Saturday 26 September 2009

Michelle, Kendal and I went to our last show early this morning. We got lost and arrived 10 minutes before the first class which was also our first class!!!! Michelle threw her clothes on and I tried to patch BB up and we flew into the fray LOL.

Unfortunately she didnt fare too well in her first two classes but in her three with Kendal she had started to warm up and she brought home a first in Color, second in Youth Halter (10-13 yr old) and a 4th in Youth Showmanship which was combined with one entrant with an older division. This show let us see how far Kendal has come in confidence and even though there werent stacks of entrants, she did a great job, watch out for them in 2010 LOL!!

The first pic is one I took of her after I gave her a leg up onto BB after her classes holding her ribbons, blue for first and red foir second, and the fourth place is hiding behind, and the second pic is of BB when we put her out in the muddy field about an hour later and she got right down and rolled all that beautiful cleaning off that we had done LOL. I swear she was smiling at us, look at her mouth, she is grinning LOL (click on pics for larger version).

We are going to take Kendal for her first Trail Ride tomorrow and they are going to have a small contesting show at the club which we are hoping she will ride in, even if she only walks for the first time (barrel racing, poles etc.). I have a feeling she will enjoy it, I know if it wasnt limited to kids I would sure be in there too!!!

Hope you are all having a great weekend. (((Hugs)))

Lori
xx

Thursday 18 September 2008

Another quickie tonight (although I always seem to get long winded LOL). The picture today is from the campfire at the trail riding camp I went on over Labor Day weekend. They had this cauldron hanging over the fire filled with water and corn which was delicious!!! It was already getting quite dark but I loved the effect of the steam and the flames so snapped off a few frames.

My brother has had to go back to Johannesburg because of work commitments, but my Dad is safely installed in a nursing facility and I am going to be getting a daily update from my brother as he hears what is happening.

The move yesterday was traumatic for Dad and they have finally started giving him pain medication and tranquilisers. I am praying that it will be quick now, I watched my Mom go through months of extreme pain and I dont want him to have to endure the same. He is a little bit more aware of what is going on around him but as I have said before, it is just a waiting game and I hope that he goes as peacefully as possible. I just wish I could be there.

I have been in contact with my estranged daughter in England and we have made the first move towards what I am hoping can be a reconciliation between the two of us. At least she is talking to me!!!! We were brought up to be tough and to be survivors in Africa during the war times, had to face things that people here can't imagine at very young ages so I know she has been able to keep herself on top of things, she is tough. She is trying to get Emergency Travel Documents to go and see Dad but her passport is still with the Home Affairs in England for her Naturalisation application and we don't know if we will be able to get it back in time.

Annette it is great to see you posting, now we need you to start your own blog, recording your journey with Dreamer. I am so glad that you liked him so well, he couldnt have gone to a better home and I am looking forward to seeing the two of you competing next year, I think you may kick some butt LOL. He is going to be one of those horses that bulks up in his third or fourth year and then they become tanks and I am sure the supplements you are giving him will help him on his way. He is a lucky boy.

Gecko thanks for all your messages. There is no hope of a recovery for my Dad, he is too far along and the cancer has spread to his brain which is why he is having his lucid and comatose type states, with the pressure on his brain. It has been quite quick and as far as I know he has had no other problems until this hit last week. They are unsure where the cancer started but wherever it did it wasnt showing itself until it was this far along.

Lisa welcome back girl!!! Loved your photos, you have been a busy bee!!!!

Have a great Friday everyone, hopefully I will have more news tomorrow. I am planning on taking Cayenne trail riding on Saturday or Sunday but it will depend on what else transpires before then. ((((Hugs))))

Lori

xx

8 September 2008

I am getting further and further behind and if there is still anyone out there I will try to give a "brief" account of the happenings of the past two weeks, nearly 3 weeks.

I can't remember if I told you that I dropped my 80-200 2.8 canon lens (very expensive lens, enuff said!) For some reason that day I had put a clear filter on the front of the lens, which a lot of photographers do to protect the actual glass of the lens. If I hadn't had that on I would have smashed the actual lens as it landed on the rim of the lens and is a pretty heavy little baby. The filter smashed and bent the outside edge badly. We managed to get the filter off eventually and thank heavens the lens itself seems to be unaffected. I was mortified.

I have been busy getting my print orders up to date and getting stock submitted and preparing a portfolio and bio for a new website which I am going to be a part of. It is a lot of work but I have a good feeling that this will really be a good move for me and I am getting fantastic support and motivation from the people involved. More later on that when it is all official.

My health has been suffering (stress and depression) really badly as well and I got to the stage of self destruct just before last weekend, which was labor day weekend. I decided to take me and my van and an air matress and camera and computer and go trail riding for three days with friends. This is the first time that I have really ever taken time for myself in a long time and I enjoyed it tremendously. I rode every day, and actually rode one of the fillies that I bred. We had long rides, 5 to 6 hours at a time.

There are natural corrals in the forest made out of smaller trees that have fallen (they are very big into preserving the natural habitat in the forest, keeping to the trails and leaving any downed trees where they fall, if they are too high to step over they will just cut a section out of the tree which crosses the trail and leave it where it lays) so we had a few places in the forest where there are natural springs and shade etc. to rest the horses while we all just relax and chat.

Unfortunately the time off came with the price of having to catch up again when I got home. As it was a holiday weekend I couldnt take any of my own horses to the camp as it is a club and they limit the horses and rigs to members only at those times. It was packed to capacity needless to say. It was nice to see so many families out having a good time with their horses, which were in great condition (with one or two exceptions of course). We were camped right next to a large Amish group who had two trailers and 12 horses between them, and I was really impressed with their work ethic and how meticulous they were with their care of their animals and their camp. I was quite sad to leave on Monday evening. I took some pics while I was there but still havent edited many of them.

Since then it has been as hot as Hades, and on Tuesday morning I got a call from the lady who owns the pasture down the road where our 4 mares are. They have a 4 rail vinyl fence around the field but they are right on a very busy state road. We have had no rain for weeks and everything is turning brown and there is very little for them to eat in the pasture so they have been trying to get to the green grass on the other side of the fence. Of course they are big creatures and once they push hard enough the bar will bend enough to pop it out. They had two of the panels out already.

I couldnt take a chance of them doing it again, because once they have done it once they will certainly do it again and I dont want horses on a busy road to deal with so I had to arrange for poor Stan to haul his trailer over and help me load them up and bring them home. I was hoping to be able to leave them there until at least November, I had been subsidising with a bit of hay. We had 2 tenths of an inch of rain day before yesterday and that is all we got from the first hurricane, dont know if the others will push some rain up our way but we need it desperately.

We were going to try to take our blue roan mare BB to an open show on Sunday but I have never fitted a horse for Halter and just didnt get finished, we left everything til the last minute of course. I still have to finish trimming and braiding her mane, clipping the inside of one ear and a bit on her legs too and then give her a bath. We will definitely be taking her to the show next weekend though. She had shoes put on early Sunday morning so at least that is done.

I set up my bird feeder with the help of Larry and the young man who is helping us out with the chores that I just cant and dont want to do. I have hung all sorts of feeders on it as it has 5 hooks on it and they have started using it yesterday. I have a woodpecker, a golden Finch or two and some others I dont know what they are, some are losing their colored feathers in preparation for winter already. I had it set up as close to the bathroom window as I could but very high and out of the cat's reach but it gives me a perfect position to shoot from the bathroom. Today's photos are a few from this venture. I will post more daily even if I dont type anything I will try to post a picture at least.

((((Hugs)))))) to you all, if you are still coming to visit you need a medal LOL.

Lori

xx

Saturday 19 July 2008

Very hot and very humid again today. I got my van back with it's new tow hitch but forgot that there is wiring involved so the lights on the trailer work!!! So I guess I wont be taking Cayenne to the trails tomorrow after all. We had a small thunderstorm this afternoon which just made everything more muggy but we have had none for a while now so the grass welcomed it I am sure.

This is a portrait of one of the three fillies we have down the road. They are a bit sunburned on their muzzles but eating like little pigs and getting fatter each day. This is Dee the prettiest of the three.
More squirrels, this is the little guy who came in really close but he didnt stick around long before running for the cover of the tree trunk.


I didn't get any riding done again today but did manage to get rid of the broken washing machine that we had to replace recently at the metal scrap yard. I was lucky enough to be about number 20 in the line and of cuorse sat in the sun in my little unairconditioned truck, which provided me with the perfect place for a sauna LOL!!!!!

Well nothing exciting to report for the day. I wish spring and fall were longer with their tolerable temperatures but that is Indiana for you.

Hope you are all having a great weekend. ((((Hugs)))))

Lori
xx

Still Struggling

I was horrified to see that it has been 10 days since I last posted, actually Lisa pointed that out to me and I decide that I just have to make a concerted effort to get back on track with my daily bloggging, I met so many wonderful people in cyberspace through my blog and I am hoping to resurect that comeraderie again.

I finally took a two day trip to the camp site where Stan and Val trail ride every weekend on Monday and Tuesday. For those of you who dont know they have three horses that we have bred and one other gelding so their horses are very special to me. I got to ride two of them and Eb is well on his way to being an awesome trail horse but is only taking short excursions with Stan until he is more seasoned. They decided to spend the week between last weekend and this weekend there at the camp too so it made it possible for me to stay overnight. It was a lot of fun, I rediscovered muscles I forgot I had LOL.

This is a fungus/lichen growing on one of the dead tree limbs on the trail.

Here is Eb standing on the tie line patiently waiting to have his turn on the trails.

This orange mushroom was incredible and is one of the things I wish I could have stopped and dismounted to shoot but we were quite a large group and it would have held everyone up.
This was shot while I was on the horse and he wasnt wanting to stand still so is not really good but fantastic opportunity to see this snake sunning itself on the rock in the river!

I am definitely going to have to set up a kit that I can carry on horseback and go out with just one other person into the woods so that I can stop and mount and dismount when I want to photograph something. I saw so many awesome textures, streams, fungii, a snake sunning on a rock, salamanders, moss and lichens and it was just too cumbersome to carry my camera and small lens let alone all the other lenses which I would have needed t capture some of the shots.

Today's pictures were some of the ones I shot on the one and only ride that I took the camera on. I decided to enjoy the rest of the riding without having to worry about the camera.

I have also been shooting my hummingbirds and hopefully getting better but they sure are hard to shoot.

One positive thing is that I have been using my camera more and am starting to get that passion back again. I feel so relaxed and happy when I have my camera in my hand and stroll around to see what I can find, and it is amazing what you can find if you really look.

Hope you all had a great 4th July (USA) and have a wonderful weekend. ((((((Hugs))))))

Lori
xx