Summer 2012 in Photos: 1

I am home, which means i'm back to a life with internet, which means - I'm back to blogging! I really wanted to recap my summer - my wonderful, amazing, beautiful summer, but i'm having a hard time finding the words, so instead I'm going to do a series of picture-posts, and hopefully at the end of it, the words will come.

So, completely at random, here we go...

1. Pony Boy comes Home

This is me, and my baby. Together again.

Well, after a long wait, (two weeks after my last post), Jingle finally came home. Two people I worked with went out to find him, they packed lunch and dinner, and said they weren't coming home until he was with them. Well guess what? The invasive, hard to find little bugger? He was standing at the gate, just waiting to come home. I rode in with a group, and saw that one of those people had already come home. I rushed into the yard, and she yelled out my name, and I turned and there he was, just waiting in the corral. I hopped the fence, and hugged my wild pony child. I cried, a lot. I couldn't take my eyes off of him - I still cant. I'm so blessed to have my horse home.

Anyways, this photo was a couple weeks after that. This was our first ride of this year, and here I am, telling my baby what a good, good boy he is.

2. The Big Palomino, Cash

As much as I love my wild child Jingle, I also found a partner in this big palomino - Cash. We bought him at a sale in the spring, and he proceeded to cut up his leg within a day. He seemed a little wily, but when I first rode him out I realized what a true pleasure he was to ride. Well broke, knew all his cues, and walked out so nice. So, I stole him, and rode him two times a day, all summer long. He was an amazing partner, and I am lucky to have had such a steady, wonderful horse to ride all summer.

3. The Far Lookout

This is Cash and I, surveying the mountains from the Far Lookout.

4. Big Sky Valley

One of my favorite things about the ranch is the sky... every day is a new, absolutely brilliant sky.

5. Under the Far Lookout

Where can you find views like that? Perfection.

6. Wheat at Grease Mountain

This was another favourite ride, called Grease Mountain. This photo is looking down on what we call, "the Kilometre long loping field".

7.  The Last Ride

This is a photo of myself, and two really good friends, again - at the Far Lookout. (I tell ya, it's my favourite ride for so many reasons) This is actually the very last ride we did with the kids, and it ended up being a bit of a gong show. Total heat wave, slow moving, and then a horse attempted to leave us - an hour away from the ranch. What can you do?! Such is life.

8. Nap-Time for Jingle

This is a photo I snapped of Jingle, who was napping away in his pen one morning, as I ran around like a mad lady fitting tack. I walked right up to him after this and cuddled with my boy in the grass. He was unimpressed, and told me to get lost so he could get back to napping.

9.  Counsellor Walk-Trot-Lope

Here I am - ahem - winning a game of walk-trot-lope. A good example of what a team Cash and I really were, what an awesome horse.

10. Grease Mountain

Here I am again, with that same friend as above, at Grease Mountain. Grease Mountain is definitely a photo-op ride. I have tons of photos of myself in this exact position, just replace the people. It's pretty picture-perfect.

11.  Buried Treasure

In one of the barns is a room that is completely stuffed full of old tack. One of the guys I worked with pulled this medieval bit out of the dust, and I was pretty intrigued by it. It turns out it's a very old work horse bit, when I was playing with it you could slide those two cheek-pieces right to the centre, which terrified me. However, the headstall goes in the rectangular slots, the reins in the tiny circle, and then the double mouth piece has sort of a smaller sliding action. Definitely not a bit I'd put in my horses mouth, ever, but it's a pretty interesting piece to find.

12. Tad for President

Finally, this is the resident grandfather, Tad, and the yearlings behind him. Tad is the horse you could put a 3 year old and not worry about for a second, in fact, we've done that - numerous times. Tad is the protector - whenever Moose would come out, looking like a massive white bear, you could see Tad running around, herding his yearlings away and alerting the herd to the fact I was hanging out with a bear... poor Moose. Anyways, I love Tad, he's one of my absolute most favourite horses in the entire world.

Until Next Time!