Blizzard and Tuxedo came for a visit.

A view to one of the stalls of the Spooky Barn.

We had spent the second half of October in the stables. Firstly, we were preparing an "open barn" day, and secondly, girls were getting ready for a Horse Show. I had never been to such a happening before, and thus I had no idea what to expect. I was kind of perspiring at the idea of formally polished riding boots, and with the other commiserating mothers Katja and Cathy, we were encouraging each other that we would take a cooler with beer along, and we would sit together and root loudly for our team. At this phase of our preparations, the organization of our participation the horse race resembled invasion plans in Normandy. Neither our family, Katja, nor Cathy owns a tow truck, much less a horse trailer; there are altogether four of our girls, while we only have two ponies — Sugar had improved from being sore, but he had a photo-op appointment for the day of the races — so we had arranged a loan of Tony Pony from our trainer Sue, and Shetland Piggybank from Mel, the organizer of the show.

Sue brought Tony to the stables for training, and Piggybank remained a great unknown. Lisa had ridden Tony a few times at Sue's in the spring, and so she approached him rather readily and was willing to ride him. She does not trust Charlie; she can manage him more or less, but it's not a good relationship like with Sugar, not even as good as with Tony, whom she sees only occasionally. Sue was drilling the show rules into the girls, focusing mostly on how to behave. To pay attention to the horse ahead of them, never to approach other horses to avoid a skirmish; to heed and follow referees' instructions exactly to avoid getting disqualified, and so on.

Sugar with Lisa is not afraid of anything, not even a spooky tarp.

Warm-up.

Then the little male goats Blizzard and Tuxedo came to visit us at the stables for the holidays. Their owners went for a three-week trip to Europe and we were glad to reunite with the rejected baby kids, who meanwhile had grown to be handsome wethers (castrated bucks). Goats have excellent memory; they keep track of all their aunts and siblings, but people and environments as well. It was quite a commotion. The goats ran up and down, jumped, bleated and welcomed each other. Only Muffin bore the return of her brothers poorly, kept butting with Tuxedo — whether on account of being a sibling or to avoid becoming the lowest ranking goat in the pecking order, is hard to say. Nevertheless the result looked horrible — Tux had ripped the residual horns on his head and bled, and as he butted Muffin with his bleeding head, she looked like a butcher. I had to eventually take both goats and wash them, and spray Tux with a disinfectant. Muffin knows me and allowed me to clean here easily, but it was a fight with Tux. It's apparent that both wethers had spent some time now away from immediate human company. Still I think they both remember who had nursed them on milk bottles — especially Blizzard comes to cuddle and gaze at me lovingly.

Lining up before the race.

Lisa and Tony Pony have won their first ribbon.

On Saturday, the stables were open to public — besides pony training and getting together with the larger baby goat family, Katja, Cathy and I had spent three days by hanging dark curtains and beautifying the historic barn — turning it into the Spooky Barn (i.e. we tore down real old cobwebs, carried out real dead rats, and installed artificial plastic cobwebs and plastic rats). The barn was a great success — actually, the whole happening was a great success, as many people came and we collected substantial money for our non-profit, which is attempting to save the stables. Of course, before we finished cleaning up after the invasion of crowds, it was late afternoon — and we were expected to get up early the next day, and go to the celebrated Horse Show.

Lisa and I got up even before our normal time for school, by half past seven we got to the stables, fed the goats and released them in the run. Meanwhile Katja readied the ponies. Sue arrived by eight and added Charlie and Sugar to Tony already in the trailer. Then we had to concentrate all our gear into another vehicle — chairs, beer, costumes for the kids and ponies, saddles, halters, bits, blankets, helmets, brushes — simply EVERYTHING. Sue is a saint, for she had offered that all the girls could ride in her truck — and she would go with them over who should ride which pony. Sue does not just control horses, but manages to steer screaming, head-strong and hysterical pre-pubescent girls with one hand tied behind her back — and she makes it look like she's ENJOYING it. Thus we (mothers) were relieved of various drama scenes — whatever the girls became obnoxious with, we referred them to our almighty coach as the only and final authority.

One-dollar marathon.

Ball-on-a-spoon chase.

Having arrived at the spot, I relaxed considerably — Horse Show was organized by Summit Riders, which is an association of horse-oriented people in our neighboring mountains, it became obvious that everything will be just FINE. It turned out that most people and horses were familiar from the stables, and there were no officially spit-polished riding boots. Our Pony Posse was the one most professional-looking in the end. And four little girls on four ponies naturally softened hearts of numerous referees. The girls "competed" in more-or-less own category, and thus kept on winning ribbons to no end, which was likely quite un-educational, but added considerably to the high spirits among the little competitors.

What soon got shredded to pieces, was my idea to sit back and sip beer under an umbrella on a grand-stand. Four ponies and four kids required uninterrupted supervision. Were they not currently competing, they were stationed outside the arena with other horses and people, and that was a very confusing situation. Despite our attendance, Piggybank got out of control, backed into Tony, and hit him several times hard in his belly. It took me aback for it was no defensive move from Piggy, as he had deliberately positioned himself. Fortunately Lisa had dismounted Tony a minute earlier and was just holding him by his reins — Tony jerked free and ran from Piggy away from Lisa. Were Lisa astride, she would likely received some of the kicks; had Tony not jerked free, she could have ended in a trap between the two ponies. We had to subsequently keep Piggy in isolation — he kept respectful towards people and obeyed his rider's instructions, but could not keep at peace with other horses.

The organizers had taken the ribbons to extremes.

We took advantage of a fully functional spooky barn.

Sid and Tom drove up to see a portion of the happening around noon; this way, Lisa could already boast having won her first ribbons. The boys had naturally not lasted long, and I don't blame them — it's a bit monotonous and it takes some time before all competitors complete their challenge. However, our gentlemen thus missed costume competition, then a comedy interlude with golf ball on a spoon, or the One-dollar Marathon — it's done without saddles, with a dollar bill tucked under the rider's thigh — who manages to hold on to his dollar the longest, may collect all the fallen ones. This was the last challenge, and there the kids got finally stuck. Lisa and Sophia held on to their dollars and there was no way to pick the winner, and Mel came to rescue by finding two more ribbons for a first place, which solved the problem, lest we would be still competing there. I have to say that it was a moment I was very grateful for Sue, who spoke with the girls in a mild way — were it me in the arena in her stead, there would be a much greater rush, and they might have to order me out of there. The girls were naturally over-wrought, nervous from the all-day marathon of challenges, and so was I — it would likely end up in a disturbance.

Tom's birthday comes at the end of October. When we tried to find out what he would like to do, we eventually learned that he wanted to play tanks with Max. Then he wanted cake and children's sparkling "wine" with other friends, and thus we had invited them all to the stables to see our Spooky Barn, and to play with our goats. We had the cake, said hi to everyone, and took Max to our place for the tank battle marathon. We returned Max back on Sunday in Shoreline Park — with three families converging there; we rented pedal boats to the delight of the children — girls went on one with me, boys went on another with Jaro, and off we went. The pedaling seats are designed for dwarfs, and I was glad to let the girls pedal for most of the time — as the mandatory lifesaver vest kept suffocating me, and trying to pedal, I risked knocking my teeth out with my own knees.

The Cake.

Pedal boats at Shorline Park.

Jaro voted to have lunch at a pub with beer, and did not have to urge us — thus we celebrated Tom's birthday in a two-day marathon, which included adult benefits.

Right after Tom's birthday, Halloween arrives in a rush. Tom wished to be a Ranger (after Ranger's Apprentice books by Flanagan), which seemed simple enough — he'd wear something green or camo, and wield a bow. Then Lisa said that she would like to be a wolf, and I had no idea how to arrange that. But I was lucky this time. In a costume shop, we found a fuzzy head-scarf with a wolf's head and paws, and all she needed to wear underneath was gray shirt and a tail — we had ourselves a wolf. Still, the kids did not invest much into Halloween, as we just circled our neighborhood with Lisa's friend Dennis, but were back at home in the space of an hour. The bonus was, we thus did not bring in as much candy as before.