you are..

the best thing that's ever been mine

natures beauty

i love fall...

and the country side beauty.

and the barn..

and this magnificent lovely lilly



some action shots as lilly was running towards me.

i have been riding since i was three years old. my mom fastened me onto a horse, gave me a pair of cowboy boots and a cowboy hat and sent me on my way. i've never been thrown (knockonwood) and i've never ridden a horse i couldn't handle. lilly is our sixth horse and probably the best one yet.

ronnie, our first horse was a WILD, dapple, fiery arab who was not the ideal first horse for a child, but we made it work.

butch, the second was even worse. he was a HUGE 16 hand, dark bay, american quarter horse who was $3,000. we traveled to indiana to go get him. when i was little andrea ratike and i were riding him and he decided to roll. we had honestly just jumped off in time to avoid the horrible injuries he would of inflected with his 1000lbs+ body.

quincy, the thrid was another expensive bay, american quarter horse who was LARGE and naughty. he used to brake the horse trailer and back out of it with his extra large ass. he broke many lead ropes and crushed my toes plenty of times.

catch was my first horse. he was very old and actually had cancer. he was the perfect horse for me, fast when needed, but slow and steady. he was so trusting and so patient with me. we ended up giving him away to a farm with young kids where he could live out the rest of his years. PS- my mom gave him away without telling me... i'll never forgive her for that... annnnd i let her know all the time.

tyrnnery-lilly's mama was my favorite. she looked so similar to lilly.. and as crazy as lilly is too. she was the fastest horse but so mild. she did everything i asked her to, climbed up sleep rocks, swam in many lakes and rivers and bore to little fillies. sadly, tyrnnery was infected with west nile and had to be put down. watching her be hauled off into that trailer was one of the hardest things i've ever done.

and that brings us to lilly. my mom and i have raised her since she was born, doing her imprinting, working with the lead and now we're working her to be better than the best. she is now six years old, a dapple quarter horse-arab who is as spunky as the day is long. she can move as fast as lightning and can throw her hind end up in the air higher than i've ever seen. she is amazing. she's been trained with the amish down south to ride and pull and will continue her training this spring in howard lake. i look forward to hopping on her two times a week this spring and making her all she can be. i looove her!

i shouldn't be telling you this...

so i win the "failure of a mom" award for this week...
sunday: gavin got bit in the right pointer finger by a mule... dumb juiet. his finger is fine, but obviously it hurt.

monday: gavin fell down the stairs (he was about half way up) while "helping" me bring up the laundry. he cried for just about three minutes and then was totally fine. we called the ER and talked about the signs/symptoms of a concussion- he didn't have any of the signs but STILL it was the scariest thing i've ever witnessed and i hope/pray/wish it will never happen again.

tuesday: while spending my day with blaise we ventured out to the swing set, which is somewhat close to the lake.. mistake NUMBER 1 for the day. blaise wanted to go on the dock and i was trying to get him off of the dock when i turned around to not see gavin. ummmmmmmm PANIC mode, 100%. so i turn the other way only to find my dearest love walking into the lake. thankfully it was VERY shallow and he just got his jeans a little wet. mistake NUMBER 2 for the day. petey (their dog) ran away while jeff was trying to "shoot down the damn tree" and when i left at 4:30 they still hadn't found him. they did find him at 7. do you think i'll ever babysit again? urgh!
after talking with katy and hearing some stories of what blaiser has done in his younger years and this year i am okay with knowing that i have much more in store for me... and we (katy and i) are hoping that gavin's getting all of these horror events out of his system this week. tomorrow we are not doing anything crazy and are going to hide all of the power cords/anything dangerous.

my day did get wonderful.... eventually.
i went for an amazing jog, not sure about the mileage as i could never track it :) through the woods tonight. i brought with three dogs on this occasion... two good, one okay. maddy, our dog, was one of the good ones! on my jog i ran into, four HUGE deer. now i've never been scared of these beautiful and tasty creatures but seeing how HUGE they are up close, personal and alive was hugely intimidating! the dogs didn't scare them away, at first. eventually the deer pranced off, but i stood there for just about another minute in complete shock as to how close i was to these deer... two with huge antlers... ehhhhh. i actually picked up a stick (come on sam!) and ran with it the rest of the way. now i ask myself "what would this stick do for you???" as i continued my run through these deep woods i came upon more and more wildlife and the only thing that the dogs would scare was me. all of the sudden they would just STOP... directly in front of me and NOOOOOOOOOT move as i continue running towards them. this is where i gripped onto my stick just a little bit tighter. if the hunters who own this land have trail cams they will be interested to see me, in bright yellow, jogging along with three dogs and a stick... i came upon about four deer stands, two duck boats and one not so happy to see me duck hunter and his dog. he was walking back to his truck but was very interested how i was able to run on this property, being as it wasn't mine.. but wasn't his either. i did have to explain myself as best as i could and i think he was okay with it- maybe? he did give me a smile and say that the dogs were well behaved. hopefully i'm still allowed to run this course cause there aren't too many other good running areas in this town. and i don't want to drive to paynesville every time i want to run!