Better Safe than

...eaten by trolls.  Teresa, at Journey With a Dancing Horse, has Canadian trolls living outside of her arena, in the tall grass.  Her horse, Carmen, worries about them when the wind blows the grass.  We have trolls, as well, -- the Californian variety.  I think they live in trees but I'm not positive.  Lucy is the resident expert.  There is definitely a troll -- maybe a whole family of trolls -- living just outside the far end of the dressage court.  There isn't anything different in that corner -- a few oak trees; the same kind of oak trees that surround the entire court; dead grass; a fence.  And trolls.

This morning as Brett and I finished up chores, cement trucks started rumbling up our road to a destination just out of sight but well within earshot.  We watched a truck go by, then heard it turn into a driveway and deliver its load of cement.  It rumbled back down the road and another truck appeared a few minutes later.

Brett drove off to the airport after breakfast, to catch a plane to Southern California where he will be celebrating his grandson's first birthday later today.  (Happy Birthday Merrick!).  So, Brett and Pistol weren't here to ride with us.  Lucy was a bit high headed walking to the tie rail, but not enough to worry me.  If the cement trucks had been the only distraction this morning she would have been fine.

We were without Pistol who effectively cancels out at least one, maybe two, situations that worry Lucy.

At the tie rail I was busy brushing Lucy's lower front leg, bent at the waist, reaching down to her dusty feet.  I sensed Lucy tense and felt her look over my back towards the street (and the cement trucks).  I stood up and smacked my head on the underside of Lucy's jaw.
Ow!  I said.
Holy sh*t! Lucy said. Her eyes were wild with worry and she pulled back.
Whoa, Lucy.  You're okay.  I didn't hit you.  Well, not on purpose anyway and my head hurts worse than yours.
She settled, sort of.

Walking up to the dressage court, at our neighbor closest to the dressage court, a construction crew started up on the construction of his new garage.  The nail guns were loud and they woke up the trolls.

I walked Lucy around the perimeter of the dressage court and she was obedient, but worried.  Very worried.  I decided to lunge her instead of getting on.  On the lunge, we worked our way up the dressage court to the troll corner and there we stayed.  She spooked a few times, but a spook on the lunge line is no big deal.  We worked until she was transitioning promptly from my voice, in both directions, at any place in the arena.  And then we called it quits.