laundry list

First things first.

How not to get the middle finger from me if you drive past me while I'm riding on the road:

1. SLOW DOWN. 40mph is too fast. So is 35mph. You should be going 25 in my honest opinion, especially if the speed limit is only 30. If you are going 25 or under, you get a wave and a "thank you!" from me. If you are going 25-35mph, you get a steely look. If you are going faster than 35 past a horse on tiny back roads, you get yelled at and depending on how much you piss me off, possibly the middle finger.

2. MOVE OVER. Don't drive past me so close that my horse has to move over to prevent her from being hit by your car. If there is a car coming toward me that I feel is not going to move over, I will sometimes leg yield L out into the road a bit, as long as there's ample distance between the car and myself, and the car is not going too fast. That usually gets people to move over.

3. DON'T PLAY CHICKEN. If you are driving toward me and a car is coming in the opposite direction, don't speed up and try to scoot around the horse while traveling into the other lane, hoping that the other car will stop! Wait patiently in your own lane, and YES, this may require you to slow down and even stop (oh the horror!).

4. PAY ATTENTION. I don't dress myself and my horse up like a Christmas tree for my own enjoyment. Take a 30 second break from updating your Facebook status while you finish passing us.

I also hate when someone seems like they're going to be all polite and slow down and move over and share the road, and then they get halfway past the horse and gun it. Their engine roars and I hang on for dear life. It's almost like they get far enough past the horse where they personally cannot see us there on the side of the road, but there's still 6 feet or so of their car left to pass us. It's really obnoxious.

Lucy is boarded at a very down-to-Earth barn in a relatively snobby town. There are numerous fancy cars in the neighbourhoods around the barn and I've found that people driving the BMW's and Porches and Acuras tend to go faster than those driving the more mid-range cars. There are of course exceptions to every rule, as I had one nice lady driving a BMW today who followed rules 1-4, and remained at a low speed going past us until she was well ahead of Lucy.

So, that rant aside, I have a funny photo of Gunner, the handsome QH gelding whose stall is next to Lucy's:

This is how I found him today when I went to bring him inside. He is quite the little houdini! The only thing keeping him in was the single strand of electric fencing, which you can barely see in the photo. I just thought it was funny that he was standing there so patiently and politely waiting for me to get him!