Tomorrow is Day #1 of the Centered Riding Clinic – the clinicians, Peggy Brown and Susan Harris, are now at Brit and Gregory’s Saddle Up arena. Susan will teach the Western Dressage and Trail clinics and Peggy will teach the Centered Jumping and the English equitation clinics. I’m going to do the jumping clinic.

A day full of preparations interspersed with keeping our visitors happy. We dropped them off at 7:00 a.m. this morning, at Deb Moore’s place, and they went for a trail ride on the Knik River. The three were pleased to discover that there was a Starbucks at Carrs. I had never even been there. I suspect that getting them there, so they can get their coffee,

is going to become a part of the clinic routine. Well, so be it. A small price to pay in exchange for help with clinic preliminaries.

Pete and I returned home and took our horses for a trail ride. He rode Tinni and I rode Tyra. This was the high point of my day. She was lively and seemed glad to be out on the trail. Tomorrow she and Tinni will get a break. We’ll take Raudi and Hrimmi to the clinic.

This evening, after dinner, Margo (our southern out-of-state visitor) worked with me on one of her supposed areas of expertise, saddle fit. Then Colleen (New York state visitor) gave me a lesson that focused on ankle releases. She told me to breathe through my ankles. This was a timely insight, and when I did it, it made a world of difference in riding Raudi. This, having ankles that are up, is to a large part why I am not vertical. Worked on this in the pen and out on the road. And the solution to the problem was quite simple.

Stormy is continuing to give prodigious amounts of milk. We may be hosting a clinic, but life goes on. Gotta do something with all that milk, in this instance, make cheese. We won’t be buying any dairy products for a long, long time – and we have just one goat. If she gives birth to females, we will have more. But then we will easily be able to find homes for females. Finding homes for males is a lot more difficult.

Rainbow is not doing as well as we’d like. Her rear legs are wobbly. However, she’s still able to get up and down the ramp. And she still knows that she must poop and pee outside. The visitors have been giving us a hand with her. I love this dog dearly, but with our comings and goings it appears otherwise.

One step at a time. Rise and Shine. Early to Bed and Early to Rise. If I am lucky, I will get five hours of sleep tonight. I am on the Centered Riding clinic sleep deprivation program. I can’t be on it very long or I will cave in, just like the sand in a hole at the beach.

Next: 157. 6/9/17: Learning Obsessed