My Sunday Afternoon

Hi friends!

Sunday afternoon John Darrin and I went for a ride at the Beavers' ranch. The Beavers' are some family friends of my parents who have a ranch about 3 miles West of where we live. It is super fun to ride on and has lots of creeks and trees and open pastures for us to play around in. I rode my horse, Foreo, or Mr. Foreo as I call him because it just seems to fit him. He is a gentleman and a fantastic horse for me. Pretty much dead broke, will do anything I ask him to, and will still get up and go when he needs to. John Darrin rode his horse, Miss Kitty (he would like me to clarify that he did not name his horse, but it was given to him with that name). Miss Kitty used to be crazy, but John Darrin has done a lot of work on her and she is getting to be, in his words, "a decent horse". That is to say she hasn't shied away from water or started to buck whenever he gets her into a lope in a couple of weeks now- which is super exciting. He loves his horse and takes great care of her. I love my horse and take care of him, notice, however, that I don't take greatcare of him.

 

Take, for example, our horses' manes. We have had quite a bit of rain lately and whenever it rains, horses roll in the mud, and just make a mess of themselves. So then whenever we want to ride them we have to brush the mud off of the horses with curry combs. There are some areas that you absolutely have to get all the mud off of, where the saddle sits, where the cinch strap runs, where the bridle goes, and so on. There are other places that are not really necessary to get the mud off of, but if you take great care of your horse then you would do that- the mane is one of these places…

Here is the comparison of our horses' manes. Miss Kitty's beautiful red hair (JD has a thing for red heads) is looking beautiful and ravishing and ready for her close-up for a Pantene Pro-V commercial. And then there is poor Mr. Foreo, looking forlorn and neglected, afraid to show his face in public. I really have no justification for this, I love him very much but I just don't want to take the time to get the mud-dreadlocks out of his mane. Maybe I will just get him a beanie and he can go for the Rastafarian look. I think it could work for him.

With summer come grasshoppers. Lots and lots of grasshoppers.

I wanted to get a picture showing the multitudes of grasshoppers attacking us, but it was a little difficult to do seeing as they are little and fast-like-ninjas. Here is the attempted grasshopper picture:

 

It doesn't look so bad, huh?
I mean you can't really see any grasshoppers so maybe I am just overreacting.
Except that I'm NOT!
Allow me to circle all of the grasshoppers for you, friends…

 

Yuck.

Just yuck.

Now to get the nasty thought of legions of grasshoppers and plagues of locusts out of your heads, I will leave you with some beautiful, umm… scenery.

 

Dodging Grasshoppers,
Michelle