B is for Brumby

A fews days ago I went out see Lilly and I knew that I'd be trudging across the pasture to get her. I didn't even bother waving the carrot. I went into the pasture and just started my Walk of Shame. Here is what it looks like when I start:

But whaaaaaat? Do my own eyes deceive me???? Is that a paint mare walking toward, I repeat TOWARD, me???


What in the sam hill is going on? Look at that brumby walking my way! Has she been reading this blog????? There will be no Walk of Shame tonight! Hurray!

Although Sunday was excellent horseback riding weather, I was actually in Boston having lunch with old and dear friends. The weekends are simply not long enough! I thought I'd get back in time to ride, but traffic was so bad toward the NYC exit, we were bogged down for miles! Gross!
Boston is one of my fave cities!
Some of my fave people live there!!


Here is Brandon from that outing, holding our friends' baby. This adorable chunk of a baby has been featured on this blog before. Isn't he dear? Wouldn't it be great if you could just doze off at the dinner table and have someone hold your head for an hour?

I Heart Brumby

Brumby's curls!

Today is Saturday and we had more rain. I went to see Lilly after spending the dreary and drizzly afternoon at the mall. At the mall I found some to-die-for bubble bath by Philosophy called Fudge Cake. It smells good enough to guzzle. However, by the time we got home it was cold but not still raining, so I went over and tried to practice barrel racing in the arena. Lilly was willing at first, and then got fussy. She started to give a little buck when we got close to the gate. VERY NAUGHTY BRUMBY. And then she just started running to the gate with no regard for me and what I was asking her to do. VERY TERRIBLE BRUMBY BEHAVIOR!!!! So we ended up in the round pen where there is no gate to run to. She protested in there too, but I did my best to keep her loping. We ended on a good note. I forget sometimes how valuable a 20 minute lesson in the round pen can be. I need to make that a serious habit. My brumby has gotten very spoiled and babyish!



Yesterday Lilly and I took a long trail ride and I immediately took the wrong turn and got us lost.




I saw this sign--which I have never seen before--and knew I had veered off the usual path. Well, I should say I knew very well I had veered off course, but in a way, I liked the idea. I wanted to keep going but then thought I better stick to what I know since I didn't have my cell phone on me...



And then I couldn't find the regular trail! That big huge log in this picture was one more clue that I was in new territory.





And check this log out! Lilly just barely fit under it. No room for me up there! I was still trying to get to the regular trail here. We went under this log twice and each time Lilly wanted to bolt under it. I'd say Now just calm down, Brumby, I'm trying to figure out where in the sam hill we are.







We did make this discovery in our adventures. A mandible!






I strung it up on Lilly's saddle like so.




And I saw this perfect specimen of Strobilomyces confusus. Isn't it nice? I made sure that Lilly did not trample it. But we were very lost at this point. At least I was. Lilly was probably just fine.

After quite a bit of backtracking, we made it back to the usual trail. What a relief that was!

Mid Week Brumby!

Aaaaah, that mane now looks much better! See what a little dry, sunny weather can do for a white mane? When I went to see Lilly last night, she looked ravishing! All white and sparkly. And this leads me to discuss the Walk of Shame that my brumby makes me do every time I go to get her out of the pasture. No, not the Sex and the City style Walk of Shame! The other one! The one that happens when Lilly is a million miles away on the other side of the pasture and refuses to come when I call! But let me clarify: The muddy and teacherous side of the pasture which is not only very far away, but could snap my ankle in two as I plod through the swampy and uneven terrain!

This is what happens: I see Lilly waaaay over there grazing on the delectable swampy fronds. I call to her. She looks up mildly, sees me, and then goes right back to grazing. I call her again. This time I call louder and call her BRUMBYOLA!!! Maybe I will even wave a carrot! I call and call! Nothing doing, that brumby is not moving toward me one centimeter. But of course by then it is too late; I have already started the walk to go get her. I have already surrendered. She wins and I lose. I am made to walk the humiliating Walk of Shame. The walk that says, I like to think I am the boss of her, but I am not! I am just an ineffectual lightweight and hoofless bipedal, who has, apparently, the allure of a wet mop.

>sigh<

Here's the upside: When I finally make it over to Lilly in the muddy muck, she never tries to run away. She always puts her head out for the halter and willingly comes with me. She does not pretend to be (99.9% of the time anyway) the gingerbread man and dash away with a twinkle in her eye. Thank gawd.



Last week I put a little braid in Lilly's hair. It was still there last night!

Here she is looking at Bill working on his truck. He was using a very loud tool that I thought might scare her. But she was fine with it. Do you ever notice how Bill is always working on stuff?

If you look at Lilly's feet, they tell the story of how her diet has been changing as the months go by. You can see when she was eating hay in the spring and when she started gobbling up pasture in the summertime. Some of those lines may also even indicate that 4 week period when she had a little grain twice a day to take her Lyme Disease pills. I wonder what my feet would look like it they changed everytime I ate a Pepperidge Farm chocolate cake. I bet they'd be all messed up.

Bill's dogs having a good ole time.

Tuesday Nite Delite

Hey! What's that little saddle doing on my western style brumby?


I went and did it again! I put a little prissy english saddle on my western pleasure horse! Why do I keep feeling tempted by the trim and dainty english saddles that appear in Bill's barn? Bill got this saddle at an auction. I forget the brand (it starts with a C and is from England) but it is such a nice little saddle that I wanted to plant my bum on it. Once again when I got up on Lilly I felt like I was perched on a tiny launching pad!


Christine asked if she could take a ride on Lilly. Here is Lilly and Christine looking collected and beautiful. It is good for me to see Lilly with Christine riding her, because that way I am reminded (and inspired by) how striking Lilly can look when she is asked to work a little at collection.


This is me and Lilly and Qtee and Christine. We liked how there were no bugs tonight, but dismayed at how early it is starting the get dark!



This picture of Tuffy was taken on Sunday. Tuffy is another newbie at Bear River Horse Farm. This horse is 4 years old and doesn't know what any commands mean yet, so Bill is helping him learn. Tuffy is so friendly and snuggly. He's going to make someone a very pleasing horse. Aren't those white socks adorable? I sure wish my husband liked horses better than surfboards.



As soon as Bill got Tuffy into the ring, a deluge of rain fell out of the sky. Talk about bad luck. Bill is so hardcore, he kept working anyway.

You may remember me writing on Sunday about how filthy Lilly was when I retrieved her from the pasture. I submit the evidence! Doesn't it look like she was laying on her neck? How on earth did the top of her neck get so dirty? What happens out there in the pasture when I am not looking?

Do you see this black fur????

So much for a pretty little pony!! Do you know how hard it is to make this white again? If you are a Paint owner, you sure do!

Rain Won't Stop Me!

Today I returned home from my trail ride only to realize I'd left my camera in my pommel bag in the barn. Rats! But luckily, Bill took some photos and emailed them to me! How handy is that? Some of the pictures I took of Lilly that are still in my camera demonstarte how black with mud she was when I plucked her from the pasture. Boy was she a mess. Then, as soon as I brought her into the barn, there was a deluge of rain! More rain? yes! After it somewhat subsided, Bill and I headed out on the trail.

The skies were still very dark and threatening when we went out, as you can see by the darkness of these photos. Bill was riding one of his newbies from the auction. He had not even been on this new horse yet! In any case, that is me on Lilly with the new guy.


While we were out on the trail it started to rain so hard that we stopped for a few minutes until the rain wasn't such a bloody downpour. Lilly didn't mind one bit; she got busy fast gobbling up some leaves and small branches.

The only time Bill's new horse had a momentary freak out was when the camera flashed right in his eye. Poor guy! It was probably my camera. See what a lousy trail partner I am? Good thing Bill knows what he's doing on the back of a horse! Other than that one tiny moment, this horse was excellent.


Sometimes I really like being out in the rain. I feels like I am in this fuzzy, mushy world.

This snapshot is one Bill captured yesterday. That horse is Tuffy.

Is that really a pink cowboy hat? YOU BET IT IS!

Yeeeehaw!

Back In the Saddle!

When I got on my brumby this afternoon after WEEKS of not being on her, she felt just right. More than just right--like an old comfortable armchair. Everything about her felt so perfect. After three weeks with nary a soul on her back, she was as calm and as graceful as ever. Is it possible the old mule missed me? It was raining a tiny bit--did my brumby complain? Not for a second. We had a gentle ride, meandering slowly after Brandon who looked around for mushrooms.


The funny thing is, Lilly wants to do just what Brandon does. If he veers off the trail, she slowly veers after him. He stops, she stops. He inspects a mushroom, she clomps over to inspect the mushroom. Here they are carefully regarding a Bolete.



The only problem with being out in such a wet forest is that those adorable orange newts are everywhere. Sometimes I see them scrambling out of the way, their little arms rotating around like they are swimming. Here is Brandon picking one up and moving it off to the side so it didn't end up smashed on the bottom of a horseshoe. He must have done this 4000 times. We also saw two small toads.



When we came back, Bill was keeping the road in order. I am happy to report that Lilly walked by the tractor without fussing. I thought maybe as we were ambling by that Bill might honk the horn for practice, but he didn't!

Wouldn't everyone in the world be happier if this is what they got to see everyday?

Montana Reverie

Do you ever find that other people's vacation pictures are not nearly as interesting as the person who took them seems to think? Hah! I hear ya! But Montana is so grand, I have to share a few of my photos with you. As I will also add that I had a plan to see my brumby today but first it was dang hot, and then a hurricane blew in. Or the far reaching arm of one. Luckily, now the storm is over and the temps are a lot lower. The next post you see wiill be back to Lilly. Boy have I missed her! Every day in Monatan I kept thinking: I could live here! But could my brumby? It is so dry in Montana compared to Massachusetts, but I am pretty sure my brumby could adjust. There were so many Paints out there; she'd fit right in.


Here's Brandon at one of the three airports we were in en route to MT. He's in all of the pictures and I'm pretty much in none of them because I have the camera. If I were not in charge of it, very few pictures would have been taken!


Whoooooa! What happened here? This is perhaps proof that maybe I really shouldn't be the one in charge of the photos after all! Sorry it's sideways, but this was a great moment of our trip because we are about to enter Yellowstone. I've been there before, but it such an awesome place, that it's easy to get excited all over again. This gateway is in Gardiner, Montana.



Yellowstone is famous for nothing if not all of its geysers. Totally fascinating. And a little smelly.



Here is Yellowstone Falls looking very small and harmless. But in person, it has the power to take your breath away.

Hey! Look over here, Big Guy!

We saw lots of animals in Yellowstone including a herd of bison, and black bear. Right before we entered the park, we saw Pronghorn Antelope. Gorgeous.

I had to go to Cody, Wyoming for the nightly rodeo! It was worth it!!

Fairly close to Bozeman there is a big cave you can go in called Lewis and Clark Caverns. Brandon, an ex-spelunker, was excited to go. First we had to walk to the entrance which was three-quarter-mile trail that I swear rose at something like a 45 degree angle. The entrance is only like 5300 feet but I personally felt like it was much higher. And although Brandon thought this cave was remarkable, I thought it was terrifying. All those pits! And total blackness! Little crawlspaces and slippery floors! I just wanted out of there!!!!!! However, I did take about a thousand pictures while in there, and my husband believes this is proof that I secretly loved it. But I will be happy if I am never in another deep and creepy cave again.

Here is a beautiful scene as we were approaching St. Mary, Montana and the entrance to Glacier National Park.

Seeing mountain goats at Logan's Pass in Glacier is apparently not uncommon at all. Here's one just moseying along. We also saw Big Horn sheep here, and the cutest animal ever: the marmot.

I never get tired of the blue galcial pools.

This is at Avalanche Lake in Glacier. There were some grizzlies on that far mountainside.

I wanted to ride horses in Montana! Brandon ended up chickening out on going on the trail ride with me, just like I had predicted!! I went anyway!!

I was assigned the smallest horse they had--a little paint named Oreo. Brandon thought I looked ridiculously huge on him. They told me someone with experience needed to be on Oreo, but maybe the were just saying that to make me feel better, because he was a perfect little guy.
Here I am contemplating him.

Yep, he was pretty small.

But I loved him.

We all went across this bridge that had a raging river surging under it. I am not sure if my own brumby would have gone for something like that!!!

That's me with the Mission Mountains in the background.

And there's Brandon...who I confess did all the paddling on this boating adventure. Doesn't look like he's complaining!!

I heart Montana.

Back from Montana!!

I am back!
But I have a confession to make. I didn't want to leave Montana!
I knew it would be magnificent. It was. That is one state that will not let you down. I took 363 pictures while there, but haven't gotten them all sorted out yet! So, here are a few pictures I snapped in Pennsylvania (the first leg of our journey) where we left our dog and [my husband's] daughter with Grandma! I thought I truly was rooted to New England. Now I am not so sure. Whitefish anyone? Let's just say two weeks is not long enough for a Montana affair.


My husband's daughter calls her grandmother Ma Toot Toot because when she was a baby, Brandon's mother would visit from PA by arriving on a train. The name has stuck! Even I call her Ma Toot Toot! Her real name is Hannah. These are some prickly pear growing in her garden. Cactus in Pennsylvania? Seeing is believing!


This is the house my husband grew up in. I think it is very charming.



Ahh look! Ma Toot Toot and ten year old Kestrel!

Next up: a few vacation shots that will make you drool for big sky country.