Thanksgiving

My mother-in-law is here and Thanksgiving Day was busy with lots of things, but I managed to squeeze in the one thing I really wanted to do yesterday - ride my horse. Russell and I had a great jaunt around the "neighborhood," and said hi to the thoroughbreds down the road. They've never come up to the fence before; isn't the young chestnut's head beautiful? And when they decided to turn tail and thunder back to the safety of their stable, Russell probably looked pretty impressive himself. He got on the muscle and contemplated trying some airs above the ground, but stuck to some fancy prancing down the road.

Today it is "blowing spit in the wind" (Oregonians will know what I mean), so I am doubly thankful for the chance to ride yesterday!

Wet feet

I was determined to ride today because the rest of the week is supposed to be really wet. Today was just "off and on" wet. But wouldn't you know that the one window of time I had was during one of the wet periods? But I played along, grooming and saddling Russell in his stall while the rain rattled down on the corrugated roofing then going up to the house to check on Brian's school project. After half an hour, another break in the rain rolled over the coast range and I got in a short schooling session in the arena. I try not to ride in there when it's this wet, but with Brian home I didn't have the option of riding up and down the road. The sand cleaned up Russell's hooves nicely, at any rate. He's been stocking up in his back legs every day, so working the edema out is an added motivation to get regular rides in. That, and being ready for another clinic around Christmas!

This week

On Monday I gave friend Debbie a dressage lesson. She lives just up the road from the barn and arena where she keeps her horse, so her husband brought over their newest furbaby to visit while I was there. Murphy is a Cairn Terrier, and about as cute as they come!

This handsome boy belongs to the barn owner. I couldn't resist this photo op, and would find it hard to resist the horse himself if he was available and I had room in my barn. Debbie says he's a nice mover to boot, even though he's a halter-bred Quarter horse.

Yesterday afternoon I got an unexpected chance to ride, in unexpectedly nice weather. (I knew today was supposed to be nice, but also knew that getting a ride in today would be impossible.) I took the photo below at the north end of our road (it dead-ends at both ends, intersecting a paved road in the middle).

On the horizon I could see Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams and Mt. Hood. My new camera has more zoom power than my previous point-and-shoot digitals, so I decided to see how well I could capture one of them.
Mt. St. Helens: the volcano who blew her top the day I graduated from high school!

Russell seemed to enjoy the weather as much as I did. We won't have many more days like this!

Morning turnout

A very wet storm is blowing in today. The rain hasn't started and I would have loved to have gotten in a ride while I had the chance, but didn't have time. But I did turn Russell out to blow off steam, and snapped some shots of the action. They are over on my Boulderneigh blog.