All change…

Just a few short weeks ago (what a stupid phrase that is. How can weeks be short?) I was constantly looking upwards, begging the rain to stop.

Now I’m gazing skywards, silently pleading for the dry weather to break.

The ground, in case you haven’t noticed, is as hard as concrete.

There is, as farmers and landowners will also admit, no pleasing some folk. The ground is too hard/the ground is too soft.

I can count the number of days, this year, that the ground has been ‘just right’, and I can count them on the fingers of one hand.

Tom is due to run in a BE100 (formerly ‘Pre-Novice’ – or Pre-Nervous to be more accurate), at Broadway on Saturday.

Yep, that’s why I’m moaning about the weather; I would like the ground to be ‘just right’, for the weekend.

The weather apart, the seasonal changes are making a big impact in other ways.

The hedges in the lanes are overflowing with colour and blossom, and a large number of gardens are broadcasting pleasant odours, scents that have been hidden from us, all winter.

I’m not just seeing changes in the flaura and fauna.

Wood-pigeons.

They’re everywhere.

Accompanied by their almost ever-present ‘Prr-proooo, prr-proooo’ cooing, they flutter down from the highpoints of trees, or glide in from neighbouring hedges, and perch on the post-and-rail fencing around the outdoor arena…

And scare the living daylights out of Tom.

The poor horse, he’s almost had several heart-attacks in the last few days.

We have been working – very hard – on improving our dressage score in the outdoor.

We would be heads down, deep in concentration, when suddenly a small squadron of the little darlings would zoom in, execute a barrel-roll, a triple-toe loop, a double Salko, a half-forward roll with double-twist and pike, and finish their aerobatic display with a perfectly formed Immelman, before landing in a high-speed scrabbling clutter of feathers – on top of the fencepost that Tom and I are about to pass.

Tom, being a sensitive soul, doesn’t take too kindly to this aerial activity.

His first inclination, on being startled by these feathered rats, is to leave the county – and, frankly, he’s not terribly fussy if I go with him or stay behind.

Bearing in mind that horses, by evolution, are not brave animals – in fact, their primary instinct (after eating, sleeping, drinking, pooing reproducing and weeing – and not always in that order, obv) is to get away as fast as a very fast thing driving a Ferrari on an empty motorway. Without speed cameras.

Where was I?

Oh yes, so bearing in mind that it is in their nature to run liked greased weasel-shit at the first sign of something scary, how do I persuade Tom that the feathered Douglas Bader-wannabees can be safely ignored?

I can try and work him through it, as any half-decent equestrian would helpfully suggest.

Helpfully suggest without actually offering to sit on the 17-hand, snorting, straining, sinew-popping, eye-bulging, panic-induced monster.

Believe me, I have tried working him through it.

The sheer proximity and lack of consideration of the Sopwith Pigeons makes ‘working through it’ impossible.

This morning I had an idea.

Ting!

I have a cunning plan.

Well yes, it does involve me buying a shotgun, sitting underneath the trees in the evening (feeding time!) and waiting for the flying rats to get close enough for me to introduce them to an early demise.

But at least my cunning plan has a definite strategy behind it.

What do you think?

Is Woodpigeonocide a legitimate *moral* act? Yes, I do know that it is a legal one, but is it an ethical behaviour?

Or are the ethics police going to come and get me?

That’s ‘ethics’, not ‘Essex’ which is, of course, a county between London and Thuffolk.