a rather terrible photo of Lyftyng
Today, I went to the barn where I was riding last semester (here in Scotland) for the first time this semester. It was a lovely day, the definition of a crisp fall day. Half the sky was grey, the other half was blue, as if torn between the final remains of summer and the promise of winter coming. I rode Lyftyng, a small (13.1 hands) Icelandic horse who, despite her size, has a lot of 'go'. She power walks, speed trots, and canters or gallops whenever possible. Fun! She also tölts. A tölt is the Icelandics' fourth gait, a speed between a walk and a trot, almost like a very smooth trot. Last year, I felt a tölt for a few steps, but this ride was the first time I asked for a tölt and got one. It's very cool, and reminded me once again that asking for something from a horse and receiving it willingly can be a lot more fun and rewarding than experiencing it by chance.
We rode out of the stable (or livery, as they call them here) and across fields which had been cut but not yet replanted, and so were covered in short bristly bits, as if they had been given buzz cuts. These are called stubble fields, and everyone at the barn was excited because when the fields are full of stubble, the farmers let us ride on them, and we could all go and "have a run on the stubble". So we did, and it was awesome. We raced up the hills of stubble, wind lashing our faces, hair flying back, horses with ears pricked forward, as keen and eager for speed as we were. As we cantered out of a stubble field and slowed to a walk out of the field gate, we came across another field. This one hadn't been cut, and was full of growing wheat which came up to about nose level of a small walking horse (i.e. Lyftyng). The wheat went on for as far as the eye could see, and I thought to myself that this is pretty much what fall looks like. Wheat reminds me of scarecrows and bread, which reminds me in turn of Halloween and Thanksgiving, the two fall holidays. Riding through wheat fields on the crisp fall day is the perfect way to get into the fall mood.
a field of stubble with some collected hay bundles scattered throughout
To celebrate the fall mood further, I went to the store after the ride to buy sweet potatoes, which I consider very fall-ish food. I went to a little corner market, one I'd never been to before. After buying the sweet potatoes, I walked out. As I was almost out the door, I heard the shopkeeper call, "wait!" So I turned back. He looked at me for a second, then said, with a shy smile, "do you want a caterpillar?"
I was confused. Nobody has ever asked me that question before. I thought it must be some kind of Scottish food I'd never heard of, so I walked back in and said, after a brief silence, "sure!" And that is how I became the proud owner, for a brief time, of Rodger the caterpillar. He had apparently smuggled himself into the store with the corn. On my walk back home, I released him to the wilds of a curbside potted tree.