♫Braying in the Rain . . .♫

There is something very special about a nice spring downpour. It is not so cold as to endanger one's health, and, if you time it right, not so longlasting as to make tacking up difficult (we, lacking a snug little barn, tack up in the open). It is not so oppressively humid as a New England summer storm, and not so sloppy as a January snowmelt. It carries the smell of warm humus and blooming vegetation, and dampens the creeping sounds of Satans Chickens and Other Underbrushdwellers.

The combination of a nice spring downpour and a nice clay switchback is a rather messy thing, and not really special at all if we are assuming positive connotations with the word. The only very good things about a slick clay switchback are that I, being a mule and very sensible, have the presence of mind to place each foot carefully, and that FarmWife, having been raised up right, puts my safety above all else and picks her trails according to their navigability.

FarmWife and I spent yesterafternoon out on a nice trail ride, and a brief sunbreak gave in to thunderous hail once we'd been out for about a half an hour. We had a lively canter among the descending icespheres, feeling rather like players in Mother Nature's comedy. We slowed to a walk as the hail turned to heavy, sheeting rain, and turned for home after another chilly quarter hour.

When dusk and colder temperatures threatened, FarmWife and I weighed the greater distance of one route with the poor footing and steepness of another. Intrepid mount that I am, I made the executive decision to go with the latter. We descended a precipitous downslope in style, hugging the textured brush alongside the trail with such care as to not degrade it. My Easyboot Epics in front provided the kind of traction that SUV manufacturers dream about, as did my hoofies in back.

It is rather a good thing that we did not take the camera out yesterday, as my saddlebag is about as waterproof as a colander. It is too bad, though, that I was not able to get a video of FarmWife singing in the rain. The two of us are rather nice when we're wet.

Love,

Fenway Bartholomule.