A Bay Day And A Little Black And WhiteToo

As you can see today's post is not the Sunday Challenge which is "Halloween"maybe later today because we are going into town( I probably could grab a few shots)Anyhow this is a post I have been waiting for now for sometime. This is Jade out in the open -no fences - no round pen no restrictions....well maybe just one.....hopefully enough respect for one another that neither of us will get hurt. This is her first time out. It has taken a year for this event. She went to the trainer last November for a month's worth of starting....that took two month's and then when I was ready for my first ride the whole facility came down with some Super bug....so most of the winter we had sick horses, then really bad weather ....and then life took over blah....blah ...blah.... you all know what I mean. So Saturday was such a beautiful day - way to good to waste. I didn't want to go out on my own ( I don't think we are ready for that)so I asked Dave to go....I don't know about anybody else's guy but I gotta say it was like pulling teeth. I got every excuse he could come up with.... in the end though the good guy that he is came out and away we went. We loaded up the bays - the dogs and were gone.

Jade did well, she did everything I asked ....she was eager and willing...mostly ears up the whole time.It was just gorgeous, the sky was blue blue blue the scenery was great I'm so glad we didn't waste the day,there may not be many days this nice for awhile. Can you see that little patch of black and white.... (Kali)that was her first time out riding with the horses and she did very good.

Look at that happy face. I wasn't sure what to be ready for as Kali is quite shy of the horses and really stays her distance. She loved it out there. She came back everytime she was called, by the end of the ride she was falling in behind....I was relieved I thought I might be chasing her around or she might try running back to the truck....or just running away altogether.

This pic is Dave and his Bay Buster. Look at that blue sky, the combination makes for a nice picture.

Do you think they could have given me a shot with their ears up....not a chance.

Now there's an unflattering pic.......the horse looks great.......I think I was trying to get the kink out of my right cheek.....golden years my ###.

That's that. I have to say I was quite happy with the whole outing, everything went well...no mishaps...what more could you ask for.

The Auction Goodies/The Pretty/ The Drab

These are some of the items I got at Shirley and Ted's Auction last Saturday. There was a lot of stuff there I would have liked to get ....but oh well maybe next time. This is my new wood box, it is nice to have something on the porch instead of it just laying there making a mess. I also got a cool pic frame that I tried to get on here all day and finally gave up.....it is becoming a regular occurence these days.
These are my new planters, wahoo can't wait for Spring to get going again. I missed out on the Washstand I had my eye on, I was bidding on it but the guy bidding agaist me looked like he was going to keep on going.....to bad he had more buying power than I did. Oh well guess it wasn't meant to be

This is our first snow creeping down the hill close to the farm, not quite here yet but it is coming and soon.

It has been really drab and colorless around here all week....not looking good for the long winter ahead. I am so not looking forward to it, we hardly had any other seasons this year.....but it never has any trouble being winter. I am not going to grumble to loudly though because we get off a whole lot luckier than a lot of other places.

Doctoring with Essential Oils

Well I have been trying to do this post since Thanksgiving, thanks to many false starts because of my lovely computer it has taken this long.....success well kind of, there was more to this post but for some reason it won't let me do them together. At any rate this post is dedicated to Shirley and Beamer. Beamer has a touch of Thrush right where Shirley has her hoof pick. Shirley has been using Essential Oils for some time now, she uses them for many different ailments and I would say with almost if not all instances she has had a 100% success rate. The following pics are of Shirley appling a few different oils to Beamers front feet. If you would like to know what each of them do you need to ask Shirley because I can't remember them all.(Ride A Good Horse)

Here she finishes up with Animal Scents Ointment which has a wide array of Essential Oils in it.

When I talked to Shirley the day of their Auction she said Beamers Thrush was pretty much gone, so again the oils appear to have done a good job. I also use Essential Oils for a lot of different ailments as well. We used them on Jake when he hurt his leg ( took care of infection) Shirley used them on a filly of mine a few years back( to long a story to tell here) but with mega success. I use one on myself for the frequent headaches I have developed ( Deep Relief - a mix of

oils) This stuff works so well I haven't taken a store bought pill since. So if you are interested in trying something untraditional for you or your animal ailments give these essential oils a try. Shirley is also a distributor and can give you a lot of good info on the subject.

Sunday Challenge "Fall Foliage"

This challenge proved to be a little harder than I thought it would be. I didn't want to use archives and I didn't go anywhwere that I could get good shots....well I did go to Shirley's but that would mean I would have to stop driving ....then all the morons would be in front of me.....no could do. I took some pics from around the property. The yellow you see there is from the Larch pre needle loss.
The lack of foliage is more of what we have right now. Most of the trees around us have already dropped their foliage so this is what you get. The background in this shot is the Ski Hill - pre snow

The last shot is the naked trees at Sunrise.

Well guys weak effort I know....it is what it is. Well gotta run, I will see all your beauties later. Have a great week.

Wordless Wednesday

Sunday Challenge " Cars"

This, I think is a timeless Classic Beauty, as nice as hot rods are they don't have what this car has. This car is with the exception of the headlights totally original (stock)As much as I like the roar and growl of the hot rods cloaked in classic car bodies I will take the original everytime.


And then we go from classic beauty to modern day generic ho hum ....no character whatsoever. The two things this car has to offer though is, it is a Toyota and they seem to last forever and also the money you save on gas is huge. Having this car to putt around in has saved me many many dollars on fuel and saved me many many miles that would have otherwise been put in and on my truck.

So as much as I wish I could putt around in the classic beauty there is much to be said for ho hum. Well guys that's it for me. I'm off to see your stuff. Have a great week.

My Friday Part 2

My Friday almost a week ago was a wonderful day, it really turned out to be an animal day. The sun was shining I was having pretty good results with the horses I was working and then.........I tried for a part 2 to finish off my post, I have been trying for 3 days to get this post up and published and for 3 days I have been cursing this computer and just about anything living .........breathing and even inanimate. For whatever reason ....at this point I don't give a **** anymore this contraption won't put up my videos and it is making my pics like little thumbprint things.....growl ......growl...... What you would have seen, was of course, the horses, some working some relaxing, cats and dogs enjoying the sun and loving following me around.......it's great having an entourage. Sorry you missed out on such a wonderful day also seeing Jazz work in the round pen for the first time. She did so well I had to ask Shirley if she had some round pen experience, the answer was no so I am quite impressed with the little girl....maybe next time you will get to see. Anyhow that's my rant for the day. I am giving up on part 2 it is lost to cyber whatever and good riddance too. I will work on Sunday's challenge instead. Have a great day.

My Friday Part 1

Well this is the first thing I saw when I rolled out of bed Fri morning, I knew it was going to be a beauty day and decided right then I was going to have a productive .......Horse Day...... I have been saying that for weeks so coffee made and drank, chores done ...now just wait for them to finish eating and away we go.
I started with Moxie this time I have been skipping over her because she has a lot of riding under her girth now, the problem with that is it's just that riding? Let me start from the beginning if you get lost or just plain bored I'll understand.For those of you that may not remember or weren't along for the journey Moxie is a Morgan Mare that I had sold about 2 yrs ago or there abouts. When Moxie went to her new home she had just been started under saddle. She had a month of pro training and then back to me. I have to say I was not too happy with her progress (just to get a bit off topic Moxie is a bit of a strange horse she has funny little quirks mostly not too annoying or at least I don't think so) Ok back on topic, so inspite of her quirks I was expecting great things from her, I was sadly disappointed and not to cast aspersians on anyone I don't think it was entirely the fault of the horse. At any rate we had to make the best of the situation. When Moxie came home from training she had good forward motion - walk - trot - lope, she moved on the diagonal some, she almost had her leads and she had an ok stop well sort of and very little back up.I only had a few rides on her before she went to her new home.

I was happy about where she was going because I knew the man who shall be known as J and I knew she would have a good home where she would have a job......riding .....riding and more riding and also some driving(she is now a driving horse as well) Anyhow I thought everything was good for the pair I even went on a few rides with them and saw first hand how she was treated(Good) a long period of time went by and I heard a few grumblings here and there about Moxie not working out. The deal on this horse was if you don't want her anymore she comes back to me, so low and behold after all this time you guessed it Moxie's home. To make a long story short......Moxie in some ways knows less than when she left and more in other areas....to get to the point it is almost like starting over from scratch. Anyhow Friday morning Moxie and I started over in the arena, here she is ready to go ....look at that Morgan pose, she does that on her own always has.....pride in type I guess. Here are some on board shots.

We started off well she was happy ears up wanting to please. We did the usual boring stuff...warming up. We did a bunch of direction changes and I got to see where she really is......she has some good turns all to the right she has a decent stop and a very hesitant back up.

she remembers very little leg cues and takes exception to them.

In this shot you can tell from the body language she isn't to happy with the request to give to the left,ears pinned and fighting me all the way. She grabs the bit in the corner of her mouth everytime you ask for her to give anything to the left. Even though she's fighting it you can see her neck is starting to curve the way it should.....just barely.

I guess she got tired when she realized we were going to keep at it, she softened considerably and started listening a bit.

This is not a very good shot, she actually gave to the rein and had a pretty good bend to the left. It was at this point I decided to call it quits ....on a good note. She didn't give me all I was hoping for but at least she made the effort...we have a lot of work ahead of us . Sorry if I don't use the proper terminolgy but I never said I was a trainer .....so I don't have to LOL

So to finish off her lesson she gets to stay tied while I go onto other things. If you are interested there will be a part 2 soon.

Road Trip Part 2

I realized after posting Road Trip Part 1 that I never said where or why the road trip....the where was down to the Coast, Abbotsford to be exact and the why was to visit my Mom. (Dave also got to visit his sister)I haven't been to the coast for I'm guessing over 20 yrs. If my Mom hadn't moved down there I probably wouldn't ever have gone there again. Anyhow on with the trip. I'm starting you off at the Bromley Rock again because we had a little incident there that had me in stitches. The first pic shows Sage checking out the water she and the others really enjoyed their little swim......one individual however did not.

You can't see it in this pic but Dave is all wet from doing his versian of the funky chicken in the river. I had asked him to call all the dogs so I could get a picture of them and him together,he proceeded to step up onto a rock and then.....the rock started to teeter back and forth....down he went flailing away like a fish out of water. Have you ever stood there with camera in hand more than ready to get a good picture.....and then missed the shot cause you were to busy watching the event to get the pic......well that's what happened to me. It was soooo funny even if I could have stopped laughing the chance at the pic was long gone.......ha ha it's still funny, maybe you had to be there....good thing it was a nice calm spot in the river or I might have had to get into rescue mode. Ha Ha yeah I guess you had to be there.(I am still amused, sorry Dave) The next 2 pics are near Greenwood, I couldn't get a shot that would show all the flags at the same time but here's what I got. This is an old tunnel and on the side is the flags of the world it was pretty neat actually.

And of course we had to stop at the Hope Slide, here is the story on that.

This pic didn't turn out to well...it is a corn field outside of Abbotsford and it is ginormous it is the biggest corn field I have ever seen, a little hard to get a pic cruising along at 110km on the freeway.

This I thought was a curious place in Hope. It looks like something out in the middle of nowhere when in reality it is smack dab in the middle of Hope. It is surrounded by all the bustling and buildings of a busy little town.

I couldn't resist these 2 pics. They are of the surrounding mtns and the lake just before you drop down into Osoyoos. Again I do apologize for the quality of these photos....I have a hard enough time getting good pics when I'm stationary.

Anyhow that's it for the road trip.It was nice to get away, even for a short time but I'm sure it will be a long .....long time before I do another.