Tag: #horsefun

Weekend Coffee Share ~ Trail Rides And Horsey Fun!

On By DianaIn Living life, weekend coffee share13 Comments
My beautiful roses are blooming, thanks to the recent rain we had a week ago!

Welcome to my weekend coffee share, can I get you a nice hot cup of coffee or tea? I also have other beverages if you prefer. I am enjoying the cooler weather as it has really cooled down and feeling like winter here even though its late fall. This weekend the time changes for us so we get an extra hour falling back and now my son and family in Arizona will be an hour ahead of us since they do not observe the time change. I am hoping one day they stop switching back and forth from daylight saving time, that would be wonderful! I can tell you that my animals do not know about these changing hours so my kitties woke me up at 6:15am to be fed breakfast. They think it’s 7:15am, haha…. It will take a few weeks to slowly feed them a little later each morning. We are not early risers especially since I work swing shift hours (2pm – 10:30pm) Monday thru Friday.

I had time this weekend to share with you all things horses. I have been getting a lot of trail rides in on my girl Miss Chloe. She is doing great! I am so grateful her leg is all healed up and she is best going out for a walking trail ride. We walk around the block and have lots of different routes to take as there are lots of blocks in the neighborhood. I will hook up with some friends at the stables for some rides too. I think it’s about half the time I am riding out alone, with the other half I have a friend along.

I am so happy Miss Chloe is confident out alone with me as I am not at that point in Murphy’s training to be out alone with him. He is 4 this year and I would like him to be older before I attempt any alone trail rides. Murphy and I ride in the arena as there is a lot to learn in there with him. I am gaining a wonderful connection with Murphy on the ground when we work together and when I am riding him. He is such a sweetheart!

Heading out of the stables.
This is the driveway out to the trails!
This is our trails, heading down 6th St.
Me and my shadow! I LOVE these shadow photos!
This is our cross walk button in Norco for horses!

Can I get you a refill? I am so happy about the weather. It’s been a bit chilly at night but the days have been so wonderful and perfect for riding. It is not too hot, and the horses are all really happy with our weather. Speaking of weather, we are to get a lot of rain the next three days. It’s to start tomorrow or maybe a little tonight although as I type there isn’t a cloud in the sky! I’m sure it will move in and I hope it’s only two days of rain instead of three. Just because my ponies live outside and I buy the shavings that bed their stall. I will buy some by Wednesday after I see how wet they get. Thankfully we get a lot of sunshine so we should dry out within a few days and be back to riding again. Here are a few more photos from today. 😀

A friend took this photo of us on the trail!
Me and my selfies!
Miss Chloe has my heart!
Murphy is so shiny I had to take this photo. He has a beautiful winter coat!

I am so enjoying sharing my horses with you today. Murphy got a little cut on his front left leg and it is so superficial that I am surprised that his leg has swelled from it so I am thinking there might have been a very small puncture wound. I decided to wrap his leg which should support the leg and hopefully it will reduce the swelling. He does not limp, so thankful for that but am hoping it heals up fast and without a vet visit. I am taking it easy with him to make sure it is completely healed before putting him back to work. I would rather be on the safe side and we are facing this rain storm so I will just make sure he leaves the leg wrap alone and will check the swelling every day. I am not too worried about it, horses just get nicks and cuts pretty easily and this really shouldn’t be a big problem and will watch things closely.

I hope you all are having a good weekend. Can you believe we are in November now? Before you know it, it will be Thanksgiving here in the states. Christmas is not that far away now! I am thankful for so many things and I enjoyed sharing my horsey weekend with you all. Thank you Natalie for hosting the weekend coffee share!

Murphy has my heart as well! Love Him!
My happy place so peaceful and calm. ❤

I hope you all have a wonderful week ahead!

Happy Horse Loving, Trail Riding Cowgirl,

~Diana ❤

A Horsey Fun-Filled Weekend at Monty Robert’s Flag Is Up Farm!

On By DianaIn Living life, weekend coffee share21 Comments

Welcome to my weekend coffee share where we share what’s been happening in our life with old friends and new. I am up north visiting my daughter and her girlfriend gifted us with these beautiful flower bouquet’s. What a great way to start my post with these flowers, as I just love them. Flowers of any kind always make me smile! 😀

I drove up to Orcutt, CA where my daughter lives and I am staying with her while I attended Monty Robert’s The Movement, 2022 ~ Happiness, Health & Horses! His Flag Is Up Farm is located in Santa Ynez Valley which is just minutes away from Solvang, CA. My daughter is about 30 miles north and so the drive was not bad to get to the clinic. It was an all day event for both Friday and Saturday and I am spending Sunday with my daughter and friends and will head home Monday. I have some time here and thought I would share the photo’s I took of this weekend and the training seminars.

Monty Roberts showing us his famous training technique “Join Up” which he was teaching to us in his round pen.

We started out with this 3 year old Arabian filly who has had very little to no training, just growing up in a pasture. Within 2 days he had a rider on her back using his gentling methods. He is on a mission to change the training techniques across the globe for non-violent training for all horses. It doesn’t matter if they are wild mustangs, young horses needing to be “broke” he hates the term breaking horses, we should be gentling them as we speak Equus to them and get them to want to be with us and learn from us. It is all so amazing what he shares and his methods are tried and true and he wants to rid the world of violence, if only he could. He helps groups of people with PTSD and holds training seminars for corporations and anyone needing to see how horses can heal and help teach us patience and confidence.

We had a seminar on hoof care and the woman in the photo is Ada Gates-Patton the first and only woman journeyman farrier of thoroughbred horses in the nation. She also inspects the shoes of every horse taking part in the Rose Parade. I also have a photo of Monty talking to us here as we were waiting for the farrier to trim the horse. Her background and knowledge was so amazing to hear about and she was Monty’s farrier for many years. I won’t go into her whole background but she gleaned so much information to us about horses hooves, it was so educational and something I am so grateful to learn about. Ada explained to us what she was looking for after the trim on the horse for a balanced hoof.

We broke for lunch which was provided each day and we enjoyed the beautiful grounds of Monty’s farm. It is so tranquil there and a huge farm! There are horses everywhere, in pastures or paddocks. He has transition horses from gentling mustang’s to off the track thoroughbreds that will be retrained for a new career. He also has young thoroughbreds there for training for the racetrack. He will get them started and use to the starting gates and they will be sent back to their racing trainer. Such a busy place but you would not know it with how peaceful it is there. ❤

This is Jamie Jennings who is a Certified Monty Robert’s trainer. She has gone thru all his courses and tests.

We are back in the round pen where Jamie did a “join up” with this thoroughbred who was recently retired from racing and will be retrained for a new career. She is a beautiful young mare and started out a bit nervous but settled right down while being worked with in the round pen. This is what Jamie does at her farm in Oklahoma getting retired racehorses from Horse and Hound Rescue and that is how I got my horse Midnight Murphy, a retired racehorse but he never made it to the track because he was too slow!

It was so wonderful to finally meet Jamie in person and as we exchanged hugs it was such a pleasure to see her training in action and all she has learned from the great Monty Roberts. She will be continuing his legacy as they train more and more people in his methods. There are Certified Monty Roberts Trainers all over the world. Monty is 87 years old and he has accomplished getting all of this training online with I believe hundreds of video’s and with my participation at this clinic I get 3 months free for Monty’s online university training.

The above photos are of Mark Bolender a famous trainer in his own right being an expert on extreme trail and mountain trail competitions. He has designed mountain trail courses all over the world and he has designed and put in a mountain trail course at Flag Is Up Farm in the infield of Monty’s racetrack. This is Mark’s famous horse Checkers. A National Grand Champion I think more than once and he is now a Breyer horse (You can buy a plastic Breyer horse of Checkers!) Mark is riding him bridle-less with just a rope around his neck. Very impressive as he navigates the bridge. He even turned around on the bridge! There are many components on the trail course and I did not take photos of everything there. I’m finding that there is so much to share, maybe I’ll just share more photos and less words!

Friday was a long day as we had wine and cheese and a concert in the evening. Templeton Thompson and Sam Gay sang to us as we enjoyed the evening. It got a bit chilly with a strong breeze but it was beautiful music and a fun time!

The next day was gentling mustangs in a special pen Monty had built so that the wild mustang’s could be gentled and all could stay safe. In the stalls that you can see they are standing in they can be touched all over with a long stick and a glove at the end which mimics a hand. These wild mustang’s have been there for about 6 weeks now and believe me, you could tell they were still pretty wild. But they were trusting too, and you can see Jamie rubbing on one’s shoulder as he enjoys the scratches!

Day 2 and Monty uses a dummy rider to get the young Arabian filly to accept a rider. She did buck a lot at first with the dummy on it’s back. It is secured and has weighted boots to mimic a rider. It does not fall off but she was very good when a rider did get on which was so wonderful to see. His gentling methods are truly amazing!

Here I am standing next to Monty Roberts. I didn’t want to interrupt him as he is always deep in conversation explaining away as there are always so many questions. Haha, this photo works as I am kinda shy anyways! And a photo looking out to the pastures. So pretty! I’ll end here as there is just so much to share and I did not upload all my photos of the weekend. I think you get a pretty good taste of my horsey adventures and I am enjoying spending time with my daughter too! We are off to a seafood restaurant in Pismo Beach. YAY! I just love Sanddabs and that’s what I will have for dinner! YUMMY!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and thank you so much for stopping by!

Horse Crazy and Happy Cowgirl,

~Diana ❤

Weekend Coffee Share; A New Video With Murph, and Crochet Fun!

On By DianaIn Living life, weekend coffee share26 Comments
  • Welcome to my weekend coffee share where we share what’s been happening in our lives!

Howdy! can I get you a cup of coffee or tea? I don’t have any fancy pumpkin spice coffee but I have a nice breakfast blend I really like that tastes nice with my sweet Italian cream. I am enjoying my weekends and with that I mean I really enjoy weekends! I have not had every weekend off in about 20 years. I have been at my new job now for 10 months and I honestly am still feeling like I am on a super duper really long vacation being able to sleep every single night. I recently had one of those nights where my thoughts were running strong and I had trouble falling asleep, darn it all! But the sleep I finally got was good enough to get me through the next day. I use to struggle with sleep often, and just made it work when I was working night/graveyard shift hours. I do not know how I did it for so many years! So I am truly grateful for my new job and the swing shift hours I work! YAY! 😀

I am super happy I am almost done with this baby blanket I am making for a really good friend. She is actually my daughter’s best friend who had a baby girl some months ago and I am finally getting this completed. I think it is beautiful and am finishing up tieing off all the lose ends before I will send it to her and I thought I would share a couple of photos! I love to crochet as it’s relaxing and I so enjoy creating things with all this beautiful yarn!

It’s hard to get good lighting for the photos of the blanket. There really is a light pink in with the grey/tan variegated yarn!

I know the colors I chose are not the most “baby” but in person it is a pretty blanket. I added the soft rose pink around the edges to help bring out the subtle pink woven with the grey/tan/pink variegated yarn. It looks antique like to me and came together beautifully. I like to try different colors and my daughter said her colors in her nursery are pink and grey. I might have brought a little too much grey into the picture with this blanket, but I know she will appreciate it being hand made with Love! It is definitely my favorite baby blanket pattern as this is my fourth one I’ve made and no two are alike! ❤

Miss Chloe is enjoying some grass as she grazes after our trail ride!

I am enjoying trail riding on my girl Chloe. She is such a trooper and is definitely one of those horses that enjoys the trails. I am in no hurry riding Murphy out on the trails. He is too young at this time to travel out there by himself and I am having a ton of fun working on things with him in the arena. I will go out if there is a friend available at the barn to ride with me, but it is not something I am doing a lot of since he needs a lot of time in the arena learning important aides which help us both communicate. It really helps to have a good working relationship with your horse so that the trust and bonds are strong. I do have a video I want to share of Murphy and I in the arena!

He is getting better and better learning a little something every ride!

My hubby came to the stables to help with a few things and when he arrived I was riding in the arena. I asked him to take a video and he doesn’t take many videos and tried to zoom in and didn’t realize there is an easy button on the camera to just tap for a quick zoom. I tried a few times to edit the video and got frustrated and decided to just leave it so there is a little jumble in it where it zooms too close and then he moves it out a bit. I Love it anyways, and I can see the difference in just a month or so of him being at a steady speed and him and I looking relaxed and together each stride. Murphy is so FUN!!

Can I get you a refill? I have a few more photo’s to share as I just love taking photos of these ponies and I also enjoy sharing them with you all. I decided to ride one horse one day and the other the next which is working out great. There are some days where they both just get the day off which is good for them too. I can ride both every day but I only have so many hours available before I have to go to work at 2pm. It is working out well, with every other day. I turn out on the days they aren’t ridden. They are very spoiled horses, and I have to tell you they are fun to spoil! ❤

I just want to kiss his nose! He has the prettiest eyes, such big ears and beautiful head! And I tried a selfie! Haha, he was really curious about the phone when I snapped the selfie!

He makes me giggle, Mr. Murphy has such a personality. He is learning our routine’s which is so great as then we have a good working relationship. He is so very smart and it is fun to watch him grow. Today when I took him out he had a scraped up hip. He took off all the hair and it had a little bit of blood but not much. After examining it we noticed some red paint near the wound and after searching his stall as to what happened I found the hair on the barn stall opening heading out to his paddock. He had cut the corner too tight heading out back and scraped his hip on the side of the barn! YIKES! and OUCH! I put some silver spray on the wound which is like a liquid band aide that dries silver. It is superficial and I hope he is more careful going in and out of his barn stall! He is so big and tall, I am not too surprised and if he was in a hurry or spooked when heading out, that could be why he caught his hip. I hope he will be more careful, but he’s a horse and probably needs to be bubble wrapped! Joking, we all joke about that! 😀

Thank you for stopping by for the chat! I hope you had a wonderful weekend and I can’t believe this is the last week of September! WAIT WHAT? How did this month fly by! Thank you to Natalie who hosts our #weekendcoffeeshare link up.

Crochet Loving English Riding Cowgirl!

~Diana ❤

Weekend Coffee Share; July Fun In The Sun!

On By DianaIn Living life, weekend coffee share18 Comments

Welcome to my weekend coffee share and how would you like your coffee today? Or I have tea or juice, apple or cranberry today? I can’t believe it is more than half way through July. And we are feeling the heat and I am always thankful when there is a breeze which makes being outside a bit easier. I wanted to share my teeny tiny garden and I actually just threw some tomato seeds in my container with some fresh fertilizer and thought maybe they will grow and if they don’t that’s okay too. I’ve been so darn busy that this year it’s just going to be tomatoes, and even though I long for a fruitful garden it takes work.

I want to give a shout out to all you wonderful gardener’s out there because you all ROCK! I supposed when you garden (and you are good at it) you become efficient, and you are probably organized and so it all just falls into place for you and your schedule of watering is on point and on and on… perfect gardening techniques I am finding takes practice, and so I mulched around the sprouting tomato plants and I know the container is being watered and staying moist more evenly (I hope!) as I know this is important too.

  • Tomato plants growing big and tall! I have 4 plants in one container, I hope that’s not too many?

Haha, I already pulled out a plant early on as I knew I should thin out the container. I then thought let me see what these 4 plants do and I can always pull one or two out if needed. But now that they are getting so big, I want to see what they will provide! They have plenty of room, so I think they are okay. It is great fun watching them grow and I have other plants and flowers I water so I am always outside doing something.

My hubby is almost done with the retaining wall in our backyard, YAY! What a job, but it looks so much better which is wonderful. We will wait until fall to think about landscaping shrubs or ground cover plants. I want to plant some trees too. We have such mild weather here in Southern California I really don’t have to worry about planting in the fall. As I am talking about being outdoors you must know the next subject I want to share is my trail rides and my horses! I’ll start with a video I made today and a shout out to my weekend coffee share peeps! Haha, I hope you all know I say howdy to anyone who stops and visits here! You are all WELCOME! I hope you enjoy! 😀

We were chatting away and as we headed down this street I thought let’s make a video. My girlfriend took out her phone to take a video of me since I am never in my videos ~ how sweet! She accidentally hit slo-mo so her video was all in slow motion, oh dear, haha! Maybe next time she can make one and I can use to share! Thanks for trying pony sister, there is always next time! ❤

After I returned to the barn I hosed off Chloe as it was already pretty hot out and then I turned my attention to Murphy. So I will share some photos and I made a little video with Murph too. It was a fun morning at the barn. It was another pony sister’s birthday. There were cupcakes brought for the birthday and they were delicious. (We like to call each other pony sister’s because of our love for horses! If you have never met a horse crazy gal, well you are reading her blog right now!) 😀

He LOVES people and attention which I am sure you can tell. His nose is super soft and I love kissing his nose when I can!

Silly selfie video, but it was fun to make! I was trying to get his whole head in the view of my phone. I did pretty good, but what I am most impressed with (myself) is I was able to give him a kiss and got it on video! Haha, I have tried with Miss Chloe before and there’s just a way that you need to hold your phone. I had so much fun working with him today.

I wanted to wrap up my #weekendcoffeeshare with I connected with my oldest sister and we chatted and I think I have figured out a date to visit her in Colorado. I need to check out airline flights and figure out all the details and this will be at the end of August so I have plenty of time. In just a few weeks I will be heading to Arizona for my grand daughter’s 6th birthday! YAY! She is getting so big and I am so excited. I will say that I kind of wish she was born in the fall or winter, haha, just because it is so hot in August! It’s all good, and I’m so excited my daughter will be joining us too! I hope you all stay cool, safe and healthy!

Horse or pony crazy cowgirl!

~Diana ❤

101 POSTS! My Favorite Thing – Horses!

On By DianaIn Barn stories, Horse stories, Living life, Love being Grandma6 Comments

I can’t believe I have written 100 posts and this is 101! I have been extremely busy the last few weeks and have missed my blog. I won’t go into all the boring details but suffice it to say that my job and my chores and responsibilities have me running around like crazy and so I just haven’t had time to write. I was so enjoying writing at least once a week and want to get back to that in the near future. I finally have time today to get pen to paper (or hands on my computer!) 😀

My Ponies this weekend as they scratch each others back! They so enjoy this time together!

I have a series of horse photos I am going to share as I absolutely LOVE taking them of my two horses and my girlfriends horse lose in the arena. I am taking care of her horse as she is visiting her granddaughter this weekend. Her granddaughter lives about 8 hours away where her son and daughter-in-law live up North. So she is like me and probably millions of other Grandma’s who do not live close to loved ones or extended families. I miss my granddaughter so much, and I want to move closer but it is a huge undertaking and will take some time. I write often about this and even though my girlfriend wish’s she could live closer too, it isn’t feasible for her either at this time. How many Grandma’s out there missing their grandchildren raise their hands? I will be visiting mine in 2 weeks as it will be her 4th birthday. ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤

Zack getting a drink and Chloe looking at me for a photo I’m sure! Haha!
Zack is always a challenge to get his attention and his ears up, Chloe is a natural!
I just LOVE this photo of these two! Something about the sharpness, makes me smile! 😀
The three amigos Zack, Chloe and Gracie. I usually have to make them move faster than a walk!
Gracie up close and personal! Haha, looking for a treat!!

I know I have shared a lot of photos of my horses, and here you go, more photos of my pretty horses. They are what keeps me grounded and keeps me focused as they need care and they so enjoy being taken care of and they make me smile. I have been able to ride but not as often as I would like and am hoping my crazy busy life right now will settle down a bit so that I can fit in more riding time. My rides are usually on trail but I do enjoy riding Zack in the arena. I am hoping to ride Zack tomorrow. I was able to ride Chloe today with another friend at the stables. What do you do that keeps you busy? I know many have hobbies like painting, crocheting and knitting. I bet there are those that have young children that keep them very busy!! Those days are way behind me, so now it’s taking care of young animals/pets and older ones too! It is enjoyable, but can be time consuming.

Chloe is my rock, such an alpha mare and SO SURE OF HERSELF! LOVE HER SO MUCH! ❤

I’ll end by saying that even though I’ve been a bit absent and missed my blog I have been trying to keep up reading and commenting on others! I had plans on sharing on the weekly smile, but have only shared one smile blog, more smile blogs are in my future! And I also enjoy sharing on the Weekend Coffee Share and I was doing pretty good for more than a few weeks in a row. I want to get back to that and will soon. I enjoy sharing my thoughts and feelings and instead of going crazy on this post (I have a lot of thoughts that have been ruminating in my mind) I decided I want to just share my LOVE of these ponies. I think staying on this track makes sense and as I enjoyed my day riding on trail today, grooming, fluffing new shavings in their stalls and giving them lots of hugs I feel refreshed to tackle next week. Thanks for reading my blog and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! ❤ 😀 ❤ 😀 ❤

Happy Pony Loving Girl!

-Diana ❤

Weekend Coffee Share: My Ponies Today!

On By DianaIn Barn stories, Horse stories, Living life, weekend coffee share10 Comments
My smiling Rose for coffee share!

Welcome to coffee share, a time for us to share with new friends and old and I am enjoying my coffee this morning and this rose I will be using for a little while since it just makes me smile. Hence it’s name, My smiling Rose! I can’t believe I made it for a second week for coffee share as I often get busy and then miss the whole weekend. I think the weeks coming my way will be challenging to keep up with my blog because I have someone quitting at work, so we will be short handed until I can hire a new employee. I will try and keep up with everything. All part of the job. I forgot, would you like a barista style coffee today? or tea, hot or cold? How is your weekend going? It is warming up, summer is almost here! 😀

If you haven’t figured out yet I believe I am honestly an incurable horse crazy girl. I am completely and hopelessly lost without seeing and taking care of my ponies. Not only are they FUN just hanging around them, grooming them, exercising them in the arena and watching them groom each other. My favorite is riding them, which most horse crazy girls and okay, boys enjoy too (but there are waayyy more girls than boys at my stables). I say girls, but at my stables we are all mostly older women riding and caring for our horses. There is only one man out of almost 30 horses that boards where I ride. So what am I writing about today? Haha, my ponies! ❤ ❤ ❤

I am trying to get them to look at me with their ears up, please? pretty please??
Ah, I got one to look at me, Hi Chloe! ZACK, please pay attention. Haha, he’s so silly!
It looks like Chloe is talking to Zack, “LOOK AT MOM ZACK! Please???“
“No way man, the flies are bugging me and I am not putting my ears forward, NOPE!“
AWE! I am giving up on Zack, he’s silly today. Chloe is always looking at me – probably for a treat or something! LOVE HER SO MUCH! ❤ okay, Love them both!
One more try, I got one ear forward, he’s listening! YAY! FUN Sunny day today!

My photo series in the round pen today. If I have treats in my pocket they are a lot more cooperative at looking straight at me with ears forward. Funny how that’s the way I like to photograph them. It just looks like they are looking into my soul. I do take photos of them just being horses, and if they are grazing and/or eating of course I don’t expect them to have their ears forward and looking at me but when they are looking at me, the desire is for them to be staring at me with their ears forward. It’s just a thing I guess with horse people. I bet non horse people don’t care, or notice. Never thought about that before. And it is crazy that I can write a whole paragraph about how to photograph a horse, or how I like to see photos of horses!! Who knew, but it is a passion of mine, photography and horses! 😀 😀 😀

How is your coffee or tea, need a refill? This is going to be a shorter coffee share as I need to finish so I can head to sleep. I work tonight so I need to get some sleep before work. Yes, I work weekends. I work at a reference laboratory which is open 24/7 and so I have a crazy work schedule. And since I am the supervisor I have to cover shifts so my schedule can be crazy. I try and keep it as consistent as I can but for the most part I work night shift, with rotating days off. It is a veterinary laboratory so we are helping all those sick animals out there. I Love my job and hope we are there to save a life now and again. I know there are losses too, and then there is the wellness checks where everything is A-Okay! I enjoyed sharing today. I hope you all have a WONDERFUL weekend! I know I am having a fun weekend with my friends at the stables and my ponies! 😀

Horse Gal Always and Forever,

-Diana

Happy Valentines = Horses!

On By DianaIn Living life3 Comments
I tried another selfie, I like this one, my LOVE!

Happy Valentines Day! and yes, I am happily married and my husband knows that my horses are my LOVE. You have to be horse crazy, and even a bit obsessed to even come close to understanding that these beautiful animals are just my Valentine. How are you spending your Valentines day? My hubby and I are not big on celebrating this loving day, he let’s me indulge in my LOVES as you can see by my photos. To say I am obsessed is definitely an understatement. I hope you can enjoy my obsession with me as I share more photos!

I love them so much that I am always trying to find excuses to take their photo’s and so this is as good of an excuse as any, Happy Valentines day! Oh yes, I already said this, so give your honey a big giant kiss, either on the lips or on their nose! 😀 ❤

I tried to get an action shot, it’s okay, not easy to do!

I tried and took some action shots, not always easy but the more I look at the photo above the more I like it. I took more but liked this one with Chloe and her friend Gracie in the arena. It was a gloomy day as another storm is here and we made it out on trail before it started to rain in the afternoon. I like the colors in the photos when the sun is not out as you can see the cloudy sky as I try and enjoy all the weather we are having. We will eventually get a lot of sun so I can’t complain about this cool winter day!

Zack taking his turn looking handsome! I should have tried another selfie!

I can’t believe there is yet more storms coming with it raining all day tomorrow. I am thankful that it is drying out really fast in between storms and so I have stopped complaining about the rain and am loving the weather. Weather, I can’t believe that we are actually having “weather” in sunny Southern California where it seems the sun is always shining. It really is an anomaly, with very little rain each year it is like a 10 or 15 year thing where we get hit hard with rain like it has never rained before. I know we will survive. Haha, as the people in the north and northeast struggle with a horrible winter this year. I have NOTHING to complain about, how is it where you live? All I have to worry about is rain. I’ll stop complaining I promise!

Pretty Photo, pretty horses!
I don’t know why, but I love the back end of a horse!

I’ll close by saying that horse people, at least a lot of horse people I know LOVE horses rear ends. We like to see those beautiful tails, as I see Zack’s needs some whitening but we also like the big muscles of those large rear ends. I LOVE seeing how well developed they are, I don’t know, something about them that makes me want to hug them as I groom and brush out their beautiful long tails and pat them on the rear. ❤

I remember when I was young, I could run up on my horse Mirage and catapult myself up and over his butt like I jumped on a trampoline and hopped right up over his rear end and on his back! YUP, I did it, I am not making this up, I was so agile and could leap up high enough!! What memories of days gone by and I could not even begin to do that today! NO WAY! I am to old and lost my spring. I could not even swing up from the side which I could do easily back in the day……

I LOVE HER REAR END, LOOK AT THAT TAIL!!!

I hope you have a WONDERFUL VALENTINE’S DAY! Loving me some ponies!

Love to my HUBBY too! ❤ ❤ ❤

-Diana

Rain Update and Horses!

On By DianaIn Barn stories, Horse stories, Living life11 Comments
She’s busy eating, I LOVE her dabbles as she sheds her winter coat!

It has rained and rained and rained some more. I have not seen this much rain in years. It was so incredibly wet and muddy and rained so much I could not turn out the horses today. So I just groomed them in their stall and gave them their lunch. I am very thankful that my ponies stall under the shelter has stayed dry, I feel very fortunate. We buy our own shavings so I do what I can to help keep them high and dry!

She is busy eating some lunch. At least she is dry under her shelter. ❤
A photo from above as I held the camera over the top of the fence! She’s so cute! 

Chloe does not grow a very long winter coat. She is shedding as Spring approaches and I love her dapples. Zack has been standing in the rain off and on as the days go and since he has gotten limited turn outs, and not wanting to roll in the saturated mud he is actually really clean. I have enough shavings in the stall that if they sleep they don’t get dirty as it’s just very wet shavings. As I brushed him today, he was so very soft. It looked like he got a bath, it’s a rain water bath! I just had to take some photos as he is so white. He won’t stay that way as it slowly dries, he will eventually roll in the wet sand in the arena and get pretty dirty brown. Once it dries, it does brush off thankfully!

AMAZING he is so clean in this wet muddy weather! He’s very soft too!
Such a character as I reached over the fence to take this photo of Zack! Silly boy!

The clouds have parted, the rain has stopped this afternoon after 5 days of rain. Its nice to see the sun shining as I gaze out the window as I write this blog. We all miss riding at the barn. We are not use to ALL THIS RAIN! I know we need rain, it just makes life at the stables a bit of a challenge. I know there are tons of incredibly flooded stables, unless you have an indoor arena it will take some days to dry out. Today was the last day of rain until maybe next week and I am not going to miss it as we all need a break in Southern Cali!

Water logged, horse owner, rain go away until another day!

-Diana