Smidgen had her first ride outside of the round pen today!  =:)  I took her up the road to a big open summer fallow field and trotted a whole bunch and practiced turning.  She's still in a major learning phase and it takes her a New York city block to make her turns, but I was very happy with her progress today.  She's a wonderful little horse and feels like a million bucks under saddle, (a big engine in a little package.)  We'll be burning up the endurance trails in 2016!  Yahoo!

This came in today's mail - Yay!!!!   =:)   We're at 62 points and counting.  And the year still isn't over yet...

The Pasture Pony Ride

Sometimes there is a need for a spur of the moment "pony ride".

I love Nettie.  She's such a wonderful horse!  Definitely worth her weight in gold.  She's the kind of horse that retains training like a sponge forever.  I still remember the day that I broke her to ride very fondly.  She was a totally awesome horse then, and is still a totally awesome horse now.  My little yellow broomtail mustang sweet pea!  Love her.

Last night Craig and I were fiddling around outside cleaning some stuff up around the farm, and the hot temperatures outside finally started dropping.  Nettie was standing out in the pasture munching on her hay, and I realized that I hadn't ridden her in over 6 months!  As an impromptu wild hair idea, I decided to hop on her and see what would happen.  Craig got it on his phone.

This is what happened...

  
I wouldn't trade her for any amount of money on the planet!

 

The sunset was a brilliant shade of fiery red tonight!  Beautiful.

Pink Ribbon Classic 2015

A few photos from the Pink Ribbon show this year.  We entered only two halter classes, but it was fun!  I need to start taking Ira to more shows again, as this is the only one that we've been to all year!  =:(

Rant Alert!

Why won't people be polite and return a simple phone call....?  Am I supposed to read someone's mind and find my way to their house telepathically without an address...? 

A bit of brief history - it's no secret that I have a strong hatred of phones, (I tend to prefer e-mailing as a means of communication.)  BUT, even with that.....  I did make the effort to set aside my feelings about phones on this one.  I called someone SEVEN times to set up an appointment to view their horse herd, (calling once at the beginning of the week to introduce myself and to set the appointment in place, and then I called six more times in an attempt to make contact to get directions when we arrived in their town).  And they couldn't even make the effort to RETURN A SINGLE CALL EVEN ONCE!?!?!?  I shouldn't be so annoyed with this situation.  I should just let it go.  But, it's unfortunately just more BS to add to the giant pile of "unprofessional" crap that I've dealt with surrounding akhal teke people.

I was so very excited to see these horses, and I was very pleasant on the phone.  (Honestly, I was literally giggling with excitement all week and really looking forward to it.  Hell, I've driven all the way to Minnesota to view horses with stellar communications on both ends, so driving to Idaho to talk to someone shouldn't have been too big of a deal!  Right?)  The cell phone reception was clear as a bell when I talked to the owner twice at her home when we arrived in Idaho - so poor reception was no excuse.  I needed an address to find her home.  Simple.  But nada.  Silence.  After waiting around in town for awhile with no return in communications, my husband and I were starting to get pissed.  After some time elapsed (an hour) we finally realized that we were NOT going to get a phone call  and we got mad enough that we turned around and drove home in disgust.  Seriously, all it would've taken was one tiny call to make us happy and to show us that you cared!!!!!  Are we not worth calling back.....?  Apparently not.  At least tell us to get lost if it wasn't a good day for viewing anything.  I wasn't going to make an eighth phone call.  I would've been rolling some hot fumes on the other end of the phone line.  Both Craig and I agreed that it is just rude to make an appointment and drive all the way up there to see something - and then the owner won't even give us the time of day with a single call back with directions.  It was a big F-U to us.  I guess that we're obviously not people worth giving directions to.  I've never dealt with another farm owner that won't give a person the common courtesy of a return call before!  (Especially when they know that we've driven all the way up there and then are sitting there WAITING within their hometown...)  I guess that I shouldn't be surprised, but it was just a rather aggravating experience.

The Moscow teke herd is scratched from my list.  After today's little drive up north, I'm seriously not impressed at all.  Pissed off is more like it.  Rant over.

Sibling Rivalry

Big brother shoves her off of the hay pile, so Smidgen goes to the next one....

But then big brother decides that the original one wasn't good enough, so back and forth they go...  (the epic struggle continues)

The sunflowers in front of our house are huge this year!  Yay!