Last week, between the rain and the new physio exercises getting to me, I wasn't at the barn nearly enough and when I was we didn't do much. So by Saturday I knew I had to at least longe Mitzi or Lease Girl would have a crummy lesson.

It was cold and windy and Mitzi not only spooked at bits of paper coming into the barn, she actually shook on the cross-ties because she was so hyper. (With that said--the spooks were the old "Eek!" ones where she didn't do anything, and she stood still and shook. Credit where it's due.)

Anyway, I got her wrapped and booted and we went out to the ring--

--where we discovered the gang of local teenage boys who work around the barn (in exchange for garage room for various project cars, as far as I can tell) were shoring up the arena fence over by the driveway. There was much shovelling, hopping over fences with shovels in hand, and some flinging of dirt.

Mitzi completely forgot that these are the same young men who give her hay most evenings, and it took a while for her to stop imagining they were going to chase her down and eat her. I had to get after her to stand still while I closed the gate, because ooh! Scary! (Mitzi, as you may be aware, has a vivid imagination.) Anyway, she did the tail-in-the-air snorting thing, the I-want-to-run-in-circles-because-I-feel-safer-that-way thing, and the drop-and-spook thing for the first few minutes.

She got a lot better when I started singing "Happen Now" to her. I'm just sayin'.

And in case you're not familiar with that song--here you go.