Prepare for the worst.
Plan for the best and ride what you have. I think I’m going to paint this on the barn
wall.
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Kat did not approve of the weather.
Here she is waiting for it to change already. |
It has been an interesting few weeks in Mid-Missouri. The old saying, “If you don’t like the
weather in Missouri, just wait five minutes” has made a resurgence and the
folks that have been around a while have been taking trips down memory
lane. In the past several years our “snow
storms” have dropped two to three inches, maybe six if we were really “hit
hard.” Well, this year we received eight
to ten and then three days later it snowed again adding ten to fourteen inches. After a day to breathe, it snowed another three. What a winter wonderland! Unfortunately, beauty comes with a price. So…
Prepare:
 |
Admiral prepares to be
my snow wheels. |
Not much keeps me from my job, but in the spirit of
preparation I gathered all important files onto a flash drive, printed out some
forms and informed my boss that my dedication ended at leaving my horses
without hay or water for a day. I would
make it home, or I wouldn’t leave in the first place. He wasn’t pleased, but I assured him that
with the trusty internet he’d hardly know I was missing.
I was prepared to work from the safety of home, but fickle
Missouri has long since taught me that the worst predictions rarely come true
and predicted fair weather can be hazardous.
So…
Plan:
I was planning for the best.
We’d get a little snow. They would
get the roads clear as quickly as possible.
I’d be in to work as always. It
would be a grand adventure but nothing out of the ordinary. This realistic plan enabled me to think
through my preparations with a clear head instead of a giddy school girl
dither. We didn’t go buy twenty gallons
of water and a pallet of pork and beans.
We parked carefully, but we didn’t reserve a hotel room. We were prepared, but planned to continue on
with life as normal. Then it started to
snow and it didn’t stop.
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| Vaughn thinks its deep enough. |
So…
Ride It Out:
I didn’t go into work and they definitely knew I was
gone. Two hours into my work from homeattempt
the power went out. Thirty-eight and a
half hours later we had used the tractor to drag my husband’s truck to the end
of the driveway, hauled one to many buckets of manure through thigh deep snow,
made and tipped over one gigantic snow man, and eaten every bit of snack food
in the house. It was boring, exciting, frustrating
and peaceful. We were torn between the anxiety
of missing our work obligations and the comfort of having each other’s
company. There truly are no snow days as
an adult. The responsibilities are still
there, you just can’t do anything about them.
So we made the best of it.
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The horses thought is was great fun for about 15 minutes.
Then they were ready to be back inside. |
And that’s life. Our
little snow storm gave us some great perspective. You can’t control every aspect of your
surroundings. Prepare for the
worst. Make sure you have the skill sets
and the equipment to deal with anything that could possibly come your way. For a horse show, that means practice, practice,
practice before you go. Present many
different questions in many different ways.
Pack carefully. Take emergency
equipment. Pack an extra change of
clothes and an extra days’ worth of food.
Then plan for the best. There is
no sense worrying over the future. If
you have prepared for the challenge, plan on rising to it successfully. Be optimistic, you’ll have more fun that
way. Whatever happens, ride it out. Sometimes the sun will shine and sometimes it
will be thirty and raining. Sometimes
your horse will be a perfect gentleman and sometimes you’ll be sitting on a
dragon. All you can do is ride what you’ve
got and smile!
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| A rare dragon moment caught by cell phone. |
