Oh what fun it is to ride ........

My riding buddies and I had the most fun weekend ever at 7BarL Ranch in Live Oak, Florida. It was our end of the year Cowboy Christmas party and campout. Marilyn planned the whole thing for us and had a schedule laid out including ride out times, eating, partying, gift exchange, fire side sharing, cowboy church and lots of fun games.

This is my daughter Jenny and her mare Maybe competing in a relay race.....can you tell they are both competitive? :-)

Here's Traci and I battling for the ball in our "polo" game.

Susan had special bandanas made for each one of us to commemorate the occasion.

And this is Cory on her Mustang, Rocky

Grab a cup of your favorite beverage and check out the plethera of pictures taken by Mustang (Cory's mom), Shelly and Traci at this LINK

American Cowgirl

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a big family reunion type Thanksgiving dinner at a local park. It was so much fun to catch up with our cousins and no one had to have a crowd at their house.

Bobby and I ripped up some old, nasty, stinky carpet from our back porch and hauled it to the dump. Now we need to clean up the concrete floor and paint it. We've been talking about it for ages - it was nice to finally have it done.

I got to ride Saturday and again on Sunday after church. Rode Dixie on Saturday with my friend Cathy, then took Stylin out on Sunday afternoon to meet Mustang and Shelly. Both days were beautiful! I love my friends and my horses!

I bit the bullet and had Stylin shod all the way around today. Her hooves look good and hopefully we'll see an improvement in her toe cracks and being able to ride on different surfaces.

Here's a cute picture of Jen's little mare Maybe.... she loves attention and let me decorate her with this hay string .

November Happenings

I joined my friends for a day ride at one of our favorite places two Saturdays ago. I knew I was going to go out of this the next weekend so didn't want to leave my husband with all the animal chores two weekends in a row. He's too good to me to take advantage of his good nature.

They were staying a River Rise Preserve State Park again and had plans to do the 16 mile Yellow Loop on Friday, so Cathy and I headed down to ride out with them around 11 am. We had perfect weather and a great ride. Some of us split halfway to trot out and met back up before heading back to camp. Here's a link to the pictures that Mustang took of their weekend and the day that I joined them. We have such a good group - we all know each other and our horses and work well together with the whole camping thing.

This past weekend, I joined 9 other ladies from our church for a retreat at Mepkin Abbey in Monck's Corner, SC . We were allowed to join the Brothers in worship and song, along with taking meals with them. They live, work and worship in harmony on this beautiful old plantation. It was an eye opening experience to see how dedicated they are to constant prayer. We began our day at 3 am and ended it at 8 pm. I became much closer to the ladies on our retreat and enjoyed a relaxing and peaceful weekend. The property is open to the public to walk the gardens and enjoy the view along the Cooper River. Guests are just asked to repect the monks living and working areas. You can read about their work at the link above. I walked quite a bit, enjoying the gardens and visited an old African American cemetary. Most of my friends enjoyed walking their Labyrinth thru a meadow with tall grasses which took about 40 minutes to complete. This photo was taken by one of the ladies as she walked through the labyrinth.

Tried Something New

Stylin and I doing our first CRI

Some friends, my daughter and I went to a distance riding clinic in September put on by Florida Horsemen's Association. We learned from everybody there and did a 10 mile mock CTR, then did a 17 mile ride the next day. What a lot of fun and everyone was so helpful! Don't think I want to do 50 or 100 miles, but I'm thinking about doing a limited distance of 25 miles. Something new for Stylin and me to do.

Beautiful trail through the woods

Our riding/camping season is here....temperatures are down and everyone is ready to ride! We started our camping season off with a 4 day weekend at River Rise Preserve in High Springs, FL. They have a wonderful set up and nicely marked trails. Next weekend away is scheduled for Dec 5th at 7BarL Ranch in Live Oak, FL.

Maxx

We recently got a new dog.... a cute little Papillon named Maxx. His former owner is elderly and broke her hip and couldn't keep him anymore. He's fit in real well with our other dogs but we're having to introduce him slowly to the cats and horses.

So Long,Farewell, Alverderzein, Goodbye......

I'm taking a sabbatical from blogging and my daily reading of other's blogs. I've been doing this for 5 years now and I feel that it is interfering with my home and work life. Don't know if it will be forever or just for a while, but I have had a lot of fun getting to know my blogger friends and wish you all well. I won't have your blog postings delivered to me daily any longer, but I will check in from time to time. See ya !

What is that?

This touching video was sent to me by my sister and really struck a nerve. You may have already seen it on Facebook or elsewhere, but I felt compelled to share it on my blog as well. Enjoy....