Blankets in July?

No, we're definitely not wearing blankets in July. But that doesn't mean I'm not having to deal with them! On Friday we gathered all of the blankets from the various places they are kept around the farm and got them all into the barn. It is time to get all of the blankets in for cleaning and repair as I have procrastinated on this task for far too long. I know what a huge pain it is to do this and am not above admitting that I've just plain avoided it for the last couple of months.

Starting to pile them all in the barn; we were just getting started here

Amy using a sharpie to re-label this blanket

So we hauled blanket loads to the barn, knocked the dust off of them, and then re-labeled all of them with the horse's names. Because I have so many blankets (approaching 100) to get to the lady who does the cleaning and repairs for me they have to all be neatly folded as well. There is no way I could take them to her all in one trip if I tried to just stuff them unfolded in the back of the truck. It takes awhile to neatly fold that many blankets! Then we put them in stacks of 2-4 blankets each and tie them with baling twine. Then we had to pack all of the bundles into the back of the truck. It seems like it wouldn't be a big deal but this is a HUGE task!

Folded and tied into bundles with twine

And finally stuffed into the back of the truck

It was a relief to finally drop all of these dirty blankets off this weekend. At least I am no longer looking at all of these blankets hanging everywhere and acting as a reminder to me that I will have to tackle this task. Aside from the gargantuan blanket job we were just business as usual this weekend. We did get a good bit of rain this afternoon and I could see that most of the horses had taken advantage of it and rolled in the mud around the gates. We definitely needed the rain so I didn't mind the muddy horses!

Clay and Slinky

Levendi

Homer and Leo

Trigger and Dustin were nuzzling each other

Norman completely ignoring his audience behind him

Harmony and Cuff Links

Baby entertaining himself while waiting for his turn with the farrier

Happy grazers

Teddy

Cuff Links and Missy

Winston and Trillion

Faune and Sebastian

Friday Pictures

Ivan and Apollo are best friends

Norman recuperating from a tough day of grazing; the only way I can get a picture of him doing anything other than grazing is to take him away from the grass!

Sebastian, Winston and Trillion

For all of Cuff Links' many fans here are several pictures. First, getting a bath.
And getting up from the requisite roll after the bath; good thing we really tortured him and made him stay in until he was dry.

He knows he is cute

Now on to another gray horse. Lily checking out her new pasture. First she trotted.

Then she picked up the pace

And then she stopped to eat (always a priority activity around here!)

Lily with Missy

Bella kept a close eye on things while Lily explored the pasture

We've had a busy week so far this week. Gwen, the amazing farrier, was here Monday and will be back again tomorrow. We have an extra day scheduled this week to make up for the day we missed when Jason and I were away. I was sitting in the house in an almost comatose state Monday evening wondering why I was so tired. Then I remembered that I had hauled horses to the barn and then back to the fields from all over 140 acres throughout the day to have their feet trimmed. In addition Amy and I bathed and did manes on nine horses on Monday. And of course that was on top of the usual feeding everyone morning and evening, stall cleaning, water troughs, etc. No wonder I was so tired!

The pony wars have taken some more turns lately. In a change that really surprised me Buffy took over MyLight (who of course is not a pony). Buffy has claimed Missy the pony as her very own for months, so I was quite shocked to see that she had reassigned herself to being in charge of MyLight's life (and I do mean every moment of her life!). MyLight doesn't have the option of claiming Cuff Links as her pony any more due to that change, so Harmony has now taken over both ponies (Cuffie and Missy). I don't know what brought this about as I didn't see the big shift actually happen.

To throw another curve ball into things Lily was integrated into their group Friday and Saturday and has been with them since Saturday afternoon. She has shown a lot of interest in the ponies (especially Cuffie) and MyLight. Harmony has firmly kept the ponies off limits to everyone else so she has to sneak over to them. Cuffie actually seems pretty keen on quality time with Lily so they kind of sneak towards each other. MyLight seems equally interested in Lily so whenever they can escape Buffy's notice I see Lily and MyLight together. I have to say these mares and their ponies could be their own evening soap opera, like a Melrose Place or something.

Well, I'm off to get my farrier list together and then time for bed!

I haven't posted any pictures of Cloudy in awhile. Cloudy is the world's greatest barn cat.

Jason replaced our flags last week. Of course we fly both the U.S. and the Canadian flag.

Homer went for a swim in the pond and then he rolled. The effect is just . . . lovely. If you will recall Ivan is WHITE!!

Leo checking Ivan out with his new look

This picture of Trillion was too cute and had to be posted.

Faune and Trillion were buddied up to each other. They are great friends now but they used to be frenemies.

Buffy napping with MyLight grazing next to her

Trigger and Chance; they have 40 acres of beautiful grass in their pasture and they stand here picking at the scrub around the gate.

Baby

My Brilliant Discovery

First of all, thanks to everyone for the kind comments about my blog last week. I've not done such a great job with it lately and you do have to wonder why anyone would find a blog about retired horses (i.e. horses that don't really do anything) terribly interesting. So thank you very much for letting me know that some people do actually look at this thing! Now on to my discovery . . .

I really love taking care of the horses and spending my days with them. By the end of blanketing season I will admit I am sick of taking them on and off but I don't even really mind that. I enjoy being outside in the changing seasons. Sometimes I don't even mind getting rained on. One of the things I truly dread has always been paste worming the entire farm.

All of the residents are wonderful horses and pleasant to work around, but when it comes time to stick a tube of wormer down their mouths, well, that is when you are introduced to their dark side! Most of the horses are actually quite good about it. However, since most of them live out 24/7 once you've de-wormed one horse in the group the rest know it is coming. I wouldn't stick around for that and the horses feel the same way! We jokingly have what we call our "runners," the ones that know it is coming and exit the building. We always try to get the worst runners first but they can't all be first. So on top of dragging around a mountain of halters and a zillion tubes of paste wormer, there you are chasing down the runners and convincing them that the horse cookie is totally worth having the halter put on and the dreaded tube inserted in their mouth.

Apparently I was the last person on earth to come to this brilliant discovery, but I've found a much easier approach to paste worming. I just empty the tubes into their feed and let them eat it. Wow, no dragging out the mountain of halters, no chasing the runners, the people administering the wormer aren't covered in sticky worming paste, none of it is spit out, no waste . . . I could go on forever about how much this discovery improved my life! If I only had a few horses to administer wormer to then it wouldn't really have been a life changing discovery, but we've got well over thirty horses here. On top of that a lot of them are big horses and one tube of wormer isn't enough for many of them, many get a tube and a half. You can catch them off guard with the first tube but they know the second one is coming, and of course the taller they are the more likely it is that they will put their head up in the air!

Last week was my second time administering the paste wormer in the feed. Every single horse ate it, every bite licked up. I have a bit of an advantage since I feed with feedbags. Also, we soak everyone's feed as well, so they are used to eating wet feed, and as you know it is easier to mix stuff up when it is wet. With the feedbags they can't spit it out, fling it out, drop feed or otherwise get rid of any unwanted addition to their food, they just have to eat it. A few of them eat slower than usual and try to find a way to avoid eating it, but even these horses still finished every bite. With the ones that I know are super fussy about unknown substances in their food, I sprinkled a bit of dried molasses onto the wormer paste and then thoroughly mixed the wormer/molasses paste with their feed. I guess you could say I sweetened the deal!

Anyway, I thought I would pass my discovery along in case there is anyone else out there that hadn't tried it yet. When I've mentioned my exciting news to my horse friends most of them had already tried this. Well, I may be slow but I'm hell once I catch on. At least I think that is how that saying goes!

On a completely unrelated subject Jason cooked dinner Friday night and Sunday night. In a rare occurrence I am rendered truly speechless with nothing to say. I don't have a clue what brought this on and I don't want to ruin it. Oh wait, I do have something to say. It was actually good! The smoke alarm only went off one time. Friday night we had salmon and Sunday we had pork tenderloin. Wow. Huh. Wonders never cease.

Chance

Geese flying over the farm
The baby ducks are growing up!

Cuff Links

Buffy and MyLight

Asterik

Ivan

L-R in the back Dustin, Tony, Baby; up front Levendi and Homer

Trigger

Tony and Baby

Elfin demonstrates a perfect afternoon. After taking a refreshing dip in the pond enjoy a nice roll.

And of course he has to do his famous dogwalk to roll on the other side; sorry about the tree branch in the way.

I took this directly into the sun (you probably had already guessed that from the lousy picture quality). Winston, Faune and Ogie in the front with Sebastian and Trillion in the back.

Asterik getting a bath and not looking to happy about it. I rarely remember to take any pictures of horses being groomed because I'm usually busy grooming one myself.

Lily and Norman

Jason and I were blessed to welcome two amazing new additions to our family this week. Lily and Norman made the trek from Northern Illinois early this week. Sometimes life seems to work itself out and the presence of Lily and Norman on our farm are a perfect example of this.

Lily checking out her new surroundings

I don't think Norman knows where he is yet, he has yet to lift his head

We maintain an active waiting list for Paradigm Farms. I try to go in order as best as I can when accommodating new horses, but this isn't always the way things work out. Herd dynamics are extremely important on our farm since most of the horses live outside in groups 24/7. Thus, when we have an opening I cannot necessarily go straight to the next horse on the list. I have to go to the next horse on the list that is the most likely to be a good fit with the pasture that has an opening.

Lily's reaction to the goats

Even with a chicken standing under him Norman didn't lift his head

As you all know, I really struggled with Poco's passing a few months ago. I had been talking with Kate, who owns Lily and Norman, about the possibility of them retiring with us. My problem was a lack of space. I knew I would have one gelding leaving as he was here strictly for rehab purposes. (By the way we don't typically do that but his mom has another horse retired with us, we really like her, and we were able to make it work at the time although we could not right now.) This was going to allow me to make a couple of minor herd changes and free up some space in one of my pastures that houses mares and ponies. However I had already made a commitment to MyLight (whom everyone loves!) so one of those spaces was gone.

I need to get a good picture of Lily's hind end; it is all power. Look at how far she naturally steps under herself here, and this was a half-hearted canter.

I made Jason pose with Norman so I could get a picture that didn't involve his head on the ground. Kate, check out his mane - Amy tackled it yesterday!

When Poco passed away that certainly left a hole in our hearts as well as a space in a pasture for a pony. To be honest at first I couldn't really think about it. Norman and Poco are so similar, they are both pinto ponies with larger than life personalities. As the saying goes time does heal everything, and after a few weeks I was really in love with the idea of having another pinto pony on the farm.

Lily does what I call her "morning runabout' when she goes out in the mornings. It only lasts a minute but I like to watch her.

Who wouldn't want to hug this? Norman has to stand really tall to get his head over the stall door but he gets the job done.

I am so glad that I called Kate and asked if she was still interested in sending Lily and Norman, we need both of them! I am hoping (and expecting from what Kate has told me) that Lily will take over the alpha role in her group. Buffy and Harmony currently rotate between themselves in that position. I get the sense that either of them would be happy to have a true leader come along and relieve them both of that burden! The fact that Lily is a beautiful mare with a great personality on the ground is an added bonus. And of course our world is now right again with another feisty, pinto who is 100% pony residing on the farm. Norman is just too cute with his champagne and white pinto markings, and he has that plucky pony personality which I happen to adore. Unlike Poco he also has wonderful ground manners - bonus! I know my vets and my farrier will be quite pleased by this improvement!

Lily is a Quarter Horse/Oldenburg cross who was ridden and shown by Kate's older daughter. Originally bought to be a hunter, apparently Lily made it known quickly that she did love to jump, but liked to do it big and with speed. I must say that Lily has an awesome hind on her that certainly shows why she was such a powerful jumper. Unfortunately Lily developed heaves a few years ago which is a progressive respiratory disease, and the strenuous exercise that would be required of a jumper wasn't possible anymore. Such a shame as Lily was and is perfectly sound. Some horses would be content to step down to teaching light duty lessons, trail riding, or some similar type of activity, but Lily's keen personality under tack didn't make her a good candidate for these things. As with many of the horses retired here their strengths as competitors work against them in other situations. Kate writes her own wonderful blog called A Year With Horses, and she does a much better job of telling Lily's story in this post.

Lily has her knees literally to her chin in both of these pictures. I like the expression of horse and rider in both pictures, calm determination.

Norman has been in their family since 1998. Norman was purchased for Kate's younger daughter and she started showing him when she was seven years old and continued to ride and show him until she turned twelve, at which point she had physically outgrown him. Norman is only 12.2 hands which makes him a medium pony, but a very small medium pony. Although Norman has some arthritis in his hocks now I've still managed to see what a fancy mover he is, and the pictures certainly show that he had great form over the jumps! Norman carried his rider to a lot of wins including three year end championships in their final year of showing together.

I have managed to get on Norman's nerves as his first day here I kept hugging him because I just couldn't resist. Norman kept letting me know he didn't care for all of this hugging by nipping at me and I finally got the message and have ceased with the hugs! Norman has certainly channeled the same spirit that Cuffie has as he never lifts his head from the grass during his multiple, short grazing periods each day. Again, Kate tells Norman's story much more eloquently than I do in this blog post.

Even though he is just cantering over this little jump from a long spot he still has even knees while he takes care of his young rider.

Norman shows excellent form over this jump - pony and rider are so CUTE!

Welcome to the family Lily and Norman!

Wednesday Pictures

As seems to be my theme in the last few weeks this will be a quick post as I am again short on time! First I want to thank Luanne for the blog award - it is always nice to know that someone aside from myself and Jason finds this blog of interest. Part of paying it forward isn't just passing the award along to other blogs but also listing ten things about yourself that others don't know about you. Luanne's were very interesting as were the ones that Kate wrote on her blog. You are both really interesting people! I'm kind of a boring person really but in one of my next posts I'll try to come up with ten things about myself that aren't common knowledge. Hmmmm, this could be tough . . .

It has been an excellent week so far with some great things to blog about. I just need to sit my butt down at my desk long enough to write a half decent blog post. That seems to be a tall order for me these days. Is anybody still bothering to read this lately?? I think that is one of those don't ask the question if you don't want to know the answer type deals (my finger is hovering over the backspace button).

On to some pictures:

Winston and Ogie

Faune

Trillion
O'Reilly and Bridget grazing with the chickens

O'Reilly decided to check out the Don

Winston, Faune and Sebastian grazing under the trees

Teddy

Clay with Slinky in the background

Lucky and Chili

Goats and Horses

This post started with horse pictures but ended up with a lot of fainting goat pictures. You have to admit, they are extremely cute! Most of these pictures were taken last week. I've gotten behind on getting my pictures posted again despite the fact that I finally ended up skipping a few months completely! We are seasonably dry right now and the grass has started to reflect that in the last few days. It still looks fresh and growing in these pictures but is definitely looking dry in certain areas of the farm right now. This is typical for us in the summer.

We have a busy day tomorrow with a lot going on so I'm going to finish this post basically as soon as I started it!

Lightening

Lucky
Teddy

Chili

Trillion

Winston

Bubba staring me down while I prepared feed one morning (as usual I feel the need to point out that I had nothing to do with naming him)

Harmony and MyLight

Mina resting

Jason and Mina

Jason playing with Jo on the teeter totter

Jo sticking her tongue out

Jo looking a bit more dignified

Jason holding Jo

Two fainting goats and a rooster

Jo giving kisses to Jason

Mina and a rooster

Quick Post

I'm running short on time this evening and I've yet to make out my farrier list for tomorrow so this will be a quick post. It has been one of those typical weeks where you feel like you are trying to cram two weeks into one after you've been away. I don't actually mind that as I like to be busy (Jason says I have an "active mind"), but I have enough going on in a normal week so I'm not usually looking for something to do!

Jason and I just finished doing a quick cleaning of the house as we have a house guest coming tomorrow afternoon. I kept reminding Jason today about cleaning the house and he always acted like I was making a mountain out of a molehill. So when he finally agreed it was time to clean he says "all we need to do is vacuum." Ummmmm, not quite Jason. The counter tops are so covered up in your junk you can't even see them so we need to pick it all up and put it away. The bathroom needs to be cleaned. We need to dust and clean all of the furniture. Then we need to vacuum, and follow that up with the mop.

Jason's response: "Why do you make this so complicated?" Argh! I wanted to say something really snarky in response but I (mostly) refrained. You see, I am the neat freak and Jason is the ultimate slob. I like to joke that he has broken me, as it was giving me nervous breakdowns trying to keep the house to my standards when we were first married.

Enough about us and our housekeeping and back to horses. Not a lot to report which is always nice. Knocking on every piece of wood in sight, everyone is happy and healthy. The pony wars have continued although they've calmed down a bunch. Cuff Links continues to be the coveted pony as he is shuffled back and forth between MyLight and Harmony. However I have noticed this week that they actually seem content to share him for the most part. Cuffie often finds himself as the middle part of a sandwich between the two mares. I'm not sure that he would necessarily choose that position but he seems to roll with it.

Bonnie and Lexi continue to play so enthusiastically with their water trough that they tip it over at least three times a day. I've tried tying it to the fence, propping the trough up high on wood blocks to make it harder for them to get their feet in, putting floating objects in the water to try and divert them, one afternoon a couple of years ago I sat there with a longe whip and would snap it at them if they did anything other than drink water (what a total waste of my time as they just thought that was a game too), and other things that I'm forgetting. Did I mention that the cute factor of the water trough games wore off a LONG time ago?

I watched Apollo and Ivan playing in the pond this afternoon. Apollo is 18.1 hands so when he slaps the water with his front legs it really makes a splash! His buddy Ivan thinks that is fantastic and slaps the water back at him enthusiastically. The other boys were starting to wander over to join in the water games but unfortunately I had to get back to work scrubbing water troughs so I am sure I missed a lot of the fun.

Off to make my farrier list for tomorrow . . .


Missy, Buffy, MyLight and Harmony (Cuffie was to the side and I couldn't fit him in the picture)

Sebastian in the back, Trillion, Winston, Faune, Ogie and Asterik in the front
Snappy; I need to write a post about him one day. He has competed around the world and been ridden by some very big time riders.

Slinky and Clay

My three girls; Lexi, Bonnie (the water trough destroyers) and Bridget

Lightening; our representative of the Arabian breed

When I took this picture a couple of days ago I remember thinking it would be really cute, Ivan and Apollo contentedly strolling through the pasture together. Instead I cut their legs off and mostly got a picture of the trees. Something clearly went wrong.

Teddy

Asterik and Winston

Apple; named by one of the Amy's because of the Mac symbol on her forehead. This picture didn't capture it very well.

O'Reilly

Summer Days

Summer has arrived and we've been hot and humid this week. In addition to scrubbing and filling water troughs the afternoon ritual now includes water games with the horses. Some of the horses love to be sprayed down with the hose while others seem to take offense to it. Some of them, when I am trying to spray them along their bodies keep re-positioning themselves so the spray will go right in there faces. They will even open their mouths to catch some of the water. I see a lot of the horses hanging out under the trees napping in the afternoons. What I never understand is when I see them standing out in the sun baking themselves, and if they just moved about twenty feet they would be in the shade.

For the most part the horses ignore their nice, big run-in sheds in favor of the trees and wooded areas. However if you are going to see the horses using their sheds this is the time of the year to see it. They don't use their shelters at the same time we would. We would run to the shelter in rain, thunderstorms, cold weather and wind. The only time I see the shelters in anything halfway resembling regular use is in the summer for shade. For the most part though they do tend to prefer the woods over the shelters for shade.

In the colder months I spend a lot of time blanketing and unblanketing the horses. In the warmer months the water troughs need constant attention. The troughs are filled twice a day to make sure the water stays fresh and cool. The troughs are dumped and scrubbed almost every afternoon to keep the gunk out of them.

On another note I can't believe how out of shape I feel after 10 days of being away and not working around the farm! I rode my two girls yesterday, although very lightly, and was going to ride again today. I decided not to after seeing how I felt when I got up this morning! I didn't want to over do things with them and make them sore as well. Isn't it funny how considerate we are to our horses but not to ourselves?

Asterik is one that doesn't like playing water games. Ogie is waiting behind him though and he moves himself around to make sure I get him everywhere.

Traveller loves playing water games and he prefers to have the spray going right at his face while he holds his mouth open

Of course he has to repay my kindness by immediately rolling in the dirt and turning into a brownish gray horse when we're done

Bonnie and Lexi looooove water games. They will spend hours playing in the water trough, putting their front hooves in it, and tipping it over. The cuteness factor of this wore off a long time ago. I have given up hope that they will ever leave the water trough alone. I am sick of constantly having to turn their trough right side up, scrub the dirt out from their hooves, and then re-fill it. During the summer this usually has to be done about three times a day. If anyone has any suggestions on how to stop this I am all ears. I've tried several things to no avail.

The sparrows hatched while we were away

Annie says "where's the beef?" She can joke about that since she is one of our pet cows and has lived here for several years (she was born on the farm)

Buster napping in the shade

Lexi

L-R Asterik, Faune (in the back), Sebastian, Ogie

Elfin was napping and letting the fence hold his head up; mostly what I see when I look at this picture is his mane. I think that it seems like I just pulled his mane a couple of weeks ago and it is already in dire need of being done again.

Bear playing in a puddle after a rainshower. I took this before we left for the beach. I think that was the last time it rained. We tend to get dry in the summer.

MyLight

The Don in mid crow

We're Back!

We returned to the farm this afternoon after a relaxing trip to the beach. Jason and I had a long weekend at the beach over Easter weekend. As I mentioned in my post after we returned from that trip, we can go to the beach any time we want to. My parents have a beautiful beach home and it sits there waiting for either my parents or my sister and I to arrive and have fun. My sister and her family go so often she keeps a key on her key ring. Until our Easter trip Jason and I had not been since 2006. We are trying to not let that happen again. We have wonderful help on the farm and life is too short to spend it working all the time, no matter how much you truly love what you do every day!

I want to publicly thank the Amy's for making sure everything at the farm ran smoothly while we were away. It was like we were never gone, and you just can't complain about that!

Jason and I didn't really do much while we were away. We are both avid readers so we laid on the beach or by the pool and read a lot of books. I love to read and don't have as much reading time as I would like day to day. My beach reading consisted of:

Freedom In Exile: This is the autobiography of the Dalai Lama. Although it was written several years ago it was still interesting to read and to help me understand more about the situation with Tibet and the politics in that part of the world. I also know very little about Buddhism so I learned about that as well. I really enjoyed this book.

Twilight Series: The vampire series by Stephenie Meyer consisting of Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn. I felt like I was one of the only people that hadn't read these books. Although the target audience of the books was originally teenagers they've been best sellers across many age categories and the series is now being made into movies. The first book in the series, Twilight, was a good beach read but I felt each book went progressively downhill. By the fourth book I wasn't interested but I already had the books and I read fast so I kept going and read them all. Did I like the books enough to watch the movies? I'll probably watch the Twilight movie (from the first book) as that one was the best read. It will be a long time before I see it though. Jason and I rarely go to a movie and our TV tends to sit in silence!

Iacocca: This was the autobiography written by Lee Iacocca about his career in the auto industry, first working his way up to the President of Ford Motor Company and then his spectacular turnaround of Chrysler after that. Again this book was written 20 years ago but I enjoy business books a lot (I did own a successful recruiting company at one point!) and had always meant to read this one. I wasn't old enough to have a clue who Lee Iacocca was when he was turning around Chrysler. I think I was maybe five years old? I really enjoyed this book and reading about his perspective on Chrysler being bailed out 20+ years ago. I have been against all of these bailouts in recent months and the out of control spending spree our government is currently on, but Chrysler paid back all of the government money they received under Iacocca, and in fact paid it back seven years early. It will be interesting to see how the banks and auto companies handle the money this time around. The Chrysler bailout under Iacocca was pennies compared to the money being handed out today. The total then was "only" a billion dollars to Chrysler.

Audition: This is the autobiography by Barbara Walters. A great read by someone who has led a fascinating and very interesting life. I really enjoyed this book. I only made it through seven books - that is pretty light duty for me given that I had a week of nothing else to do!

In addition to reading Jason and I ate a lot of fresh seafood, did some swimming, and played paddle ball on the beach. Neither of us are naturally gifted paddle ball players, so if it ever becomes an Olympic sport like beach volleyball the U.S. Olympic Committee won't be looking us up. The longest volley we had was only 34 hits back and forth. Most of our volleys were a LOT shorter than that!

Our big excitement was we went to watch the Blue Angels practice one morning. The Blue Angels are the U.S. Navy's flight demonstration squadron. I have never seen them in person before and even though we were only watching a practice session it was amazing! At times they would fly together in formations so tight they are only 18" apart - while going really fast!! It was fun to watch them fly straight up, fly upside down, do their loops and rolls and all of the other stuff they did. I tried to take some pictures but it was so fascinating to watch that I often forgot to take pictures. The other problem is they were so fast it was hard to get a picture of them even when I remembered to try!

As I watched their practice session I thought about how nerve wracking it would be to have the public watching you practice. I know that I am content having my horses at home and not having the world watching when I take the flier or chip in to a jump! Obviously I try to be at a place where we are much better than that for a horse show, but I wouldn't want to attempt to get there while constantly being watched by a judge as I school at home.

After we watched the Blue Angels practice we went through the Naval Aviation Museum which was interesting. They also had a Blue Angel flight simulator. I happily paid to have a ride in that simulator and it was really fun! Jason wouldn't do it because he thought he might get motion sickness. That was because I had talked him into riding the Ferris Wheel the night before where he did NOT have a good time. Jason and I both have a fear of heights, although we don't find the same situations uncomfortable. I can't lean over the railing at the second story of the mall without feeling queasy. However the Ferris Wheel didn't bother me, nor does flying, even in small planes.

I felt bad that I made Jason ride the Ferris Wheel as he gripped the pole in the center of our basked with all of his might with sweat pouring off of him. I was glad he didn't pass out and that he made it through a half dozen passes on the Ferris Wheel still walking and talking! What really killed him was when they were loading all of the people onto the ride. At one point you are stopped at the very top of the Ferris Wheel, and your basket kind of sways back and forth as you sit up there waiting while they load passengers. I wasn't sure if Jason was still going to be with me for a few minutes as we swayed around up there. He hadn't yet completely recovered from the Ferris Wheel experience the night before so he passed on the Blue Angel flight simulator. "Normal" flying doesn't bother him but thought the simulation of the flips, rolls, and vertical ascents might be too much.

We'll be back to our regularly scheduled program of retired horses after this post. It is nice to be home!

Getting ready to take off

Four of them taking off together
Flying in formation

One upside down, one right side up

2 upside down and 2 right side up

Tight formation of 4; there are six angels that perform. Most of the time four fly in formation and the other two do solo stunts or opposing passes with each other. They did some maneuvers with all six planes in the formation.

Five across

The two "solos" performing together

All six in formation

The enthusiastic crowd waved flags as they landed (together of course) and taxied off the runway