Wordless Wednesday - Upper Frederick Community Day

A Much Cleaner and Less Grubby Zip

He is settling in well and is very mild mannered. He greets us with a whinny or a whistle when he sees us. He even had a bit of play time with Jet and Montero. With food, hay and exercise, he should fill out nicely.

Macro Monday - Indian Corn

Indian corn and candy corn are big favorites for Craig and T.

I use it for horse treats :)

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Sunday Stills - Colors of Fall

This week's Sunday Stills was definitely a challenge for me. We have had a very wet summer and the trees have not yet turned colors. There is just a hint of the blazing color to come. Our schedules are really crazy since school started so I haven't had a whole lot of time to devote to taking pictures.

The wooden covered bridge in Valley Forge National Park, built in 1865.

The leaves are just starting to change and some have fallen already.

From my neighbor's garden

Just a hint of color plus hay being baled.

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Introducing...Zip

Tessa's birthday present arrived at the farm today. We were able to find another Mexican Mustang like Jet. He looks like Montero but rides like Jet. Tessa has named him Zip. He's a bit on the ratty side right now and needs some weight and some muscling but he's got huge potential. He's 12 or 13 and rides like there's no tomorrow. Poor boy had a whirlwind day yesterday - he spent Thursday night in the round pen, was hauled 40 miles to a new farm, had a bath (he was gross and smelled bad), and got his horrible shoes pulled and his feet trimmed. He's had shoes on for quite a while. He was hot shoed, 8 nails per foot, and the nails were bent over twice. Poor boy's going to have sore feet for the next day or so but he's got pretty good feet overall and he stood like a saint while I trimmed him. What a good boy!

Skywatch Friday - Season 4 Episode 11

My daughter on Jet, before last weekend's horse show. It was late afternoon, the weather was perfect, and the leaves are just starting to change.

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Teaching Montero How to Gait on a Lead

As Montero started to steadily gain weight, it was difficult for him to maintain his gait for any length of time since he didn't have any muscle tone. Now that he has gained a significant amount of weight and is building muscle tone, we wanted to start working with him to gait on a leadline. He will follow you all over the pasture, either loose with with a halter and lead but just doesn't get it when you ask him to gait. We figured it would be fun to try a ground pole on the leadline too. He's a willing soul and will tolerate quite a bit. Jet just stood around and watched.

Wordless Wednesday - Leaving a Trail of Dust

Buxmont Gymkhana 9/19/09

T did really well at Saturday's gymkhana. She gained 24 more points towards year end points and came in 3rd overall for the night. Right now, she's on track for Reserve Champion in her division for the year. This is her first full year of showing and she's done great! We're really proud of her!!! One more show for Buxmont this year on October 3rd.

For more pics and individual class times and placings, please visit my Shutterfly site.

Macro Monday - Fuzzy Pasture Visitor

This little fella was hiding in the grass by the barn. Craig used his pocket knife to pick him and and relocate him to a spot where the horses wouldn't step on him.

You can see other contributors to Macro Monday here.

Sunday Stills Challenge - the Color Purple

This week's Sunday Stills Challenge is the color purple. I haven't had a whole lot of time this week so this is the best that I could come up with in a short amount of time.

A purple Coca Cola glass from McDonald's

T is collecting these and she took the pic

A purple petunia from my neighbor's garden

One of the last Purple Coneflowers in my garden

The birds love the dried seed heads, especially the goldfinches

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Busy Week

This has been a very busy week. I had a birthday (the dreaded 4-0), caught a stomach virus, had a couple of days off from work and we have a gymkhana tonight. Not a whole lot of time for blogging. I'm trying to find time to take pics for this week's Sunday Stills. Lots of horsey things going on too. We decided to move Jet and Montero out of Shaky H and back to 50/50 Farm where they did so well. Montero is definitely not one to be kept in a stall but we had to try it to find that out. We will be retired Jet from gaming after this season, and, in about 3 weeks time, we will be bringing home another horse that we can hopefully use for gaming. He's another Mexican Mustang like Jet and we hope that he is as good as Jet. Off to get ready for the show...

Skywatch Friday - Season 4 Episode 10

Blue skies over the Scottish Irish Festival, after 2 days of rain.

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More Pics from the Scottish Irish Festival

One of the features at the Festival is the medieval village. People demonstrate some traditional jobs, like blade sharpener and spinner, and they dress in period costume.

There's even a trebuchet for launching pumpkins into the lake

There's also a group of Civil War reenactors. They stay in authentic tents all weekend which I'm sure were pretty uncomfortable given all the rain that we had.

This is such a fun festival to be a part of every year.

Wordless Wednesday - Champ, the pony-ride pony

Scottish Irish Festival, Green Lane Park

Every year Green Lane Park hosts a Scottish Irish Festival. This year was the 10th anniversary. It started off 10 years ago as a day-long festival and has grown to 2 1/2 days. Since this is so close to our house, we go every year, sometimes more than 1 day. This year it rained buckets Friday and Saturday so I'm sure that attendance was very low. Sunday's weather was absolutely perfect so the Festival was mobbed. The Festival is held on both sides of the park, joined by a walkway over the lake. These pictures were taken in the morning as the Festival opened. The crowds were much larger later in the day.

A pipe and drum band

The welcoming committee for the Irish Setter rescue

Nessie

A friend of ours did the pony rides and T was a pony walker.

There were 6 ponies and 7 kids to help out.

Setting up and getting the ponies ready Walking a friend's son around

Keeping cool in between rides

I'll post more pics throughout the week.

Macro Monday - Praying Mantis

Craig took this in front of my house last week. This guy hung out on my window screen all day.

You can see other contributors to Macro Monday here.

Sunday Stills - Mechanical Transportation

This week's Sunday Stills is Mechanical Transportation - basically anything that runs on fuel and can take 2 or more passengers.

Our Ford F150 truck that we use for everything

The little dumptruck that we use at the farm. Craig looks like a giant when he drives it.

A local school bus

A friend's truck hauling a hay wagon and offloading hay

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In the Wash Rack

Montero had muddy legs so T was hosing them off. We found a small puncture wound on his front leg that I cleaned out really well and treated topically but it swelled up and was hot so we started a round of penicillin. We've been cleaning and treating topically all week and it's drained and the swelling is done so he's on his way.

September 11th

I grew up about 15 miles outside of New York City with regular views of the New York skyline. The Twin Towers were constructed when I was a kid and, for me, they were always part of the skyline. The area was devastated by what happened since it was a suburb of New York and people commuted daily for their jobs. There was signs in the days that followed in every business and store in the area with "Have you seen me? Last seen at the Twin Towers". It was heartbreaking. My stepfather and brother-in-law were both police officers and brought supplies in.

T had just turned 5 and started kindergarten on September 11, 2001. I was at work when Craig called me to tell me that a plane had just crashed into one of the towers. He called again to let me know about the second plane. I immediately called my mom who still lived in the same town where I grew up. Work was buzzing with everything that was going on and one of the IT guys set up a TV in the conference room. We all watched in horror as the towers fell. No work got done that day and everyone just wanted to go home and be with their families. T asked me innocently that night "Mommy, that person flew that plane into the building by accident, right?" How do you tell a 5 year old that there are just some evil people in the world? I was honest with her and told her that there are just some not very nice people.

In this day and age of instant communication, sometimes words are just not needed. Budweiser ran this ad just once, not to sell product but in tribute to all those that lost their lives on September 11th (click to view).

Never forget...

Skywatch No. 61

Rain storms were just south of us yesterday morning so we had swirling clouds and some sun.

Check out skies from around the world at Skywatch.