Friday night Fronie and I had to decorate two carts and a tractor in preparation for the Clarkes Beach Christmas parade on Saturday morning. Unfortunately Fronie's hubby was home off the boat for the weekend and had decided he wanted to go to the company dinner/dance, so Fronie had to bow out of the parade and turn her reins over to my FIL. She was heart broken but still got into the spirit by helping to decorate. What a time we had! Barney was our biggest helper - or so he thought. At first he was in the tack room where Fronie's son Robert was attempting to make a sign for us to put on the front of the tractor. After a few puncture marks from Barney's claws, Robert banished Barney from the tack room - so he came out into the barn to help Fronie and I. Trust me - he wasn't ANY help! It didin't matter what part we were working on, Barney had to be a part of it. It's pretty hard to string garland when there's a 15 lb black furry weight on the end of the garland! After we did the carts we had to do the tractor outside. I'd bought a very LARGE pair of X-mas balls to hang on the tractor. Fronie made chains out of zap straps so that the balls could swing while the tractor was moving. I was putting a nice big bow on the front when Barney decided to try to give me a hand. By this time it was pretty cold out so the tractor had a light coating of frost on it. When Barney jumped onto the front of the tractor he started to slip over the edge. Most cats would have just abandoned ship, but not Barney. His little legs were scurrying as fast as they could in an attempt to stay on. It looked like he was on a treadmill! He never was able to regain his balance and eventually fell over the side of the tractor so he left me and went back to help Fronie with her balls.
I must say that the tractor and carts turned out excellent. Early Sat morning we got the ponies ready. I tried to clean Skipper up but gave up and decided that if anyone asked what the strange colour was, I'd tell them it's the rare creamello colour. They wouldn't recognize it as urine and manure stains! The parade went really well. It was very organized and they let us choose where we wanted to be in the lineup (away from the sirens - they're hard on the ears. Human and animal). Traffic control was fantastic. Thunder was ahead of us at first but he was trotting along like a devil so we had to rearrange our order and put him behind Skipper and I. There was no slowing him down and I didn't want my FIL pulling on his mouth the whole time in an attempt to contain him. He was definitely happier behind Skipper - although his nose was right up to the back of my cart! Every once in a while Skipper would whinnie and Thunder would answer back. I guess Skipper was just checking to make sure his little buddy was still there and doing fine.
Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures myself of us because I was driving. My MIL took some but I haven't received any from her yet. Here is a facebook link that has a couple of pictures - but none of the tractor. And it's hard to see Thunder because he was so close behind me. He was definitely the parade favourtie!
https://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/photo.php?pid=10031190&op=1&o=all&view=all&subj=175635899411&aid=-1&oid=175635899411&id=686610520https://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/photo.php?pid=10031097&op=1&o=all&view=all&subj=175635899411&aid=-1&oid=175635899411&id=686610520https://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/photo.php?pid=10357447&op=2&o=all&view=all&subj=175635899411&aid=-1&oid=175635899411&id=548465144I'm on the hunt for more pictures and if I get any I'll be sure to post them.
After the parade the kids and adults all came over to pet the ponies. My BIL wanted to know why nobody came over to pet the tractor! Once we were home and the boys were cooling down in the barn and happily munching hay I got a phone call from the mayor. She thanked us for bringing the critters and also said that we had won a prize! I was so excited that I didn't even ask her what we won the prize for or what it was. I'll find out today when I go and pick it up. We had an AWESOME time!
Mon Dec 21, 2009 12:03 pm
