Fun at the Arena

The winter is wet yucky weather in these parts so we haul out to a local arena. It is not as fun as trail riding but it keeps us out of the rain!

Rachel's sister Michelle came out with us and rode Turbo even though she thought he was very slow and lazy.

What a fat belly! He needs to visit the arena more often.

Tango's first ride after about 2 months of being lame. I think Rachel felt really good to be on her own horse.  Look at how hot steamy he is after a short work out. :)

Nostalgia

As I sit inside wishing it was warmer outside I find myself reflecting on past summers. This always leads me down the rabbit hole, past summers to past years to WOW the kids have grown so much!

2006

2010

This was such a beautiful day. We were at the kite festival in Longview Washington. I sat for hours watching the kids play in the water.

Lesson Time!

"Jessie, chest out, hips back, keep him going through the corner..."

"Like this?"

"No Jessie, Hey why did you stop in the corner? ANTICIPATE Brownies moves!"

"What?????"

"Jessie! move forward, kick him!"

"What? Wait mom take my picture. hehehe, giggle, giggle"

"JESSIE???? GET BACK TO THE LESSON!"

"How about this? Is this my good side?"

"Wow, These lessons are so painful..."

Dover Con't

Here is another picture of Dover. It makes me so sad but I am glad we were able to bring him home and care for him.

Popcorn

Introducing Popcorn.....

            He is our crazy, silly, spastic, new addition.

Dover

I have mixed feelings about poor Dover. He is a 14 yo OTTB that we found on craigslist. On one hand I am excited to have him, my son has his own horse but he is so skinny I feel sad for him. His owner had all the good intentions for him but she wasn't able to feed him enough to keep the weight on. I only wish she would have let him go sooner. I think he will be very nice looking when he fills out. So far he has fit in our little herd very nicely, he is the sweetest little thing. Let see what his attitude is like once he gets some weight on him. Yes this brings the herd up to five....

Moments

I was looking through some older pictures today and these three jumped out at me. My kids are both getting to the age where they are not impressed by anything. They have seen it all, they are so much cooler then their mother. However, we raised some butterflies over the summer and when we released them the  magic happened. The butterflies did not want to fly away. We had to pick them out of their temporary home. BOTH my kids were transported back to the simpler times, when small things captured their imagination. I love these small moments......

Introducing Henry

I am so excited, we have added a new horse to our herd! Henry is a show pony/Arab cross. He is really Rachel's but possession is 9/10 of the law right? Since he is at my house I guess I can claim him :)

She found him on craigslist for free and once we saw him we didn't want to leave him there. He was in a large muddy pasture all by himself. He looked so lonely. We took Turbo with us when we went to pick him up and he was so excited to see another horse he just about ran into the trailer. He is just a little guy about a year and a half old and she plans to turn him into a nice trail horse when he gets old enough. Please excuse the cell phone pics but here he is.....

Thrush

Tango has always had sensitive feet but lately he has been getting much worse. We weren't really sure what was causing the problem. He had a thrush infection in one hoof but he also seemed sensitive on his leg. Lucky for Tango our barefoot trimmer was due to come over and she found a very deep thrush infection!

It was amazing to see the difference once she cut a lot of it out, it must have released the pressure because he is running around like before. You can only see a slight stiffness in his back leg. But it will still be awhile until we can ride him .......

Willamette State Mission

I had been putting off the State Mission off as their website made it sound boring to be honest. It was just Rachel and I this time and we needed somewhere close. We were in for a nice surprise. It is not the most challenging ride but it is a lot of fun. The ride varies; there are some tree covered areas, some farm views but my favorite part was riding beside the river. There is a nice flat piece of land that slowly falls into the river. You will find a picnic table so we thought it would be a great place to stop have lunch and play in the water.

I wish it was warmer I was tempted to jump in as it was!

The video from the earlier post of Turbo was from here as well.

Riding, it always helps a bad day

The day could not have started worse!

Where do I begin? We had an unexpected sunny day and were very excited to go to the beach and run the horses. I was excited to try out our new truck. It would be so nice to be able to speed up the hills and not have to worry about the cars piling up behind us. I pick up my partners in crime, Josh and Rachel, and we are on our way.

Of course we were all commenting about how nice the truck was, how much power it had etc etc etc. Well the joke was on us, about half way to the beach a hose came off. We were now able to race along at the grand speed of....... 35, 15 up hills, WOW!

To make a long story short we never made it to the beach but we didn't want to give up on riding for the day. when we happened to pass a trail head along the way home and figured it couldn't hurt to try it out.

The trail itself looked interesting, dirt and beautiful trees in the forest. It was fun but short lived. This would be a great trail for an extreme rider. First the dirt is very loose and we fell knee deep in it at one point. Second, there is a very difficult stream crossing. It looks like the trail is mostly used by hikers although it is an equestrian trail as well. The stream crossing has very loose footing but if you had a good horse you could jump it or get off and have your horse jump over it. Another part of the problem is that the trail is fairly overgrown on both sides so the landing area is rather crowded. We did not make it past the crossing but it was still a fun ride. A good way to turn around what started out as a bad day.

How sweet!

A Kind Face?

Since I am fairly new to the horse world I read, and read, and read some more. I find a lot of people will describe their horse as having "a kind face."

A kinds face? What is that? I love horses, all horses have nice faces! As I was browsing through my photos it hit me, THIS is a kind face......

Tango

      Doesn't he look like he is almost smiling?