad I had good help. And I'm profoundly thankful that the pony knows what to do, because I most certainly don't! But I'm learning, which is the whole idea of this class.

We're starting, very carefully:



The patient instructor is giving us a few valuable tips as we go. My, we look very small in the back there!



I have been so lucky with this pony. She's very well-behaved and calm, and her confidence is rubbing off on me. Can you see that I'm enjoying myself immensely?



Tomorrow we're driving slalom at a trot. I can't wait!

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How to break a little girl's heart

Category: Garden | Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 8:23 pm

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Our plum tree had gotten way too tall and wide, and we knew we would have to take action this autumn. We should have dealt with it every year of course, but life isn't always what it should have been, so the tree has been neglected. We weren't prepared for the masses of plums we got this year, though, and we were certainly not prepared for snapping branches. The poor tree has been looking rather lop-sided and sorry, and I've tried to gather courage to actually do something to it.

Yesterday I had that courage, so I dug out the alligator saw and some long cords and set to work. I started by removing the snapped branches, and continued to saw off the rather thick, straight upwards-growing branches before finishing off with a couple of rather big limbs that grew in the wrong direction. The tree crown looked a lot more harmonic and the tree ended up being about 4 meters tall instead of 7. I was very pleased with my efforts as I started to cut the sawn-off limbs and branches into smaller, more managable parts.

Suddenly I realized that my youngest sat in the plum tree and cried. I switched the saw off and went over to check if she'd hurt herself. The poor, little thing cried so hard she could hardly breathe, let alone talk, but managed to tell me that I had ruined her tree! I had cut off both her favourite branches and now she wouldn't be able to climb so high anymore. No matter how I reasoned with her she kept going. In the end I admitted defeat and went to fetch me some coffee. The poor girl still sat in the tree and cried. Our neighbour came out to try and offer some comfort, but to no avail. The little one cried for an hour and a half, and I felt like the worst mother in the world!

I'm afraid that next time I dig out the saw the girls will chain themselves to their favourite trees. Being a gardening mother isn't always a lot of fun. *sigh*

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