sweet lullaby

Lots of pictures in this post because we have sunshine! This is a photo of Sovey...I think. I rode both he and Foggy bareback yesterday and I have trouble telling them apart in photos. How about my crazy reins when I am trying to take a photo?  He could totally pull a fast one.  I wanted to capture the gorgeous wild flowers - white little dainties (can't remember what they are called - they smell like butter) and yellow Goldenrod. It was 68 degrees and sunny - perfect rides.

I remember taking this one...it is Sovey...he was being a little perky with a neck like an ostrich here.

This one is Pie and it is from Monday morning - still overcast then, but no rain. You can tell Pie's photos because his pictures always look the same - he poses for them. He thinks the click of the camera is me breaking a carrot and he is reaching his head around to nibble the treat. Silly horse!

This is Sovey pointing to the yellow pipeline marker in the woods. If it were Pie, he would be touching the pole with his nose. I taught him to touch scary things - "touch for treat" - and now he touches everything.

The sky grew overcast for my ride with Foggy. This is a shot of our meadow where we had the tree planting party in May. This used to be a hay field and now our seedlings and self-seeded trees are surrounded by bundles of wild flowers. I saw some purple asters in there. It is lovely to ride through. I know it will one day be woods, which is what we want, but it is pretty now too.

I am teaching Foggy to nibble grass when I say it is ok on a ride. Sometimes, I stop and talk to neighbors forever so I like the horses to know that it is fine to graze when I give the signal. Here he is practicing. Both Pie and Sovey are good about grazing and then stopping when it is time to move along. I was just thinking the other day that two years ago at this time, I was having a ton of trouble getting the horses to walk on after grazing if I was on the ground leading them. Now, they both listen perfectly when I ask them to stop. It is funny how a problem with horses seems gigantic while it is going on and then it works itself out and you completely forget it ever was a problem. 

I adore the three photos of Foggy above. He is happily munching apples that have fallen off our tree. The  second picture makes me crack up laughing!  I think his little feet are so hysterical. They don't seem to belong to him - it is a weird angle, I guess, but it so cute. Foggy is a dainty little thing - when you clean his feet they are so tiny. In that photo the coronary band is white and little and those tiny feet are just stuck in there at the side!  Oh, I love him like crazy.

No riding horses today. Maizie had off school so Brian and I took her to a local Rails-to-Trails to ride our bikes. Maizie has been very lame. I haven't posted about her injury yet because I get so upset when I think about it. Biking helps stretch it out and she can get out her own pent up frustration about limping and not being able to run. 

The trail we chose was gorgeous in the autumn light and is also a horse friendly trail.  I will bring the boys  if  when I get a horse van. Here is the horse sign and mounting stairs.

At the halfway point, we parked our bikes and walked on another picturesque trail to town for much needed iced coffees.

We met a very "quaint" man on a bike. The only way I can describe this man is like he fell out of the sky from the 1970's. (Think Green Acres - Mr. Kimble - in innocence, not goofiness.) Here is a photo of Maizie and Brian talking to him. He was carrying a transistor radio without headphones (we could hear a local AM station playing Gilbert O'Sullivan's Alone Again, Naturally - not kidding) and he had a Hershey bar sticking out of his breast pocket. When I asked, he said, "I'm going to get into that a little later." Very cute. Note:  We also look like we are from the 1970's - don't laugh at our bikes in this photo. We rode 18 miles today on our K-mart Specials. We bike fairly far here and in Florida and yet we own bikes as antiquated as our new friend's bike so he may be telling his wife a similar story this evening.

Brian took this one of me with the farmlands in the background. Someday I'll be out here on a horse!