Alligators in the Bathtub: They Were Just Too Fast For Me

It was just another ordinary Tuesday. We have a routine on Tuesday afternoons. I pick up Ryan and Molly from school. We go home so Molly can change into her riding clothes and then we go to Subway. They eat their sandwiches in the car and then we head off to Molly's horseback riding lessons. When we pull up to the barn, Molly jumps out and checks the board to see who she is riding, she gets her horse out of his stall and starts getting him ready without any hesitation. It amazes me that this little girl that's only about 55 pounds, that has only been taking lessons for less than a year walks around the barn with confidence. She knows how to prep her horse for riding. She picks the dirt out of the horse's hooves and when the horse puts his foot down as if to say "that's enough," Molly just grabs it again and continues to do what needs to get done. She has a routine on Tuesdays. She knows what she needs to do to get ready for riding and she does it.

Ryan and I have our Tuesday routine as well. We sit in the car and read while Molly is getting ready to ride. Sometimes we read together and sometimes we are just reading our own books next to each other. After we read we usually get out of the car, I watch Molly ride and Ryan goes off to explore. He'll go for a walk to the pond that is by the barn or he'll play with the barn cats that decide to come out and show their faces while we are there.

But yesterday after reading I felt a wave of exhaustion come over me. I needed a boost of energy. After horseback riding, Ryan still had basketball and then we had to go home to make dinner. Our day wasn't over yet. So Ryan and I went for a walk down the road. I didn't have my camera with me, but I did have my phone and instagram.

After rain all day Monday and Tuesday morning, the sun finally came out and it was a beautiful afternoon. I look at these pictures and they look so tranquil and peaceful to me but actually they are full of life that I couldn't capture with the camera.

The pond was filled with turtles but every time I tried to get a picture they would dive under the water. They were too fast for me. The dragonflies would skim the water going back and forth right in front of me but I couldn't seem to get a picture even though it felt like I could reach out and touch them. They were too fast for me.

This patch of flowers was simply buzzing with bees but every time I tried to capture a picture of one of them landing on a petal they would fly off to the next one. They were too fast for me.

As we walked down the road you could hear a group of crows cawing to one another. They were right there on the fence but when I tried to get closer to get a picture, they were too fast for me.

When we got back to the barn, Molly was nearly done riding but that is not the end of her lesson. She then has to brush Mickey out, remove the saddle and bridle and then clean the bridle. She has her routine.

Molly looking pretty confident and proud of herself after doing four consecutive jumps today.

Molly has fine tuned her cleaning technique. You can't use too much soap but you also need just enough to get it clean. Then there is a special way to hang the bridle. Buckles need to fastened a certain way, straps need to be looped around a certain way. When she first started taking lessons, it took her awhile to get everything just right, now she does it with confidence and I think she likes that she knows how to do something that her mom does not.

While Molly was busy finishing cleaning the bridle I was standing in the barn watching the barn swallows flying to and from their nest in the rafters, back and forth, back and forth, through the open door. Two of the barn cats found one another and they were playing in the grass, jumping and pouncing on one another. All too fast for me to get a picture.

I was feeling tired and drained after sitting in the car yesterday afternoon, but after a short walk around the barn with Ryan, I was revitalized. I had gotten the boost of energy that I needed to get through the rest of the day from the buzzing bees, the cawing crows, the pouncing cats, the flying swallows, and the diving turtles.