Ride Photos!

The ride was great! Loved it, but I've got one thing to say to all you Appaloosa owners in New Mexico: WHERE ARE YOU? Again Ladybug was the ONLY appaloosa marked horse at the ride. Two out of three events Ladybug is the only appaloosa. The third event was an un-registered bought at a sale without papers Appaloosa gelding. Did you know that the NMApHC could host a ride to bring in income to the Club? Did you realize that ACTHA covers the basic liability insurance for the ride? Did you know that even if you host an all breed show, you can set special additional awards such as the high point Appaloosa for the event? 

For those of you who want to see the saddle and matching tack here's the best photo. 

I usually avoid taking photos of "The Beast", but it appears that someone got it in the shot at the ride. 

So below beware "The Beast" is there.

 The first obstacle of the day was a mount.  If you can't pass that one well not much use in going out on a ride in the first place.

The second obstacle was  a trot over branches in the path stopping before the branch with the fake lizards and then tun and back away from them and then continue on down the trail. The next photos are of us trotting up to the fake lizards. You can see them in the last photo the bright pink and lime green ones.

I don't know if any one got any other photos, but the rest of the obstalces went like this:

#3 A noise obstacle. They popped a balloon from a few ft away and the horse was to remain calm and in the circle. Bug lifted her head a bit and looked towards the noise, but didn't move a foot.

#4 Ride down a ditch stop at the bottom turn and walk through a pair of trees. Totally easy for the Bug.

#5 Walk up a rocky hill in a calm quiet manner. Another totally easy one for the Bug!

#6 Open a gate and ride though. Those in pleasure only had to open while open had to close it also. We did OK. We completed the obstacle, but that is still one I've got to work on.

#7 Back a circle around a tree. Pretty easy not as smooth as some of the others as we had to stop and reposition the hind end a few times. But overall pretty good.

#8 Safe Dismount without using your left arm.

We got back into camp not long after the Dismount and let the horses enjoy a good drink from those water tanks on Loan from "The Feed Bin" of Santa Fe.

Weekend Ride

Friday I hauled Ladybug again to a new ACTHA competition. We left really early on Friday for such a short ride because I had to half way there to see my oldest nephew Cody off to his year in Germany in the student exchange program.  We had a good visit and said "See Ya Later" in Albuquerque before heading on up to Santa Fe to make camp. 

Since we got into camp quite early we got to pick a good spot to camp. It turns out that we park right across the way from where all the good camp activities were planned. When the ride host Shelly Green showed up later to set up her Check-in point I volunteered to help set up one of those pop up portable shade canopies and the "some assembly required" fire pit. somewhere in the middle of putting together that "some assembly required" fire pit I believe I dislocate my knee cap. Talk about PAIN!!  Somewhere about 3:30 AM on my stiff legged walk that football field distance to the toilets it finally un-dislocated itself but it's still pretty painful.

Ride day was perfect! The weather was beautiful and relatively cool. The rains held off until just after the awards ceremony was finished but the clouds building up all afternoon kept the temperatures pretty moderate.

I'm still waiting on ride photos so I'll tell you all about the obstacles and the ride when I get the photos. So today I'll tell you all about the prizes and awards that were donated. They had quite an impressive selection of donations.

Linda Tellington-Jones donated a couple of books:

and

Anne Martinez in Santa Fe is a professional photographer who donated a two hour professional photo shoot for a horse and rider combination at a location here in NM. I won that for being the runner up most uniquely dressed individual at the ride with my old time cowgirl outfit.

The Feed Bin a feed store in Santa Fe was really generous with their donations.They donated 16 Buckets of Ranch-Way feeds "Horse Candy" treats. That was enough to have one for every rider in every division that placed in the top 6 places! Plus they also donated an additional half pound sample bags of the same "Horse Candy" treats for every single entry in the event. That means they donated around  30 pounds of just samples.

 Another very important item that was donated was the loan  of 3 or 4 large water tanks to provide the water for all the horses.

Aromaland of Santa Fe donated a gift basket of aroma therapy products.

Barn Dogs of Santa Fe donated a Leather Halter.

Trader Joe's in Santa Fe donated a big gift basket of non-perishable Healthy food items.

Crown Jewels of Santa Fe donated a $45 gift certificate to their store.

La Plancha Restaurant donated a $ 25 gift certificate.

Eldorado Country Pet Donated a $20 Gift Certificate

Century Bank  of Santa Fe donated some folding camp chairs.

The Water Boyz of Santa Fe donated 2 personal sized water bottles.

Lowe's in Santa Fe donated some water and charcoal for the lunch and breakfast cooking.  

We also had the Founder and President of ACTHA  Carrie Scrima  and her family came to enjoy the trails and the sights of Santa Fe.  We had people come from all over New Mexico as well as from Texas, Arizona and Colorado. We also found out that New Mexico rides are doing really well. New Mexico is one of the TOP ACTHA states for ride attendance. Texas is first in Number of participants per event, but they started it there and have had more time to develop a member base, New Mexico is pushing right up there and getting large numbers of participants with almost every ride hosted. 

Next post should be ride photos! 

Really great training week

So far the week has started off really well. I'm doing some final tune up practice rides to get ready for this weekends ACTHA competitive trail ride. Yesterday I took Ladybug out and we practiced some water crossings and some going up and down hills and backing and walking in and around the neighbors cattle. 

Today we stayed closer to home and practiced tarp crossings. My tarp is blue on one side and brown on the other. I folded it partly so that some blue and some brown showed. Then we practiced walking across it.  I got out my bright yellow slicker and my dark brown Aussie oilskin coat to practice carrying the slicker. I also tried something new this time. I hadn't had Ladybug drag anything before so we started small with a really small log and we got used to the dragging from the ground first before I mounted up and had Ladybug drag the log. 

Two days in a row and Ladybug is doing awesome especially after coming off a 3 week lay up due to the heavy rains and bad lightning we have had in the recent past. You just HAVE to love a horse that you can pull out of the pasture after three weeks of no riding and just go on like it was yesterday!  


We will still be working on a few things and some more final tune ups before this weekend and then Friday it's off to Santa Fe for Ladybug and I while Keith stays to feed the rest of the crew.

Busy week

I acquired a new duck this week. Quackers the one in the back in this photo, was a kids pet duck but they had to give her up. Quackers easily found several new friends her at the farm.This cute little Muscovy hen helped introduce Quackers to the new pen.

The garden has been growing and growing. I've been over-run with squash this week. I gave away 4 early in the week to a friend and then walked out the back door and harvest 7 more. Later in the week I gave away another 4 squash and got home and harvested another 7. Seems I never could catch up until today. Finally got the time to crank out the canning. I first made sweet pickle relish with the squash and then made bread and butter squash pickles. I got 6 pints of relish and 7 pints of pickles.

That is on top of the original 5 pints of squash pickle spears that I canned a couple weeks back. So I think I'll have pickles for quite a while.

Gardening and Canning updates.

The garden has been doing really well with all the rains. I've been busy harvesting and storing the vegetables left and right. At one point I had an entire sink full of swiss chard and beet greens that I combined and froze. 

I've also had a summer squash overload. I have yellow crook neck squash, light green zucchini and a dark green zucchini. I had so much that even after giving some away, I still had enough to make 5 pints of squash pickles.

I also harvested more than 60 heads of garlic so I'll be giving some away, pickling some and saving some to plant later this fall. 

 All this rain has really helped the garden and I'm hoping we get quite a few more harvests over the up coming weeks.

Rain

Well If you haven't heard, it's been raining here and it's really starting to create some problems.  On our way to deliver Roany pony yesterday I took some photos of the water running through areas along the interstate. 

there is actually a private road under all that water.

And the people who live down that road can't drive across it. So you see the white car and the red truck just parked there. This road has been under water for the better part of a week now.

 And this barn here has been on it's own island for a week also. Behind that barn is another road that's been under water all week also.

Here at home we have our own water problems.

But the one good thing about all this rain is the pastures are pretty and green.

Good Bye and Hello

No this is not a really sad goodbye. In fact it's quite a good good bye. Roany pony moved closer to her little boy so he can see her more often! It's kind of sad because Roany is such a good little pony that she will be missed up here. Also I will miss seeing Christopher improve in his riding skills since he'll be riding more there at the new place and not up here where I can see him all the time.

So we packed up all her things; feed, feeders and water tub.

And loaded her up in the trailer. She's so good she walks right in ready to go.

And drove her to her new home.

Then she got settled into her new pen while we unloaded all the stuff.

This whole move was a surprise to her boy.  He didn't know anything about it until his mom took him for a drive.

Then he had to check out her new pen.

And help give her a good brushing.

 So for us it's good bye Roany and for Christopher, it's Hello!

Garden updates

Well that's just the corn and tomatoes. Kind of looks like a little jungle there HUH? The garlic is hiding on the other side of the corn and it's pretty close to needing to be harvested.

Below is some of the swiss chard and the onions. those are the Egyption walking onions. Let me tell you even if you have a BLACK thumb, these things will grow and grow and grow and grow. Anyone want any? I cleared that onion bed out two years ago and gave a lot away but look at how full it is again.  I've also been harvesting the swiss chard regularly and have frozen quite a bit.

This is the squash row. There is the dark green zucchini, yellow squash and a light green variety of zucchini. I've been harvesting nearly daily off these. I also have a tiny little armenian cucumber still surviving at one end of the squash row. Hope to have some cucumbers soon also.

Pretty sunflowers that look like they might start blooming soon.

Here is a part of the harvest. The squash of course is going strong. We also have the broccoli and even some fresh asparagus spears. Can't believe we are getting a second chance this year for asparagus spears. 

And since it's been raining hard for a couple weeks now and especially ruining my weekend riding plans I've been canning.  A week ago I harvested some fresh spearmint and made some mint jelly. My sister tried it an her response was "It tastes like Gum" lol. I added the green food coloring because I like green.

And this weekend I had a lot of beets to put up. Keith had never had pickled beets until recently at my sisters house. Now suddenly he really likes them, so I made him some pickled beets. I sort of modified some different recipes and added in my walking onion bulbs and some dehydrated dill leaves all from the garden.