Ramblings about Horses

Horses crack me up. They have distinct personalities, just like humans. Some are friendly and want to come over and say hi while others want to be left alone. Some like to go, go, go while others are just plain lazy. But one thing they all have in common is that they are bigger than me. Yikes! I feel kind of small and vulnerable around horses, waiting for one to step on my foot or decide to knock me over just for the fun of it. I know I need to spend more time around the horses to get more comfortable, so this was my goal one fine day.

This is Kate. The ranch often names horses after the people we buy them from. If it's a female horse, it may be named after the seller's wife. If we buy a horse that already has a name, we keep that name.

Kate's a good-natured horse who didn't mind posing for a few photos. She's really good with new riders and usually doesn't try too many tricks, like bucking or taking off at a gallop just for the fun of it.

Here's Jewel, a dependable work horse. She's all saddled and ready to go.

My sister-in-law Tana makes riding look so easy. 

My first horse ride was in Girl Scout camp the summer after third grade. I recall walking down to the stables and being told exactly what to do. The things I remember most are: 1. There are lots of flies around horse barns; 2. You should always, always mount a horse from its left side; 3. Riding a horse around and around and around in a circle while walking gets boring after awhile. 

Nevertheless, each year for the next few years afterwards, I would get all excited about my 15 minutes of riding two times during the week of camp. I imagined myself riding across the plains, chasing bison, my hair flying in the wind. I dreamed of being out on a big ranch with lots of cattle, being one with the horse as we galloped through the swaying tall grass. But I never, ever dreamed about being a jockey. I guess that thought never entered my mind.  

Over the next few years I had a couple opportunities to go on trail rides, which involved old horses walking slowly, obviously bored. Again, my mind would always race with ideas of what I was really doing. I was going up a steep mountain trail with important supplies for a scientific expedition. Or I was helping a handsome cowboy move cattle from winter to summer feeding grounds. Somehow a lot of my horse imaginations involved ranching and cattle and cowboys. Romance novels were my number one source of horse knowledge until I married my husband.

And here's my husband leading this beautiful horse, Jamie. My husband knows a fair bit about horses, but he likes to say he doesn't. He's grown up with them and has fallen off them (he doesn't like that part at all). He can ride a horse that's going faster than a walk and not panic. Nevertheless, I think the lasso is just for looks--he's never actually showed me his roping skills. Of course, he still has some secrets.

Happy Halloween from the Cow

Today is Halloween, a holiday I've always really enjoyed. I think it's partly because you get to dress up and act like a totally different person. It fulfills my secret desire to be an actress for one day of the year. Of course my sweet tooth might have something to do with my enjoyment of the holiday. 

Now that I'm an adult, I don't dress up as often, and I don't even have a costume for this year. But  that's okay, because I have a son who I can dress up and he's still young enough I can eat his candy! My mom gave us this cow costume, which is totally apropos for where we live.

And here's Desert Boy even pretending he's a cow. Moooo.

The things we will do to get some candy. And my, how the candy has changed since I was a young'un. Here's an example, some gummy candy. I remember gummy bears, but here we have a whole gummy meal: ice cream cone, donut, french fries, hamburger, pizza, and hot dog. Doesn't it sound scrumptious?

Trick or treating is late this afternoon, but I figured it might be good to go outside and get some photos early in the day, while Desert Boy is in a good mood.

Here he's concentrating hard. Not on being a cow, but on putting the leaves through the little slots in the chair. 

Here's Desert Boy pretending to be a cow again. Okay, not really, the head is a little big and it makes him a little tipsy.

Here he is running away from me. Nice tail. Where is he running?

To every cow's favorite pasttime--cruising on his hot wheels. He's probably the only cow going Vroom, vroom.

And I tried my best to get him to say Mooo while in his costume. This video is the best one I came up with:

The Great Horned Owl

I hadn't seen the Great Horned Owls that had been hanging around our yard all summer for a few weeks, so it was a welcome sight the other day to see this one on the garden fence post. The owl just watched us play in the yard and let us come quite close.

I think we must have bored the owl a little--here it is with its eyes closed!

And then we're not even worthy of a look--the owl turns its head and checks out what's happening in another direction. 

It was great to be able to see the owl so close and watch it for so long. It definitely kept an eye on us, but wasn't too concerned with us being in the yard. Eventually Henry got a little too curious and the owl took off, with Henry loping after it across the yard. It made me remember Henry's first night with us, when an owl hooted from a pole and my mom watched Henry dive into his doghouse to take cover. Now Henry is double the size and isn't at all afraid of the owl.

Pushing the Stroller

I guess Desert Boy is getting older. He often prefers to push his stroller rather than ride in it. This stroller carries up to 70 pounds of weight, so we figured we would be able to use it for years and years. 

The only problem Desert Boy has pushing the stroller is that he's a little short. Nevertheless, he doesn't let that stop him. He walks behind the stroller and gives it a shove.

Then he watches it until it stops. I'm glad we live in the valley, where the ground is relatively flat. If he pushed the stroller up in the mountains, we might never catch up to it.

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo.

Okay, I'm not communicating with aliens (although that does sound tempting--they might know the meaning of life, after all). NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month.

One of my hobbies is writing, and NaNoWriMo is a nifty little program that helps get writers off their duffs and to their keyboards to write. The goal is to spend the month of November writing a novel of at least 50,000 words. Most people who give it a try (over 101,000 last year) don't make it (only about 15,000), but at least they attempted it. The prize? Knowing that you did it and a certificate you can print out and frame and put over your dining room table. 

NaNoWriMo emphasizes that the writing is quantity over quality. My motto for this blog fits perfectly: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff. No editing until December. And to make sure that you do write, they say to tell lots of friends about it so they can keep asking you about it and you feel guilty enough to sit down and type something. 

So here I am, opening myself up to the wide world, letting you know I'm going to attempt something sorta crazy. What am I going to write about? I don't know! Do you have any ideas? All I know is that I want to have fun writing. Maybe you should do it too! Check it out: NaNoWriMo.