My Paint Pony

Raised on a farm 18 miles from town I had few friends, well actually no friends that lived nearby. That left me with animals as companions and I love animals. I especially love horses. My dad raised and raced Thoroughbreds as a hobby and he instilled the love of horses in me. I married, started a family, and there just wasn't much time to spend with horses, not to mention very little money and  having horses takes money. Then my dad passed away and we had to sell off all of his horses, from that point on I never got back on a horse. A back injury left me unable to ride even if I would have had the opportunity. Several years ago, when I was promoted to Superintendent for Game and Parks, my boss pretty much insisted I get back in the saddle..........so I did. Although rough on my back it only took one time sitting in the saddle and all my childhood memories of riding the pasture with my dad came back and I was hooked.

I went on several trail rides with groups that visit our park, riding a borrowed horse from my boss. Then a couple years ago my husband bought me a horse. A big ole sorrel mare who I fell in love with immediately. I said that "Nugget" would walk off a cliff for me if I asked her to. Nugget is about 17 hands tall, a big ole girl, and watching me get on her is - well a source of amusement for my co-workers. As much as I love Nugget I always wanted a paint pony, especially one that my grannies could ride. Last spring I GOT ONE! My husband bought me a 5-year old mare. Sugar was just green broke. Meaning you could get on her but she really didn't know what else to do, she wasn't a bucker thank goodness, but she also didn't know how to rein, stop, or go for that matter. My son started riding her and by the time summer rolled around the kids were able to get on and ride her. Then to give her more training I rode her for 3 days on a trail ride. Some grassland riding, some hills and butte riding and she was really getting the hang of it.



One one ride we crossed a small creek 17 times, we jumped it 11 times before we got the monkey to settle down and walk through it. The amazing thing was, I stayed on when she jumped. So here are a couple pictures of Sugar. She is kind of a flashy little thing, definitely a loving animal and is still a work in progress. But then so am I so I guess we make a good pair.

IT"S FALL!! BEST WISHES TO ALL!

Can anyone tell me why sometimes when I download a picture I am able to select it and make the photo smaller, larger, full size and other times, like today when I can only select and drag to change the photo? I get so frustrated with this that I don't enjoy blogging at all. Please help!!

Photo taken from House TalkN
I don't always have something to blog about but so many others do and I just love looking at new blogs, well and old ones too. I add them to my favorites and when I have time I take a look at what is new with them. I found two today that I just fell in love with, mostly because they are so upbeat and full of fun and wonderful things that I love. Just click here to visit House TalkN and here to visit Life and Linda. Both sound like amazing women, full of life and not afraid of new adventures.

Late Summer Garden Walk

I love the late summer - early fall garden. The colors are so vivid. The one thing I don't like about the fall garden is the clean up -- YUCK! But for now I will just enjoy looking at the garden, there will be plenty of time to clean up the beds.

My little tower adds some height and gives a little support for the leggy plants.

I am amazed that my sweet potato vine made it through some very hot summer days - I kept forgetting to water it.

The asters and mums are just getting ready to bloom. The humming bird feeder saw just a few of these little feathered friends - or I missed seeing them because I was working from dawn to dusk.

My flower beds and gardens have lots of 'old flower art' in them and I love to play around with the camera and software.

I have a love hate relationship with the morning glories. They grow where I don't want them and won't grow where I do want them. They become a tangled mess on most everything and are hard to weed out, but there are always so cheery and beautiful. I think they are related to bind weed and I wonder why people buy seed packets of them in the store when they grow so abundantly. However they sure are good climbers and fillers.

I wonder how soon the first frost will be, our calendar says that my neck of the woods in NE the first hard frost is usually around Sept. 21 - guess we will see.

My fall favorites

Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE FALL! I love the colors, the smells, the food, football, the late gardens....I just love it all. Good things have happened for me in the fall. My oldest son was born in Sept., my daughter got married in Oct., three of my seven grandchildren were born in fall. Life just seems to come together in the fall. My good friend hated fall, she would tell me it was like death to her, as the years have come and gone she now says she sees the beauty and life of fall through my eyes. Fall still isn't her favorite time of year. I can only influence so many I guess. Here are a few things I really, really love about fall. Please note that none of these first photos are mine, some are from Martha Stewart, some I pulled off the net that didn't show any authors, so sorry to those of you with the great photos.

Several years ago one of my good leaf peeping friends decided to go East to see the fall foliage. We flew out of Denver, Colorado with a few stops in between we made it to Burlington, Vermont. Coming from an area with few trees which are mostly pine trees I was in awe from the moment I saw the tips of the trees as we started to descend in the plane until we left to come home. It was so much fun, we rented a little bed and breakfast, a car and toured Vermont, New York, New Hampshire and Maine. We walked the paths through the most beautiful fall laden countryside. Took in some fall events, picked apples, took photos and collected leaves. We had some many news pressed in books that we had to buy more luggage to get it home. One of the funniest things I think I ever saw was my, small of structure friend, carrying a two foot felt stuffed ghost that we had bought at a craft fair, through the halls of one of the largest airports in the US. It wouldn't fit in the old or new luggage so she had to carry it on her lap. Needless to say we were stopped at all three airports on our way home and 'inspected'. This was the year following 911 so everyone was on their guard and I suppose we looked a little suspicious with our overload of leaves and memorabilia - made for a good laugh when we talk about our travels.

I not only love the fall colors but I love the fall garden and MUMS. I think they say 'fall' in the most beautiful way. I actually brought home a fall plant from Vermont. - I know I probably wasn't suppose to but no one said anything about it at the airports so home it came.

I have several varieties growing in my garden and every year I add more. I know they say toss them in the compost pile when you are done as they won't do anything the following year - but not so. Mine always come back and if I remember to clip their tips about the 4th of July, I get an awesome display of mums in my garden.

However the one thing I am really crazy about is pumpkins. I love to grow them, eat them, carve them, decorate with them and when I am done we take them to the fields and let the deer eat them. This little beauty taken from Martha Stewart is so pretty I am going to give it a try.

I love to photography the area around my little home town. This little area is so darn pretty but only in years with some moisture do I get to take a photo of it as the little dam is usually dry.

I love to carve those pumpkins and put them on display. Every year we have a BIG pumpkin cutting party and cut up tons of pumpkins. I invite the local elementary school to bring the younger grades over to the garden to pick pumpkins so they carve them at school.

I love to play in my pumpkin patch - even the neighbor's kitten loves to play in my pumpkin patch.

Oh FALL you are such a welcome time in my life. I hope you enjoyed a little walk through my fall thoughts!

Little Miss Emma's hobbies

Little Miss Emma has decided she likes to scrapbook - so on a recent visit she and I started her very own little scrapbook. She gets to pick the photos, the placement and the accessories. Each time she comes we are going to do a couple of pages. Her little mind churns constantly and she saw some photos I took of a friend of mine for senior photos and then she wanted her own photo shoot. These are all of her ideas - I just pushed the shutter button.

She wanted to have sunflowers but settled for these instead.

We did find one sunflower in my messy garden - it was her favorite.

This was her inspiration.

And then she had to push the shutter button - oh and I had to have a flower in my hair too.

I think Emma is going to have many talents.

The first of September and APHA ride

September is such a wonderful month. First of all we close all activities at the Fort. After putting in I don't know how many hours at work the past three or four weeks; dealing with difficult people, loss of employees and 12 to 16 hour days I am always ready for the end of the season. Then wonderfully here comes Sept. and horse rides and less hours and life is as it should be. This year I have made the ride day 1 and 2 and today is the third day. Now sitting on a horse for 6 or 7 hours a day might not be everyone's perfect day but for me it is. I rode my ole' horse Nugget the first day and my new Paint for the rest of the days. 

Sugar made some new friends on the ride - for a green broke horse and never having much of an experience she did really good.

Leaving the watering hole.

See the red flags on the horses tails? That means - don't get to close, they may kick. We didn't, see Sugar's ears at the bottom of the photo? We were careful.

Some times  it was straight down, but Sugar never failed, she traveled along nicely, but the gal in front of us bailed three times because she thought she was going over the edge.

We stretched out for  over a mile when we had to ride single file.
 Looks like a bunch of ants on top of the hill.

The 'ole watering hole'! 

When I stopped with Nugget she would barely get her feet wet, probably the first time in her 20 years that she had to walk into a lake to get a drink but when Sugar got to the lake she dove right in, deeper and deeper, like she needed to get in the lake further to get more water and the poor hot little thing didn't want to get out.

Well it's 4 in the morning and time to go get the horses up for our next leg of the journey. We have to trailer to the spot we are going. Today will be in timber and I am anxious to get back in the saddle.

Playing with my blog.



Misty Schell..............soon to be Gregory!



Once again it has been a long time since I had time to play with my blog - first of all I couldn't up load any photos and like those people who talk with their hands.............I talk with my photos. No photos meant no blogging. So I 'buy' some space so I can continue to add pictures only to find that once again my blog has new changes. One of those is that I am unable to change the size of my picture - I struggled with that for umm days, weeks actually and today it worked. Not sure what the difference was, or was I the difference but it worked so I am just posting  a little photo I grabbed to see if I could make it bigger. This is a shot of a very special young woman, her two sisters and the rest of her bridal party. We got her down on the lawn for some photos and what goes down must come it. Made for a good laugh. So a beautiful wedding on a beautiful day for a beautiful person - one of those treasured moments in life.