wide open

Imagine our surprise when we pulled up to do evening chores tonight and found the pasture gates completely open, and no human in the area to be found. Whoever put the resident pony back in her paddock, left our horses completely unsecured :( not a pass-through gate, but two full panels left wide open...thank god our horses were safe at the other end of the pasture happily grazing!

To change the subject before I publicly say more than I should, Koda & Nemo have been good boys lately and responding well to their training. Nothing completely new added, we continue ground-work with variations. We get asked alot when they will be ready to ride, my answer remains the same - not yet. In our opinion, they are too young. They were born one day apart (awwwe) and turned two at the end of April, just because they look big doesn't mean they should be ridden. We are enjoying our time helping them mature, immensely. I realized I haven't taken any photos of them lately, enjoy a couple pics from tonight.

Koda getting his boots on

Nemo struttin' his stuff
Koda

Nemo

mixing it up

Koda & Nemo had a long break while we were on vacation, instead of throwing new things at them to learn we've spent the past two weeks refreshing - and mixing it up. I was happy to see they didn't forget much. The boys continue working on their cues - some days in the round pen, some in the pasture, with/without a saddle, etc. Brad mixed in wearing protective boots (wish I had those first funny high steps on film) and some desensitizing rope work. We were surprised they were both okay right away with a lasso swinging around/above them. I'm sure the boys aren't too disappointed that we've only managed to get one trailer loading session in recently, that still needs work - it would be dramatic if we had to trailer them anytime soon. We also continue to go on occasional walks, altho not as far - the corn is up and so are the bugs!

horses with wings

Horses with wings can fly, just take a look at our mare Harmony in this unedited photo:


This was our daughter Ali's last year in 4H, she went out with flying colors. 
 It was very hard to get a good picture with the lighting/movement combo in the arena - I got a lot of glowing eyes and/or artistic movement (aka blurry). Below is a short video clip of the drill team in mid-action, Harmony is the one with purple wings.

colorado pictures

Brad playing lumberjack in '09.

Riding through the aspens in '08.

View from the top in '07