Houston likes the horses!

Love Lily

This was a really tough decision, but l know that it was the right one. Lily has moved to Tennessee to live with my sister and her family. I can't thank them enough. They have set my mind at ease. I know that they will give her an awesome home!

I can't tell you though that I'm not crying as l write this. Damn l miss her. But, I'm also very happy for her, and I might be a bit jealous! 

Thank you to my friends for your help. I knew that l could count on you (again!) and l appreciate it very much!

Lazy Dayz

Girl Talk

Lesson Time

Cooper is learning how to stand still while tied up.  It wasn't going very well, so I brought out Lily to show him how it's done.  As you can see, she was not impressed.

2 Peas in a Pod

We're so pleased with how well Cooper has settled in here.  He & Lily are getting along great.  She is having no problem with sharing her pen & stall with him at all.  Once he learned that she prefers to have her own space, he stopped crowding her and she stopped fussing at him.  It will be interesting to see how well they will both fit into the stall once he's fully grown though.

Learning about personal space...

Cooper (we had to rename him because Cupid wasn't 'manly' enough) was very lonely this morning, so I took down the fence separating him from Lily.  They are doing very well together, except that he thought that she was his new mama!  Oops.  There was no way she was letting him get under her belly!  So, today he has been learning that horses require a bit more personal space than his yak family did.  He's a smart boy though, and he's figuring it out.  This is about as close as she'll let him get, until he learns his manners.

Good morning, Miss Lily!

Bringing the tree home...

Christmas tree hunters!

Mom & Nell

Mom promised to find a picture of her with Nell, the horse who wore the bridle we found this fall.  She also wants everyone to know that Nell was a sweet old girl and would never have worn that vicious bit.  Her bit was a flat snaffle.

What a great old picture of my mother who was really cute and her big, beautiful mare!

Let's ride!

They could happily ride all day long!

A unicorn?

After a long day at work...

He finally convinced her to try!

She got to drive!

Sharing a laugh with Pickles, the pony!

A New Friend

This morning I was running with my son when he hollered back at me, "Look Mom.  It's an ass!" I couldn't discipline him for bad language because he was right...

Running to the Beach for Riding to the Top

You may recall these posts from 2012 & 2013 about the kiddos adventures running in the hugely popular TD Beach to Beacon 10k road race?   Well, we were going to register them again this year, but 4000 registrations sold out in 4 1/2 minutes!  So, the kiddos were disappointed that they weren't going to race it this year, but, a friend told us about a great opportunity.  If we could raise at least $500 for a therapeutic riding stable, they would give us an entry as a reward!  Considering how much our daughter loves running and horses, she was thrilled to raise as much money as possible!

The stable is called Riding to the Top and they served disabled persons from age 3 to 93 and everyone in between.  We visited them yesterday.  We met all their wonderful horses, both large and small, the executive director, and saw the incredible facilities and equipment that is used to improve the lives of so many people.  It is a truly exceptional place and she is even more committed to raising way more money than the required $500! 

These are the mechanical therapy horses that are used to test a new students' reaction to the motion of a horse, without the potential dangerous situation that could occur if an actual horse were involved.  The girls thought they were super fun to ride, but we also were impressed that this was something that we had never considered, but is certainly useful(and expensive!)