Hunter or a Horseback Rider?

Quick disclaimer: Before anyone freaks out and thinks that Eric is going to shoot his cat, please know that Eric's rifle is unloaded, and that he always holds it correctly, whether it is loaded or not, because that is what he has been taught to do.

Now that that is out of the way, I wanted to put a picture of Eric all dressed up for hunting, something that both he and his dad did a lot of this past weekend, because even though I am not a fan of hunting, I am a fan of my son, and I think that he looks too cute in this picture! Good grief...I sound like one of those kind of mothers...lol!!! You know the type..."Will there ever be a girl who is good enough for my son???" Probably not, and I am totally just joking!! ;)

The gargantuan feline who is unknowingly walking beneath Eric's rifle, is Twittums. He is our 17 pound cat, who has the coolest personality ever, and acts a lot like Garfield. He is also Eric's cat, and Eric would be devastated if anything ever happened to him. It's quite sickening really...Twit sleeps with Eric every night, and if Eric happens to get in my bed (well, mine and Kevin's bed...lol!!!), or falls asleep out on the couch, the cat follows him. I tell you what....

Of course, I think that Eric looks pretty cute when he is leading Bo too!!! This is not the best picture, but I think that old Bo Bo looks rather kind and patient...and a little tired too! Kind of like he is saying "I really want to stay out here and eat this grass, but I guess that I will go with you....sigh....."This is a picture of Bo, still looking tired and sleepy, after me, Eric and Katie took his blankies off. It is mainly so my mom, and Chris P. (Hi Chris P.! I know that you are out there...Mary told me!) can see how he is looking...besides the tired and sleepy part...lol!!! Notice how fuzzy he is, even with his winter blanket on.
...and I know that I have said this before, but look at all of his scars that cover his body now, when compared to when we had him five years ago (below). It just makes me sick. Why would you just turn a bunch of horses out in a small pasture, with limited food and shelter, and think that it was OK???!!! His coat does not even look like the same horse (you can click on both pictures to enlarge them)!
It is kind of fun to look at Bo when he was 13, and then look at him now at 20. Talk about turning white!!!
Well, I am off to read a couple of chapters and study for a mid-term...talk at you all soon....

Flag Football!

It is times like these that I wish I had PhotoShop, so that I could circle or draw an arrow that points towards Eric. For those of you who know Eric and his pals, enjoy the next couple of photos, and for those of you who do not, I will try to point out who is who.

While I obviously dread the cold, damp, gray, and miserable days that us Pacific Northwesterner's have to look forward to for the next eight months (sad thing is, is that I am not joking!!), I do look forward to it being football season, and Eric and his team played their second game this morning ( look, the sun actually came out!!!! ).

See the two blonde kidlets in the picture below? Eric is the taller one on the right hand side of your screen, and his good friend, "M," is the blonde kidlet next to him. To make things even worse, all of Eric's good friends on his teams name's start with "M's," so I am apologizing ahead of time!
In the picture below, we have another "M" friend right up front, preparing to catch the ball, with Eric behind him blocking. I love how nimble all of these kidlets look out on the football field. It makes my ankles, knees, hips, and back hurt just watching them...lol!!! Lastly, we have Eric and the first blonde "M" kidlet towards the right hand corner of the picture, and yet another "M" friend over to the left hand corner, who is up on one foot, while he chases after the kid from the other team who has the football. Phew...that was a mouthful!!!
Anywho, sorry the pictures are not the greatest. I was trying to take them while holding my 12 oz, double shot, non-fat, sugar-free, pumpkin pie latte, in one hand, and Katie in the other....it is a long story....

Oh...and Eric wants me to tell all of you that he is the QB, or the quarterback, for his team! He is pretty proud of his position, and so is his daddy, who was QB all throughout his high school football career. Way to go Bud!!!

The Proposal Is In and I Hit the Trail!

I finished my proposal last night, turned it in to my professor this morning, and went over to Amber's house for a quick ride (about 2 hours), before it was time to pick up the kidlets from school.Bo was pretty happy to see me, although his little pasterns and fetlocks were swollen from being ridden the night before by my other sister, Jen (I will post more later about his swelling issues).As you can see from the pictures, fall has officially hit the Pacific Northwest. What you cannot see, is how incredibly cold it has been the past few days! We have been having temperatures in the 30's and 40's, which is unseasonably cool for around here. Brrrrrrrr...I am getting chilled just thinking about it! As we were riding along a trail that I have only been on one other time, but Amber has ridden on for the past few years, I noticed what looked like a shack, about 50 yards off of the trail. Amber and I pulled up the horses and cautiously picked our way over to it, only to discover that it was a party hut...complete with a fire pit, wooden chairs and lots of old, discarded beer cans. Whoever made it even put gutters on the back of it...kind of funny!This shack is in a pretty remote location, but I am sure that local kids ride their motorbikes and quads (loaded with beer of course!), out to it on Friday or Saturday nights, and live it up. Now...if we could just get them to haul their garbage out with them!

The past few weeks have been bow hunting and muzzle loading season around here (we saw some broken arrows and an area where an injured, and hopefully dead, elk lay), so we were pretty happy when we came across this cow elk, who was totally undisturbed by our presence. The same thing cannot be said about poor Waska though! Did you all know that elk are known to attack and eat horses on a regular basis? No? Well Waska seemed to think so, at least at first, but he calmed down once he realized that she was not going to devour us...lol!!!So, we rode closer......and closer, until we were within 10 yards of her. She just ate grass and totally ignored us. Take that hunters...lol!!
Have a happy Friday!

Short Hiatus....

Just wanted to let you all know that I will be M.I.A. for a little bit longer, while I put the finishing touches on a rather lengthy research proposal, for one of my sociology classes. I find myself wanting to go out and visit other people's blogs vs. writing my paper, so I am banning myself for at least one more day!

Hope to be back on Friday, after I get a nice and well deserved ride in! !
Toodles!

It Was a Cold October Afternoon...

Today was a cold -and rainy!!-October afternoon, and Auntie Mary, Katie, and myself, went to an open house that was put on at one of Mary's patients TB farm. The owner converted part of her covered arena into a restaurant/lounge, and part of it into an auction/show ring, where we all enjoyed a lovely lunch that was catered by the local racetrack, and that included beer, wine, desert, and beautiful horses!
For all of your sakes, I will try to avoid getting all political about racetracks and TB breeders, but let me just say that I am not a fan, and that I wanted to buy all of the weanlings, yearlings, and two and three year olds who were back from the track, and take them home with me...Grrrrrrrr!!!!!

As most of you know, TB's, like other horses, are either breathtakingly beautiful, or dismally homely, and this farm had some great examples of both. Most of the TB breeders that I know have always commented that they do not breed for looks, they breed for speed, and that you get what you get. That is true for any breed really, but I think that TB breeders tend to overpopulate and flood the market, because everyone is hoping that their next foal will be the "one." Again, you can really say that about any type of breeder, but you get my point.That being said, I thought of some of my QH blogging pals, like BEC, Cdn Cowgirl, and AOHCM, who like horses that are built for speed, when the above filly was brought out. Check out her hind quarters! She will be two in February, and just look at her! Of course, she has been being ridden for the past six months-don't even get me started!!!-and she will probably be dead lame in about one year, but if I had $21,000, I would have put a bid in on her(she sold for that price).

Then there was this cute little colt (above), who is a yearling-yes folks, those are shoes on his little hooves!!-and he was quite the little comedian. Most TB's are quite silly, and I have never minded being around them. There are definitely bad apples out there, but for the most part, once they have been of the track for a while-or if they are the lucky ones who never have to go!-they are a pretty friendly lot.

Just look at these little weanlings who were checking Katie out (above). They were debating who was going to be the first one to try and take a nip at her...lol!!!
Then came the stallions. This farm does have some well known stallions, and I overheard several people who were eating and drinking, talking about where they had just flown in from; to check these bad boys out. I loved the neck on this old stallion! He is 20-they have one there who is 30, but he is no longer breeding!- and still looks like quite the stud muffin...kind of reminds me of AOHCM's post on older, male, movie stars...lol!!!
This guy was one of my favorites, and I think that the filly that I like so much above, is his. He is not squared up very well in the picture below, but he also has quite the hind end on him, but he didn't make me think barrels...he made me think of Dressage or jumping!
All in all we had a great afternoon, and thank you, Mary, for inviting us to attend this event with you! Hope all of you had a great weekend!!!
One last picture of another one of my favorite horses. He would never pick his head up, so I could not get a good shot of him, but he was another one of their giant 'almost' two year olds.

High Risk Behavior???

So... my previous post got me thinking about where you draw the line between what is considered safe, and what is considered "not" safe. Everyone obviously has their own opinions about whether or not their hobbies (in most of our cases, horses!) range from mildly dangerous (say riding a bicycle down the street), to downright nerve wracking (think about something like skiing or snowboarding down an off limit part of a mountain, causing a landslide).
I don't know about you, but I tend to not think of horseback riding as an extreme sport. Maybe some disciplines are more likely to cause serious injuries, like extreme cross country jumping, but even that is debatable, because hopefully the riders who are competing at that level are competent.
That being said, I remember how shocked I was when Amber's trauma surgeon (she was thrown from a quad and stopped by a tree...not good combination...about two years ago), commented that she was lucky that she had never been severely injured before because she engages in what is considered by trauma surgeons and emergency rooms everywhere, as high risk, thrill seeking, life endangering behavior. What??!!! I was totally floored! I remember being like "horses??? Are you kidding me???" The answer was "no" he was not. And according to him, the fact that she rides ATV's was just the icing on the cake. He even jokingly asked if she skied or snowboarded as well.
I think that my little eye opening conversation helped me to realize that just about anything that we do, and that we allow our kids to do, can potentially cause harm, and it is our responsibility to ourselves, and to our kids (if we have them!) to make sure that we, or our kids, are educated in whatever it is that we/they are doing. Obviously we cannot keep bad things from happening, but we can actively make a decision to prevent something from happening (like potentially placing Katie and Sienna in a precarious situation), and as long as we take the necessary steps towards safety, we are at least eliminating senseless, needless, and preventable injuries or deaths from occurring. Should you make you or your kids wear a helmet, require that everyone who rides an ATV wear full body armor and a helmet, or penalize those who participate in "off-road" snowboarding or skiing? That answer is not up to me, it is up to the individuals who participate in any of those activities, and that is part of what makes us all unique! For the record, we do wear helmets when riding horses or quads (no armor though), and I have no problem if somebody wants to go off limits while skiing or snowboarding. See??? I am not a total fuddy duddy...lol!!!

PS-My above post does NOT refer to allowing your kids to "be kids"and then blaming yourself when someone gets hurt...I am thinking of a recent incident that involved tree climbing and a trip to the ER. You did nothing wrong in allowing your kidlets to climb trees, and please do not feel that you did! :) Hope that you and your little one are feeling better!

Am I A Paranoid Mother?

Amber and I have had an ongoing debate about what she calls my "extreme paranoia," in regards to my concern about the safety of kids on horses ( don't worry, we still get along great, we just don't see eye to eye on this issue!). First, let me tell you that I do not worry when the either of my kids ride Bo or Waska, I only worry about Katie when she is on Sienna. Sienna the Cheetos loving, climb in your pocket, come in your house, two foot high pony? Yes...that very pony strikes a fear in my belly that I do not know what to do with, and let me explain why. Bo and Waska are riding horses, and have been for most of their 20 and 10 years of life, so I know what to expect from them in a variety of different scenarios that involve kids and/or adults riding them.Sienna on the other hand, has been a cart pony all of her life (she is 15), and has just recently been used for riding by Miss Katie. This is where the paranoia sets in. I cannot say what Sienna will do under saddle, with a small child on her back, on the trail, in the arena, or walking down the road. I know that while pulling a cart she is safe and reliable, and I would hope that she could maintain her good character with a child on her back, but I just don't know, and that terrifies me....when my daughter is on her back!! We just got a saddle all fixed up for Katie to ride Sienna in , and that is another possible issue. What if she spooks, and then decides that she wants the saddle gone??? It is rather like putting an inexperienced rider on a green horse. Who knows what will happen?Anyway, Amber gets really frustrated with me, because she feels that I should not worry about Katie on Sienna, and she likes to call me an "over protective and paranoid mother." On Katie and Sienna's first ride in the new saddle, Eric was trotting up ahead, and left us all behind. Did I worry about Eric on Bo? Not really, because I know what to expect from Bo. When Katie started to trot after him on Sienna, Sienna was trying to break into a canter, and I told Katie to stop. Sienna has never had a rider canter on her back, and I do not want Katie to try it out on the road. I want it done in an arena, with Sienna on a longe line in case I need to intervene. Amber got mad and kinda yelled at me, saying that I was going to make my daughter afraid to ride horses, and then she asked what was the worse possible thing that could happen if Sienna took off after Bo. The worst possible thing??? Oh my goodness, where do I start? How about Sienna bucks and Katie gets thrown onto the pavement, or Sienna loses her balance and falls, or....I have to stop myself from thinking such negative thoughts and push them from my mind!Again, once Sienna is better trained, and I know what to expect, I will not worry about this, but until then... Amber finally understood my worry when Eric told her that I was over protective, and made him be careful while riding the quads. Amber responded by saying that she guessed it was a good idea that I was cautious, because if she had kids, they would probably be dead from her carelessness. Do ya think??

So, I am curious to know what you guys think: Am I being a paranoid mother, or am I just being safe?