Friends and Horses

I got to take two of my girlfriends from work to meet two more girlfriends for a ride at Black Creek Ravines on Saturday.


Karen got the pleasure of riding my Appy mare, Dixie and Martha got to ride my daughter's mare, Maybe. They both have ridden quite a bit in the past but not recently. They were a good combination with our horses and they really seemed to enjoy themselves.


Chele and Mustang met us for the ride. Chele was riding her mare Dawn, and Michelle was riding Chele's other horse Ranger. (You may remember that Ranger is Stylin's 2005 son) He has grown up to be a nice horse - he'll be 4 next month. That's Ranger on the left.Here's Karen, Martha and I posing. Maybe - the horse in the middle - is Stylin's 2000 daughter. It's really nice to be able to keep up with two of Stylin's progeny. She did have one other filly that was sold by her original owners; we've seen pictures of her, but don't know the people that own her now.

We capped off the ride on this beautiful day with a cold brew - what a way to celebrate life! Good friends and good horses!

Poker Ride and camping at Princess Place

Boy, did we ever have a great time last weekend! Some of us got together to participate in a Poker Ride and then stayed over to ride again the next day. I LOVE Princess Place......it's just so pretty and diverse. Since it's a preserve, there is no hunting and the deer just lollygag around for your viewing pleasure. The only downside to this trip was TICKS ! They attacked people and horses equally - we had to make sure to keep ourselves loaded up with repellent.

This picture is of me and Stylin just horsin around in the afternoon before the dinner bell rang. Some of us high tied our horses and some used portable corrals. The camping is primitive but they do have a bathhouse with hot water, so it's not bad at all.

What made the trip even MORE fun was that my non-horsey sister, Robbin, joined us Saturday afternoon after the poker ride. That's Robb on the left and me on the right. She had a blast sitting around our non-fire with us, telling stories and entertaining my friends. (there is a burn ban so we had to have a pretend fire)

Traci actually won the best hand in the Poker Ride with a prize of $100! Woo-hoo ! We ride for the fun of it, but the money doesn't hurt, right Traci? Here's a picture of Traci and her excellent trail horse, Tucker, who recently won their division in an Trail Obstacle Competition.

Our group this time consisted of me and Robbin, Cathy, Traci and Mike, Mustang, Chele, Liz, Marilyn and her daughter Rachel. We are a diverse group with varying riding skills and styles, but get along tremendously. Here's a picture of a few of us hanging around when some of the others went out for a second ride on Saturday. Also a picture of us doing surgery on Traci's head, where a tick decided to grow roots among her curly golden locks. :-)

To see loads and loads more pictures - GO HERE.

I'm back !

I missed checking on all of my blogger friends during the past 40 days, but I did discover that I don't HAVE to log on every night.

Since I last logged in I've had a colonoscopy....yuck...., participated in a fun day desensitizing our horses at a friend's house, went camping with friends and horses at Coldwater Recreation in the Florida panhandle, celebrated my fifth wedding anniversary with my hubby Bobby and had all my hair cut off. If it had been all one length and a few inches longer I would have donated it to Locks of Love.

Here is a link to the camping trip photos. We had a FABulous time there - wonderful facility and miles and miles of trails! I kept a journal so I could remember what we did, but I haven't typed it up yet. Here are the fun day pics as well....we had a blast playing with our horses! Stylin is still leary of going through flapping tarps and is still scared of bubbles. :-)

Signing off for 40 Days

I'm giving up blogging for the 40 days of Lent. This will be a real exercise in self control for me. I won't be checking on all of my blog buddies nor posting during the Lenten season but look forward to catching up later. I will use the time to read, reflect and interact. In the meantime, you can check out my European vacation blog that I just finished up.

THERE AND BACK AGAIN.

See y'all later !

Cool & Crisp Saturday

We've had some really cool evenings lately and when I heard that Saturday morning was going to be 28 degrees, my friends Cathy and Traci and I decided to wait until 10 am to go riding. I loaded up my appy mare, Dixie, and swung by and picked up Cathy and Busta and we met Traci at Diamond D Ranch to take an easy ride on dirt roads through the timber company's land. There were signs stating no trespassing until hunting season was over, but we thought we were clear until the spring turkey season next month. (I wore my blaze orange jacket just in case)


The day warmed up nicely and we would up taking off the heavy jackets before we started. The horses did well....Dixie balked on me a couple of times and we had to work some trotting circles and trot away from our buddies, but I should ride and work her more often. I like to keep her in riding shape as she is 22 years old and is our good ole standby horse. Busta didn't want to cross a small ditch with water and we tried to get a picture of him popping up in the rear in protest. Cathy worked him through it and got him to cross the ditch. Busta is such a character, he will grunt and buck up a little when he doesn't want to do something. He's 5 and still testing her and she's doing great with him.

Traci and Tucker didn't have any drama - he was a good yella horse for her and is an excellent trail horse. He's 5 as well, but Traci got him as a weanling and raised him herself. Cathy got Busta as a 3 year old with no training.


We only rode for 2-1/2 hours and called it a day as we had other things to get done that afternoon. Dixie and I had a great outing and she is such a good old girl. I normally prefer to ride Stylin, but its fun to get Dixie out occasionally. Isn't she a cute, fluffy Appy?

Bobby, his daughter Carolle and I went to a neighborhood cookout and oyster roast later that evening and had a really good time. If the drunk ones remember the plan, we're going to try to have these once a month or so. We love having our neighbors that look out for each other. We all have some acreage amid an otherwise standard neighborhood of homes and trailers. Jacksonville has some pretty bad crime statistics and its good to know the people around you.

This is our grillmaster and host of the evening - Darrin.

Barbara and Fred who live right next door to us on 7 acres.And here are Bobby and Carolle as they were digging into some oysters.

My Friend Marilyn & her Mule Clyde

You may of heard of the disappearance of a little girl named Haleigh in Satsuma, FL which is just about an hour -1/2 south of Jacksonville. This little girl's plight has touched everyone, especially those who have had such a tragedy strike their lives.
A good friend of mine, Marilyn Whitford, was able to participate in the search effort last Friday and was highlighted on our local news. Marilyn and Clyde have participated in search efforts previously and have been on numerous wagon train rides and other adventures.
LINK TO VIDEO

Florida Agricultural Museum Camping

Cathy and I joined some other friends in Palm Coast at a benefit campout at the Florida Agricultural Museum. It was primitive camping, but they hope to make some improvements as they grow and improve the equestrian camping facilities. The Florida Agricultural Museum preserves the history of Florida agriculture and historical Cracker livestock.

Cheryl, who is a volunteer with the FAM, did a great job organizing this first camping event. We had a pot luck dinner on Friday evening, then a great pulled pork Bar-B-Q dinner on Saturday evening with some Blue Grass music for entertainment.

Along with the trails around the FAM, we were able to cross the landbridge and enjoy all the trails along Pellicer Creek and Princess Place. We rode for about 4.5 hours on Saturday and then on Sunday morning we just played in the arena with all the poles, balls, jumps, etc. We had a ball ! (pun intended)

You can see all the rest of the pictures at the LINK.