Tandy and Coco on a beautiful California January day

Marlane's step daughter in law with Morgan mare Coco aged 22, and Husband Doug with Dasha's Morgan gelding Tandy 7 years old and our training project.

Dasha prefers a Western saddle. Doug rides English and Western.

Tandy standing quietly for mounting, this has taken a while.

Coco also had to be taught not to move at the mounting block until her rider was ready.

About a mile and a half from home at the Ranch where we keep our horses.( we have four of them ) I am on a Quad bike.

 

The pitfalls of writing my horse memoirs

 The cat ( Smokey also known as Kitten is a 12 year old ex feral cat) is now more of a nuisance, because just when I am looking at my screen for pictures or about to type something important for my blog he is there !! I have tried training him with compressed air , believe me he is stubborn !! ( He is about the fifteenth cat that I have owned. )

Smokey may be realizing that I do not want him treading on the keys, or in front of the screen. 

Then I do not sleep as well, because my mind is busy thinking, there is a lot to think about. Such as what did happen at a certain time, what were the names of certain horses. I can not ask my twin, because we are not speaking, or my first husband, he is no longer here in physical form. I could ask my daughter but she is busy  and reluctant to go there. My son does not want to remember because of his dad. I am able to remember enough to  hopefully  make things interesting for the reader, But it is more for me. I am realizing many truths that I did not in the past. It almost like having a good therapist.  Looking for photos is challenging, because I never took the time to organize them, Except for Sierra's photo album. Then it is deciding what pictures to include. I am fortunate to have a great scanner, and of course figuring out how to put things here on blogger .I have enough material to keep me going for quite some time.

Some of my photo albums

I know that I can not include them all

Just one page of un cataloged pictures in my computer files. Yes I do have back up.

I want to make "photo books"I have just got one via Face Book which I am very pleased with.

A test day at Willow Springs Doug and Jon drove.

Our friend Adrienne and Doug

Me and Doug

Doug driving many years ago

Time to go home Jon helping load the car

Racoons. Possums and Rats

The family that come and feed every night

Peeking at Doug taking the picture through the glass door

 Last night we heard a noise in the back room of our house. A racoon had come inside the house. It had entered through the dog door, which had accidentally been left open. Doug got out of bed and we paused the TV. I shut both doors to our bedroom, and me and Smokey our cat waited nervously to see what would happen next. The racoon kept climbing up on things to escape, such as paintings hanging on the walls. no damage was done, just rehanging and straitening was needed this morning.  Finally Doug got him or her to go out through the front door. It was a juvenile, about half the size of an adult. Doug enjoys feeding the raccoons and he puts out dry dog food and scraps for them every evening. We also have two possums. One very recently was brought here from Doug's daughter, whose dogs were chasing it. Then we also have either rats or kangaroo mice who feed in between. They are all  usually nocturnal.

Me wearing my helmet and safety vest with Coco

 The day before yesterday I had a fall off Coco , my first one in over twenty years. It happened when we were out on the trail.  Doug was riding Tandy. We have had a lot of rain. Coco will avoid going through water. But she will go through it usually with no problem . We came to a big puddle, Coco decided to go up to the side of it on a bank. Her legs then sank deeply. She panicked and jumped around. I did not expect her to suddenly leap sideways. I fell over her shoulder on to a very soft landing in the mud. Doug finally stopped when I yelled, and came back to where I was, and I then caught Coco. Her adrenaline was up, so I walked her along the trail until I felt she had calmed down enough, and then got back on using a bank at the side of the trail. I rode her again today in a different area, but it still had some soft sinky places. She was a little animated but perfectly controllable. I decided to try out the safety vest that we have had since we got Pesky our off the track Thoroughbred and I have never worn.

My step grandson Milo aged 9

My husband Doug and his son Jody

We had a nice visit with Jody and Milo for a few days. They left earlier today to drive the six hours back to the San  Francisco bay area where they live.