the things you get to see

We took advantage of the awesome Fall Halloween weather we had today, and spent the majority of it cleaning up the small woods in the pasture. The recent heavy winds made a mess out of it, cracking a few trees in half...

...and scattering dead/weak branches of various sizes everywhere.

The good news is we had plenty of help...

(L-R) Nemo, Brad, the boy who doesn't like horses, Harmony and Koda.
I started out cleaning up the back pasture, which wasn't nearly as bad.

...even the filly. We would gather wood from right underneath her, she didn't care. She followed us all around, hoping to collect more hugs. And when she wasn't doing that, she was exploring...

All this picking up commotion was exhausting, just ask Nemo. The horses decided to watch from a distance. The bobcat zoomed back-n-forth, chainsaw was buzzing, large tree branches were being dropped - nothing fazed them. Infact they all fell asleep, except for the filly. I was on gate duty while the big branches were being hauled, the bucket got filled too fast to walk back-n-forth. Worked for me, I got to play with my point-in-shoot which is coming in very handy.

Harmony & Nemo

Harmony thought Nemo had a pretty good idea, and joined him to rest on the ground. The filly had other ideas, she thought Harmony should stay awake and give her attention.

Brad rescueing Harmony from the filly.

She had a few secrets to tell Brad...it cracked us up.

The things you get to see when you spend time just hanging out with your horses, are priceless. Here is by far my favorite moment, and picture of the day. Brad and I watched Harmony's head go from resting on the ground (pictured) to slowly bobbing down almost to the ground, before someone woke her up. Gee, I wonder who that was? She was so sound asleep. Such a sweet mare.

Harmony in deep slumber.

We went back to work to finish cleaning up the woods, until the next windy storm. One of our daughter's came down to help for a while, the extra hands made things go faster. Wouldn't be so bad if it was our wood, but it's not. Extended family reaps the benefit of the cut wood, but we gain our horses safety - and active family time spent together. Between loads I snapped a few more pics...

Nemo & Filly hanging out together.

...wasn't long before Koda joined us in the woods again. Only a couple more loads left...

Koda

...and we're done! We took care of a few more things down at the farm, and headed home for a short break...

Koda and Nemo, buddies since birth.

...and then...we hit the trail for a well earned Halloween ride! We headed south toward the old windmill, only to find a huge tree had fallen and was blocking the trail - bummer! Luckly the corn had been taken down in the surrounding field. We rode in an area I've never seen, it is really secluded and vast. I couldn't believe how quiet and peaceful it was! I hope we get to explore more of that area again, before the snow flies.

There was eventually a clearing to the other end of the path. We hopped off and led our horses up over a rock pile, through a branchy area, onto the path and out into the open. We rode on for a while, noticing how Fall had changed the area. Now that most trees have dropped their leaves, you can see past them. Eventually we headed back home. What a great way to spend Halloween!

Enjoying the view of the lake, on our way back home.