Rainy Sunday

Horses: It's not supposed to rain in the winter. It's supposed to snow. It's also supposed to be cold and stay cold. Mother Nature isn't cooperating much today. It's relatively warm at 45 degrees and raining. Tonight the temperature will drop freezing up all these lovely puddles which will then get covered lightly with a dangerous layer of snow making them invisible. Stanley's paddock will become a skating rink filled with bumps and ruts of frozen mud and ice. This is when I think I should have opted to put snow shoes on him for winter.

Equestrian Girl and I have been sharing a lesson for the last several weeks. Today was no exception and all three of us (including Stanley) got high marks from Kim today for doing so well. Equestrian Girl worked on using a very collected counter canter to get a better lope. I did something similar but had Stanley bending to the outside while circling to the inside at the trot to get that collected lope. Both of these exercises were very hard for all of us and I'm quite sure I'm going to be sore tomorrow!

Homeschooling: I spent part of this rainy afternoon writing a quiz on Loch Ness. Here's a sampling of questions:

1. True or False: Lock Ness has more water than any other lake in Scotland or England

2. True or False: The old yellow limestone that is found on one side of the lake was used to build castles in Scotland and to build brownstones in the USA.

3. Loch Ness is very straight because of:

a. the san andreas fault

b. the icebergs

c. the great glenn fault

d. the tectonic plates

e. the monster

4. True or False In the time of the dinosaurs Scotland was still attached to America and was located close to the equator.

5. What kind of dinosaur could have possibly have lived in this area that resembles what people think the Loch Ness Monster looks like?

a. Tyranasaurus

b. Plesiosaurus

c. Brontosaurus

d. Triceratops

e. Pterodactyls

6. Why do most experts think it’s impossible that the Loch Ness Monster is an ancient dinosaur that has managed to survive?

The actual quiz has 14 questions and the kids will take it after they've watched a 45 minute movie about Loch Ness. I'm not sure who learns more from these though - me or them!