Happy Birthday, Lilly!!

Guess what! The most beautiful brumby on the planet had a birthday on Sunday! Restless L'il Ann, aka Lilly, aka Most Perfect Brumby, turned 9 years old on Sunday. She was born in South Carolina to proud parents Restless Native and Lovely Lady Sinful, to be purchased by Bill at an auction in Massachusetts 3 years later. In October 2006 she became my very own mare! Happy Birthday, Lilly, you are the best creature ever, filling my heart with great joy!


The day would not be complete without a little birthday cake! I gathered Lilly's favorite ingredients......

and made a messy but yummy cake, suitable to any horse on her birthday. Apples and carrots and molasses--YEAY!!! After a day in the ring, Lilly was able to have a party in the barn with QTee, Christine, Bill, Louise, me and the dogs. It was a beautiful spring day and a good time was had by all!


Before the birthday celebration, we went down to the ring for a homemade Bear River Spring Rodeo! This was an excellent way to spend the afternoon. We've set up these trail courses before, but this one was inspired by a horse show Bill went to on Saturday. He made this video of the set up there, and we made our own version back at the farm.

Here is one of my efforts: Click Right Here! And Here is Bill and Ruby doing the same thing. Bill was faster. I had a very hard time getting Lilly to sidepass over to the mailbox. Later we had to practice that specifically.


The course consisted of cantering over a tarp, around some cones, around a barrel, over another tarp, and then to a small square of cones where you had to stop for a second completely, then make a small circle in the cones, and then zip over to the mailbox where you were required to sidepass over and open it. Then you had to grab a whiffle bat out of a bucket and drop it into another bigger bucket across the ring. Finally, you had to back your horse through a narrowish and turning path, and end with a sidepass along the hitching rail to the right and to the left. This picture above is of Bill backing Ruby up through the little channel. She was verrry good at this.


Here are Bill and Ruby getting close to grabbing the whiffle bat.

We left the obstacle course up for next weekend, only to have it covered in snow on Monday morning. Oh Mother Nature, you are a devil.



I am including this picture just for fun. This is the kind of photo Bill sends to me while I am at work, and he and Jackie are on the farm getting to do all sorts of fun things....like ride donkeys!


And if you are wondering how QTee's injury is coming along, here is a picture from a few weeks ago. Her healing was slow at first, but now she is truly on the mend. Next month Christine will probably be riding her again. But until she is fully recovered, QTee will have no passengers.


I am blogging from home where I must have picked up Honeysuckle Faire's terrible flu. I don't understand why I even get the flu. I exercise daily, eat healthy, dress warmly, I even had a flu shot this year (something I never do!) and here I am in the middle of March with the flu. Je suis malade! What in the world am I doing wrong? Oh well, at least I should be better by the weekend!

See you then!