Month: March 2019

The Trails and My Horses!

On By DianaIn Barn stories, Horse stories, Love being Grandma, Memories8 Comments
My best friend on her horse Gracie, and Chloe looking in the field. ❤

I can’t express in words how truly lucky and blessed I am to own one of the BEST trail horses ever! She has some limitations as I can’t ride up or down steep hills, but there are plenty of other trails that I can ride that she is just perfect. That would be my girl Miss Chloe, she has so many trail miles and she completely enjoys our rides and is steady and strong. Not much ruffles her feathers as my girlfriend and I enjoy our rides each week. We are seeing so many wildflowers bloom with all our rain. Here are a few photo’s of a big field we ride by often, full of wildflowers! Are flowers blooming yet where you live? I feel fortunate to be in mild climate in Southern California.

A close up of flowers on this trail!
A big usually brown field full of growth! So beautiful! It will get plowed eventually.

I have written in other posts about all my riding in the past which rarely included trail rides. I use to show Hunter/Jumpers and my riding life was all arena riding with many jumping lessons and a ton of horse shows. My, how my horse enjoyment has changed, but then I have changed and grown old and my time and money are such that the trails are what I do each week. I dream of showing, but then am tired most of the time and wonder why I would want the stress of showing, plus I don’t own a show horse and the money it would take to get back into showing is a bit crazy. I think if I got back into any kind of horse showing it would be trail shows, or trail trials and I do not own a horse that can do this but I thought one day it would be fun to try competitive trail riding, maybe someday. 😀

They love their lunch, I LOVE her roan color! She is an amazing mare! ❤
He sheds in patches, crazy boy! He is tenacious in his old age! ❤
She watches me, and poses for these beautiful photos! ❤ Chloe, you melt my heart!

I use to not give trail riding much thought, like it was just this thing you do if you own a horse and can’t afford much else. Or if your horse has lameness issues or is restricted because of lameness issues and you can’t exercise them in the arena (which is all I really knew in the past was arena exercise). I’m coming to the realization that a true trail horse has extensive training and I don’t give myself enough credit for all the training I have done with my trail horses. Miss Chloe has a bad back leg so we only trail ride to keep her limber and in shape.

I am terrible to myself, I should be so proud as I bought Miss Chloe as an unbroken 2 year old and I broke her to ride which includes walk, trot and canter (lope) in the arena! She knows many things, side pass, turn on the haunches, turn on the forehand, backing up, moving off the leg and a bit of neck reining. We do not practice any more in the arena because all I ever do with her any more is TRAIL RIDING and she is a PRO! 😀 We have over 10 years under our belt of the best ever trail rides. She brings so much with her on the trails, so calm and reassuring to any horse that is nervous or spooky. I know I have helped her with all her training and I am so proud of my mare, she is one of a kind, my friend, my muse. ❤ ❤ ❤

This is from one year ago, my granddaughter and Chloe! She Loves Kids!

I can’t believe it has been one year since this photo of Alice on Chloe! I am missing Alice terribly since she has moved to Arizona but I have been visiting as often as I can and I am off to Arizona next week. I will be helping with babysitting and I can’t wait for my visit. I wish I could take the horses with me, but I can’t afford to take them and so they will be taken care of by my best friend, Gracie’s Mom.

I have so enjoyed sharing my ponies with you all and I have such great respect for all the trail riders out in this world. I know there are many kinds of trails, our trails are among residential houses which are mostly quite, only one busy street otherwise not much traffic. We also are close to a riverbed which is an all natural habitat but the sand is too deep for my horses. There is a lot to see and learn for the horses on our trails. Not much spooks our seasoned trail horses any more! THEY ARE THE BEST TRAIL PONIES! I can’t help myself, I have to brag, they deserve it!

Proud Trail Pony Mom,

-Diana 😀

Roses are blooming!

On By DianaIn Gardening, Living life5 Comments
This rose has the most AMAZING rose smell! I LOVE IT! ❤

I have a small garden in my front yard with a few rose bushes that are LOVING all the rain and I am getting some blooms. I can’t believe it is almost Spring and I absolutely LOVE the smell of roses. I find it amazing how smells can evoke memories as these beautiful roses remind me of my youth. This blog is all about roses! 😀

A rose bud, so fat and cute! ❤
This is so beautiful as the bud opens so dark in color, fading with the flower below as it ages on the vine!

Nature just amazes me with all it’s beauty. I have a handful of rose bushes that are all different, the variegated colors above are just gorgeous. I love being outside and seeing what the day brings and what is new in the world. There are a lot of fun things to observe. I wish I got my camera out yesterday at the stables as I observed a wild finch as it flew and perched itself on the fence and I thought what funny whiskers – haha – it’s beak was full of horse hair as it was gathering this for its nest! Darn, it would have been a great photo!!

Such a big rose, so compact in the middle! This is my favorite smelling rose.

I cheated and the first rose is the same rose as the last, but I tried a super close shot opposed to farther away. My favorite is the super close up shot, with my second being the rose that is light yellow with a pink fringe! I like the rose bud too, heck, I love them all. I just had to share my roses today as they put a giant smile on my face and I can’t wait until the sun returns. We will have some rain tonight and we have just seen the sun a little bit here and there the last week or so. It is to warm up this week and I am SO EXCITED! 😀 😀 😀

Can’t wait for SPRING, can’t wait to garden!

-Diana ❤

Weekend Coffee Share; Spring is coming!

On By DianaIn Family is important, Living life, weekend coffee share13 Comments
Wild flowers Bloom!

I am enjoying an afternoon cup of decaf coffee because I will need to take a nap as I will be working tonight. I prefer regular coffee but a cup of decaf works in a pinch. Can I pour you a cup of coffee? or maybe tea or decaf of either? I am super happy that we had a wonderful weekend and the rain passed us by this weekend. We really need a break so we can dry out from all the rain this winter. It was a chilly day, but a beautiful day as I enjoyed meeting up with my friends at the stables for a couple of trail rides. I actually enjoyed 2 rides, one on my girl Chloe and the other on my pretty boy Zack. The birds were singing, it was cool and crisp. These wild flowers are on the trails where we ride. ❤

Such pretty wild flowers!

I took close up photos above, this is what we ride by on this trail!

I have to say that Spring is in the air, and I think everyone can agree that we are all looking forward to Spring! I have been reading and seeing many blogs and following many people that are still knee deep in snow, or deeper. I have been seeing that so many are still in single digit weather, I can’t imagine to be completely honest. I told myself and I think I’ve written that I would stop complaining of the rain and what little cold weather we experience here in Southern California because it is nothing like what I read or see in the news in the cold northern states. Stay warm, have another cup of coffee! Spring will be here soon! 😀

She makes me smile! As she is longing for a treat! ❤ ❤ ❤

This weekend was picking my youngest son up at the airport as he flew in from spending three weeks in Arizona helping his brother and their family. These young adults are so silly, his first time flying alone he almost missed his flight. Not realizing he needed to be at the airport at least an hour before take-off, he didn’t get there until 25 minutes before take-off. They had closed boarding but he was lucky as there was some delay in the departure and they ended up letting him board. Silly guy, he will do better next time.

I am enjoying my brew, the warmth of the mug in my hands and the wonderful smell of coffee. Don’t you just love the smell of coffee? I sure do, the taste is wonderful too, can I pour you another cup? As I sit here pondering my future and what it holds I am a bit confused. I have grown children living in different locations which I wish I could live near both of them. That is not going to happen soon, and I can’t live by both so I must choose. OR we stay were we are…. I thought I had everything figured out, but I don’t. I can’t see our future path, I know we can’t see what the future holds? I know we can plan, I know we have choices but somethings are just plain difficult.

Even though this is a coffee share, I’d like to say that it takes some strength to put words to virtual paper and to share with the world. I think it can be scary but for some reason I really want to share my thoughts with you all. Don’t you all feel special? YOU ARE ALL SPECIAL, you really are and I do love to share as much positive words as I can but life is full of other things that are less positive. There are disappointments and sad things that affects all our lives, but we see enough of that in the news. That’s why I find it important to keep things up beat and positive. I am human and have sad days, and I have a crazy busy life full of family that have things that are happy and some that are tragic and sad. There have been some sad events in my family and I know they will recover and move past their events and grow stronger and look towards the future.

Thank you for sharing a cup of coffee with me this afternoon. Thank you for reading along with my writings as I find writing extremely fun and therapeutic. I so enjoy sharing my world with the world. I so enjoy sharing all my photos, I LOVE photography and can’t get enough of them and I so enjoy hearing from you if you care to comment. It’s okay if you don’t, I still love blogging, even if no one was there I would still enjoy this and I’ve met some wonderful folks. Thank you friends and thank you family.

With loving thoughts, positive thoughts, warm thoughts to all…

-Diana ❤

Family Visit’s, Busy Days!

On By DianaIn Family is important, Living life, Memories8 Comments
California poppy’s are blooming everywhere! This is at Chino State Park.

It has been a crazy, busy last two weeks. It seems as I get older instead of slowing down I am getting busier and I seem to try and cram in all I can in one day, or in this case two weeks. But it is all good and I hope all the family that I saw in the last two weeks enjoyed our time together as much as I did, especially because we got to see and do some very fun things. Breaking bread together is on the top of my list of favorite things that I enjoy, probably because I LOVE FOOD! ❤

I am going to share some food photos I did take as we ate at a yummy Mexican restaurant, Anchos in Riverside and my oldest sister treated us and it was absolutely delicious. They make homemade tortillas and we all got some sort of fajitas and with those homemade tortillas making soft tacos, oh goodness, my mouth is watering just thinking about all the good food we shared together! We also ate Sushi two times with my other sister who was here too, the last dinner she treated, Thank You both – sister’s rock! ❤

Shrimp fajita’s, with jalapeno butter for dipping! Best taco’s I’ve ever had!
Sushi which I LOVE! This is actually my sister’s plate as her’s looks the best. ❤

As I write this things have settled down. I had two sisters (out of 4, and I have 1 brother) come and visit for different reasons, but there was an event we shared together and that was to go to my Aunt’s 90th birthday party. What was fun is that we were able to celebrate my oldest sister’s birthday as her birthday is close to my Aunt’s so we were able to take her out to celebrate before she had to fly home. And we were able to eat great food with yummy dessert’s, we all had a piece of pie instead of cake for her birthday! It was a wonderful day and we had a great time at my Aunt’s festivities too. ❤ Do you have busy family days? Sometimes the busy gets crazy busy, but am thankful we all made it work.

I was so thankful that my sister’s came to share my love of my horses. Intermixing each other’s schedules, trying to make it all work, one of my sister’s is a horse back rider and use to own Zack which I adopted when she moved to Idaho. My other sister is not a horse person but spent time at the stables visiting while we went on a short trail ride. Here is a photo of my Aunt who is doing well, and looks good at 90 years old! ❤

My Aunt Rene who turned 90 in February, 2019 ❤
Sally is on Gracie, Sharon on Zack riding one of a few trail rides this weekend!
My sister Bonnie sitting, and Sharon is standing as we visit at the stables!
The view leaving Chino State Park, such a beautiful view!

I take so many photos and I want to share so many, but I also want to share my story as so much has happened in the last two weeks. I am just touching on my busy days, no use boring everyone with all the details. Suffice it to say that there was a lot of decision making in trying to figure out how to fit everything in we wanted to do together. Amazingly we made it all work which I am proud of and I am hoping my sister’s enjoyed their time here in Southern California. 😀 I think I’ll just write another post about my visit to Arizona to help my family there and most importantly I got my granddaughter’s hugs in which I cherish. ❤ I can’t help myself, one more photo! Thank you for spending time with me and reading about my busy weeks! 😀

She melts my heart, my granddaughter and me! ❤

Family crazy times, visiting sister fun and grandma joy!

-Diana ❤