A Shade of Winter

This is what the kitchen counter looks like right before I leave the house to see Lilly. Today I also had apple wedges. Just what the brumby ordered! Yum!

These first pictures are from Saturday morning. Longing for a ride on the trail, I saddled Lilly up and planned to hit the trail. Bill agreed to come with Ruby since his shoulder, while not cured, is getting better. This picture shows what always happens when I ride with Bill: Ruby likes to get down to business and step out while my brumby pokily ambles along. So there is Bill and Ruby way ahead of me!


We stopped to see the rest of the horses (and donkeys) who are wintering together in the BP. When I went up to the gate, my brumby squealed at Jodie, her arch nemesis.

I cannot tell you how gorgeous it was outside. It hardly felt cold! No bugs, blue sky! The only problem was a few tricky spots like this one where there is a wee bridge but you're never sure how sturdy it is. In the summer, we go through the creek to avoid it. Today we carefully walked over it. The very LAST thing you want is your horse's foot going through a rotting bridge.


For some of the trail it hadn't been trodden yet by anyone. On other parts of the trail, the snowmobile groomer had recently gone through.


We were both taking pictures. Bill emailed me some of his, like this one. Don't you love Ruby's thick mane?

If you'd like to see a condensed version of our ride on video, then you can click right here. It will be like seeing these pictures come to life!


At the end of the ride, I dropped Getty's lead rope which I had left on a tree before the ride and had successfully sidepassed over to retrieve on the way back. Only to drop it on the road without even knowing it two seconds later! You see how Lilly waits for me. I must never take for granted how patient she is.

After the ride it was so nice in the sun we did a little tarp training. Lilly is licking and chewing, but she still has much fear of the tarp. We also practiced having her stand still while Bill pushed the snow off the roof of the barn. And then again while he was cracking his bullwhip right next t her. Which sounds louder than gunshot if you ask me.

On Sunday I wasn't out on the trail but in the ring. I want to get Lilly into even better condition and ringwork is great for that. Plus, I had gotten 5 new cones at Home Depot and a book at the bookstore entitled "Games on Horseback." Now, it is very hard to play games on horseback completely alone. But one must do what one must do! Bill came down to the ring and even Brandon showed up for a few minutes. So, I wasn't really alone. But I was the only one riding.


Look at me, I'm a conehead! hah!