more to do with horses

During August we have been having lots of fun with our horses!

These are some pictures of Blaze riding up at Vedauwoo, a forest recreation area near our house. This was her first official trail ride with us (other than just short rides around our house). She did wonderful! My mom went along with us, too, riding Rebel. Rebel is 27 years old now and he's starting to look his age, but he doesn't act his age at all! Mom was constantly having to slow him down and circle him around so the rest of us could catch up. Those two are real pair... Mom doesn't act her age, either (she is still riding horses, skiing, roller-blading,etc!)

Vedauwoo is one of my most favorite places to ride, with some cool shady aspen forests and lots of big open meadows for running. The fantastic rock formations make it very scenic.

Another favorite place to ride is on Mear's Morgans Ranch, along the Laramie River. We took our young horses, Jewel and Folly, here a few weekends ago to get them used to crossing water. While we were working with the horses, the twins and Dreamer had a blast playing in the river.

Here is B. on Folly, trying to get her to cross the river the first time, and Blaze trying to get her horse across the river for the first time. Both horses are doing the typical "dancing" at the edge of the water - not sure if they want to get their feet wet!

Finally B. switches to his regular horse, Ally, and leads Blaze across.

After a while, Blaze is able to get her horse to cross by herself. Though he is still looking a little uncertain, here.

Meanwhile I was working with my horse, Jewel. Once Jewel figured out that the water wasn't going to eat her alive, she started having fun with it. She started pawing at the water and even tried to lay down in it (with me still on her!)

After playing in the river for a while, we practiced jumping Jewel and Ally over some of the little log jumps down by the river. There are a lot of huge jumps, too - Mears Morgans hosts a the "Windy Wyoming Event" every year - but our young horses have a long way to go before we start tackling the whole jump course.

Another weekend we took Blaze to a horse show in Cheyenne. Here is Blaze and Dreamer with a miniature horse at the show.

Blaze rode Ally in two events, Western Pleasure for rookies (other kids just starting to show) and she got 2nd place, and Western Equitation, which she got first place! It started to rain and thunder like crazy soon after she finished, so I never did get a picture of her up on Ally with her ribbon.

My friend K.A., who used to live in Laramie but turned traitor and allowed her husband to move her down to Colorado Springs (grrrrr) was here a couple weekends ago and here is a picture of her and her son Daniel feeding Jewel (Jewel is always the first horse to the fence to see if anyone has goodies) and another horse that B. is training right now for extra money.

We're hoping to have a lot more fun with horses yet this fall. Blaze is 8 years old now so she can join the 4H club for horses. B. will probably go hunting again this fall and he usually takes the horses at least once or twice. And I hope to get a few more mountain trail rides in, during my favorite time when the aspen leaves are changing.

A quick add-on to do with writing progress. I seem to only be able to find time to write once a week, if that. However I did finally finish re-writing chapter 16 (though I'm not happy with it... sent it off to S.W. to see if she can help me with it at all) and got a good start on chapter 17. Now that the first week of school is behind us, hopefully I can get settled into the new schedule and start writing/editing more regularly.

Beth Moore's scripture memory challenge continues to be a blessing for me - I have all 22 verses of Psalm 34 memorized (now I just have to keep reviewing it). Here are the last few verses I worked on, in August:

Psalm 34:17-22

The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them

He delivers them from all their troubles.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted,

and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

A righteous man may have many troubles,

but the Lord delivers him from them all.

He protects his bones, not one of them will be broken

[a prophecy about Christ]

Evil will slay the wicked;

the foes of the righteous will be condemned.

The Lord redeems His servants -

no one who takes refuge in Him will be condemned.