Colorado Wedding, part one....

Well we made it to Colorado, the flights were ok, except for screaming 10 mo olds. Here we are waiting a PDX for our first flight.Ya me too, LOL

We were not happy having to sit with two, 10 mo old twin boys nest to us on the plane, they cried and cried until they finally fell asleep, and when they finally fell asleep, I had to pee! dang it, if I got up everyone would strangle me, they were finally quiet, so I held it, hmmph. Meghan looks happy huh.

This was our connecting flight, from Denve to Colorado Springs, a prop plane, I had never been on one of these before, it wasnt to bad, and we did not hit the bad turbulance that comes off of Pikes Peak like the flight attendant said.

View out the window, almost to CS.

Meghan stuffing her face, LOL, Doritoes, the flight was only 18 min long.

And Sara is there to pick us up at the airport.

of course we had to stop at Safeway to get some food on the way up to the B and B. Would you believe they actually have Safeway in Colorado LOL just kidding, but it was just like home.

And my room at the B and B, very nice, huge king size bed, and a Noahs Ark theme in my room, and living room. 'cept I had to kill a spider already eeeuuuwwww, it was on the door blind LOL.

Cute little Noahs Ark curtains.

and paintings, sorry cant see this one so well.

Meghan getting the internet all set up! So I can Blog with all of you!



And this one has horses so I thought that was cool.

And the wedding invites are a pirate map, oh did I tell you that the wedding is a pirate theme?

and Tobys stepmom, Sara, Toby, and Tobys Dad, I am so bad with names, I am not remembering at the moment LOL


And I will post pics of the Cute cake, it is a pirate ship! with a little bride and groom and canons and stuff LOL

Sugar, Sugar, Sugar.......

Sugar, Sugar, Sugar, one of our nicknames for her was Sugar booger LOL sometimes she could be a booger.
This is in one of the barns at our fairgrounds, either Meg was getting ready for or had just finished hunseat eq. class. oh must be finishing, with the blue ribbon in hand :)

And here is Sugar booger LOL, I think Meg came off over her shoulde a little ways down, but got right back on and ............

.......you can see that they finished the course in the end, but with a no time. Meghan wasnt hurt when she came off.
We had a lot of fun with Sugar while we had her, Meghan outgrew her, so I decided to sell her. We got $900 for her with her $250 saddle, and halter and bridle, not so bad, Sugar was only 7 at the time and I figured she had a lot of kids to raise yet. In retrospect I regret who I sold her to. I had known these folks for years and talked horses with them, sold them equipment and feed and thought that they took good care of their horses, well feed wise they did. I found out later that they tried to use a whip on Sugar, remember I said she was scared to death of them, well she took of and scrapped the young boy off on an open gate, so the mom got after her too, the rest is just imagination, but they sold her 3 months later. I was very disappointed and sad, they sold her to someone in Portland is all I know. I hope she went to a good home, she was all that I sold her as, there isnt an excuse for poor horse handling. Like I said Meghan rode her for 3 years in 4-H and they got mostly blues.

If anyone in this area sees her I would love to know how she is, it is hard to not even know if she is alive or not, or loved or not. She would be 14 now, and she has a small white spot on her lower lip, and a white spot between her front legs, she also has a barbed wire scar on her front right fetlock, from before we got her. We put a lot of time and training into her, only to have her abused and mistreated again, its so sad. At least they didnt have her for long.

Does anyone else have regrets about selling a horse? I know you cant do anything about it after they are gone, but it would be nice to know about her.

I have a friend that sold three mules to an outfitter is Idaho, in trade for a hunting trip, well they went on the trip this last year and were pretty much left to fend for themselves, but before they just packed up and left for home, they asked about the mules. The outfitter told them that the jenny mule had been taken out by one of his hired men and across a creek, well the asshat drowned her in the creek, can you believe that! (there is a reason that you dont leave a tie down on them when you cross water) I have never wanted a mule, but this jenny I would have taken in a heartbeat, I liked her personality and her looks, 16h, red dun mule, she was pretty cool, and I liked how she moved. I just dont want to hear one of those stories about Sugar.

Flying away.....

Well we are going to Colorado, my middle baby is getting married! I cant believe it. She is 22. My little Sara is getting married.

We spent a lot of years growing up with horses. I keep teasing her and telling her that she has to take her old mare after she gets married, really I dont know if I could let her go, probably, but it would be hard.Saras high school graduation. Sara and myself. She is so pretty, and 5'10, she got that from her father not I LOL. After graduation she waited for a job for a couple months and then the Air Force took her away from home. She went to Texas for basic, and we got to go and see her graduate basic training. and then she went to Biloxi, and was there when hurricane Katrina hit! It was 4 or 5 days before we heard from her, but they were fine on the base. Then she went to South Carolina for a couple years, and now she is back in Texas, getting married in Colorado, and in April she will go to Iraq. My little quiet shy girl has turned into quite the traveler.

So I will be posting, I hope from Colorado this weekend, the B and B where we are staying is supposed to have wifi, so I should be able to. I still cant believe she is getting married.

Sugar, Awesomest pony ever!!!!

Sugar is the cutest pony ever, grandpa Hunter bought her for Meghan when Meg was 7, we paid $400 for her, and she was 4 years old. She had some issues, she was deathly afraid of a lunge whip, she would run and run in circles and you would have to reel her in to stop her, poor baby, she got a lot better with kind handling. At the time my sister and her husband(now ex) managed the barn where she was for awhile, she bucked or tried to lie down when ridden, they put my nephew on her with spurs and broke her of that.I suspect that her former owners used a whip on her a lot, she had a lot of trust issues that we worked through.


Meghan practicing, look at the wooly bear shes riding LOL, and Mickey in the background.

After we brought her home we had no problems with her, she only bucked with Meg one time I can remember, I have a picture of that I will post tomorrow. I still think she is the prettiest pony ever!

Meghan rode her in junior 4-H for 3 years, and every year they would get mostly blues! Some reds and whites in the speed events cuz she was so little. I believe she was 10H tall and probably 350lbs, little girl, but not tiny, she was about as wide as she was tall, and I dont mean fat, you can see she was in really good shape.

I love the silver dapple color, we used a lot of bluing shampoo on that mane and tail! She did absolutely hate to have her butt wet with water LOL so it was a bit of a dance to get her bathed. The older 4-H girls found out that Sugar liked pop, and would drink it out of a can or bottle LOL

Bareback class at fair. They were so cute!

Standing in line after judging. Meghan rode her with spurs, but that is all she needed, she did everything Meghan asked her to, she was big enough that I would get on her at a walk only, and do any corrections she needed, she always managed to dump Sara LOL I always blamed it on Sara being so tall and having a high center of gravity LOL

It still strikes me how pretty she is, she was unique in a group of horses.



Meghan even rode her huntseat, again LOL arent they cute!!

Sugar did great in the trail class too, she would do all of the obstacles, which is more than I can say about the big horses LOL. Sometimes we would braid her mane like this to tame it.

And Sugar even put up with being glittered and painted and dressed up for gaming day LOL

More on Sugar later...........

The Legend of the Huckleberry Monster.........

The legend of the Huckleberry Monster.....every late summer, we go up in the mtns where we hunt, to go huckleberry picking. We do have to watch out for the Huckleberry Monster. This creature is elusive and hard to find, and usually purple in color.

Do you see her in this picture? hmmm no not yet, but I see beautiful big fat huckleberrys.

This was a particularly good year for huckleberrys. Plump ripe and turn your tongue purple sweet. Can you see the Huckleberry Monster yet?

I love Huckleberry picking and I usually can pick a gallon in about 3 hours, then wash them and freeze them, or make jam with them, or all of the above, and huckleberry pie too! yum yum!

hmmm me thinks you may be able to see the monster here! Well this time our monster in red and wearing sunglasses but a monster non the less LOL

The beautiful alpine forest where our huckleberry fields are, it smells so good up here on a warm day, fir forest smells so good.

This trip we happened to have another monster find us. This one decided it would assault defenseless fir trees, uh or it was reverting back to monkey stage LOL

Any honest huckleberry picker will go home with purple hands, if they dont then they werent picking enough berries!

Ashley, Hubby, part of me and the Huckleberry Monster.

Here we go a better view, HBs favorite way to pick berries is to sit in the middle of a patch and pick, and she does a good job!

And the road home, it is usually grouse season when we go so we make sure we have a shotgun with us when we go. The road home, dusty gravel roads. This area is probably buried by snow right now, I am sure its been a harsh winter so far. There a short huckleberry trip, it always brings me good memories! I love the mtns. The huckleberry's are usually ripe up here the last two weeks of August or through September, then it starts raining again and we get into chantrell mushroom season more yum yums!!

More E-team practice, taking pics, and my trailer.

This is my train of a horse trailer. 4 horse with full dressing room, I got a really good price on it when we bought it. It is the trailer I always wanted! now I am thinking something a bit smaller will do, Meghan is graduating and it will only be me riding most of the time, and a 4 horse will be overkill, but I love the room they have inside and the full walk in tack room, hmmmm, it is a lot of trailer to turn around and maneuver, being a bumper pull, yes, because I put a camper rv on the truck when we go places with the horses, it is steel and needs a little work, but sound and pulls great!

I caught Meghan and her new xmas present, the saddle pad, not the horse LOL, pink camo! I think it was the present she was most excited about LOL its pretty cool 1/4 inch of felt on both sides with 1/2 inch of neoprene in the middle.

I am still learning my new camera, and how to get good action shots with it. It is a digital so there are only so many settings I can use, so far it takes better pics inside without the flash, the flash catches all the dust particles in the air. I am also trying different ISO s and stuff and a myriad of different settings that it has. The action shots still need a lot of work, horses just move to fast LOL

This is E-team practice again, I take a lot of pics( I love digital LOL) so I can learn how it does in different light. The light in this arena is good, the other one they ride at is a lot darker.

Meghan on Rocket on the left, Rocket really has a cute face. So Meg has her lime green and now a pink camo blanket LOL she puts pink vet wrap on her reins and stirrups and whatever else occurs to her LOL

Friday funnies!

Warm trail ride memories..........

I will say I love how green it is here. I have said before that it is the first thing that we notice when we come home from a trip. Sara was sure noticing it on this day. We went for a lot of trail rides when she came home that summer. This one is at Whipple Creek Park, in Ridgefield WA, one of our favorite places. At any given time you will see hikers, bikers, hawks, eagles(we seen a bald eagle that day) squirrels, all kinds of birds, deer, other horseback riders, bobcats etc. etc., it is a beautiful place. It is a summer ride mostly for horses as it can get muddier than heck, and deep. They have done a lot of work on the trails in the bad spots though.

The Emerald City........

The trails are all this good, when it is dry......you can see all the dust kicked up on the bushes on the side. There are a lot of hills, a bridge, and a creek, and some flat too, so it is a very varied ride

Most of the trails are through the woods........in the nice cool shade. The boarding barn where I cleaned stalls when Meg was a baby, where I bought Mickey, adjoins this park, a great perk! when you board at Whipple Creek Stables. Not only a nice size inside arena but riding trails to die for. My ex-Brother in-law manages the barn, and the old guy that owns it I have known since I was around 8yrs old, my dad used to shoe his cutting horses, and he owns Mickeys Sire. The barn owner Dick, I think he turned 75 this last year, he is a neat old character.

Emma and I taking a break..........( boy we were bad about taking enough pics then)

This is the old Grist Mill, you can ride right up to it.

Beautiful old rockwork........I dont think that it is the original wheel. Sometime I will have to ask about the history of this Mill. Water does run through here when it rains, this day it was 90 degrees, but nice and cool in the woods.

This is the upper room above the wheel.......it still has a wood floor in it. It is pretty good for anything made out of wood to survive for any amount of time around here, I assume the parks dept. does a minimum of maintenance here, so no kid is hurt playing in here, it is pretty close to housing developments on the south and west sides, which makes it all the more a special place because it is near town.

The trail up past the Mill. On the left you can see the trail we came down to get to the Mill, and on the right the trail we take back to complete the loop. There are a lot of trail loops here, you can take a 1/2 hour ride or an hour and a half, its really cool.

And time to head home again, boy these virtual trail rides are to short! We go here a least a couple times a year to ride, it is about 45min by highway away from our home. At least all the pictures were taken from horseback, and you can bet from now on I will be taking a lot more pictures of our trips!