Alone Time

With three kids and Mr. Cowboy only coming home on the weekends I do not have much alone time. Who am I trying to kid, I never get any alone time. Until last week. I got a Nanny! She comes to my house about three days a week and only for a couple of hours. During that time I put my boots on and run to the barn. I have loved being able to ride again. I started out by riding Ozzie yesterday.

He is just now three years old. I had not ridden him since the night at the arena when Mr. Cowboy rode him. One would think he would have been a bucking crazy colt, but oh not so. He was perfect. We were jogging slow and being all sorts of western pleasure lazy. He naturally loves to go slow. Which is a plus for a western pleasure horse. I have been wanting to take some pictures while I was riding. My Dad was telling me the other day, "You can take pictures while driving in your care at 70 mph, but you can't take a picture while you are riding a horse." I told him that I know that my car's breaks work. Horses don't always behave. But, I wanted to show everyone what a super fantastic wonderful boy he is. So, I propped my camera up on one of our barrels and pushed the timer to start. Ozzie wouldn't go. So, I had to encourage him to move forward. Ozzie brushed up against the barrel and...........

There you have it, and extreme close up of some Louisiana grass. I was too lazy to get off the horse and pick up my camera, so, sorry no pictures of us riding. I tried. After my ride on Ozzie, I rode Big Cowpoke's horse, Pretty Girl.

Just look at that face, she loves me right? That is a totally different expression than Ozzie's face. That is okay, I am alright with the fact that Pretty Girl does not like me. I am the horrible mother that tacks her up and then puts a kid on her. She has gotten really barn sour lately. At the last rodeo she would walk to the first barrel, run around it, and then come directly home. Big Cowpoke didn't try to stop her, so she did it again and again. My theory is that she knows he won't do anything to correct her, so she is totally taking advantage of him. Also, I think she does not like playdays. She gets board with them. Mr. Cowboy has asked for me to put her up for sale. So, she is up for sale, but I am secretly hoping she won't sell. All because of this reason here.

You can trail ride this mare anywhere. She will walk away from the barn and down the road and not even flinch. You can relax while you are on her back, let your reins drop, and not stress about her spooking at a thing. Let me give you the first demonstration.

This is Red, our paint stud. When ever you drive a horse trailer past his pasture he goes nuts. He thinks all trailers that come down are road carry his girlfriends inside them. Pretty Girl and I walked right by him and she didn't even look at him. And one more thing, she is in full heat!! She was walking and peeing and she never once stopped or tired to go over to him. I didn't touch my reins at all. I was so amazed.

We then made a turn down a dirt road. This road was so busy. There were kids riding four wheelers, a man mowing his lawn, a motorcycle passed us, a truck passed us with ladders on the top of it, and about six little terrier dogs came and barked at her feet. And do you think she even lifted her head one bit? Nope, I was so surprised. I was getting ready for at least a little side stepping. She did move her ears to hear the dogs when the were barking at her. What a good girl. I also managed to get a picture of us.

There we are! Shadows are not very flattering. We both are sporting quite the "hay belly" look. After we passed all the scary things, which I thought would have been a big deal but she just walked passed them like it was nothing, we turned down another more secluded dirt road.

We left all the houses and dogs behind us. It was so nice to just hear her hooves hitting the road. This road only has three houses on it and a lot of pasture and hunting land.

This is the cow/hunting pasture. In the fall they use it for duck hunting and in the spring and summer it has cows on it. Or something like that. I am not sure when duck hunting season is here. I will let you know when I am woken up at 6 am with gun shots. Then we made it to the back of out pasture.

You can see how well the horses keep the grass cut. This is just one side of the pasture. We have way too many on this pasture right now. You can also see how close I live to my in laws. There is also a pond. It's about halfway from my house to the fence. It's the little "hill" looking thing in the middle of the pasture.

We rode past our old run in shed. The hurricane took that all away too. It used to be all closed in with tin. That tin just blew away. I am not too sure where it ended up. All we were left with was the structure. I really wanted to make it down to the end of this dirt road where there is this really neat old house and a huge pasture to ride in, but I was all by myself and I didn't want to venture too far away from home. But I did venture on a little side trail.

I guess the kids and their four wheelers ride through the ditch here. Pretty Girl just walked into the woods with no questions asked. You can see her ear listening to me. I had asked her to whoa so I could take a picture. I really love riding this horse! After our little woods venture we headed back home. Down the busy dirt road and back past our stud horse. Red was waiting for us.

I taped Red jogging along the fence so you could see how calm my horse stayed.