Location: My bed, Grand Junction, CO
Date: 8/28/25
Weather: RAIN
Vibes of the month: No more please, I’m good
Nearly every weekend since June, I have had some sort of obligation. My calendar of summer weekends overflowed like a swelling river. My summer was verdant. Lush. Teeming.
I’ve had my fill. It was a beautiful abundance. And I could use a break.
No plans. No commitments. No visitors. No travels.
The highlight of this month was moving Tex to a new barn where he gets plenty of food and also where we consistently have lots of friends. The other boarders and I spent a night painting new ground poles, then set up a training course in the arena and worked the horses on it for hours one weekend morning. Which is to say, I’m getting a real horse girl experience.
I took two lessons with a trainer and Tex and I made MAJOR progress—him finally getting into a steady trot, and me somewhat nailing the post and keeping my feet underneath me. We’ve also switched to English tack and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t already getting a little dreamy about jumping him.
Some days I think about texting a photo of Tex in his overly-proper English attire to his former owner—a veritable cowboy—just to see the reaction it elicits. I’m a sucker for a little drama. A little flair. But also so he can see the roundness of Tex’s new muscles filling in the hollow gaps between his bones and the way his coat shimmers (if he hasn’t been rolling in dust). Or how his head hangs low and relaxed as we work the arena. And how even when I turn him out at the end of a long ride, he stands at my side, calm and collected, wiggling his lips over my arm like a sentient vacuum cleaner in search of treats.
You’ll notice here that I’ve intentionally buried the lede.
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