September 2014

ELLEN, I ended up in your Google account? It had all kinds of personal info available. I did NOT look at any of it.

Thanks, Indy. I'll try something else.

Maybe this?
https://picasaweb.google.com/ellenclark2/LakePlacid2014?

ELLEN……………simply a typo I think……

http://picasaweb.google.com/ellenclark2/LakePlacid2014#

Nope…………….I thought the http part was wrong in the first one…………..

Well, drat! I'm on the way to the hotel for pizza. I'll try again in a little while.

https://picasaweb.google.com/ellenclark2/LakePlacid2014?authkey=Gv1sRgCKX51ore8bTuQg#

Try that one.
I read that Google has been messing around with Picasa and has been stupid and made it harder to get to the albums. If they keep that up, I'll find someplace else to post photos.
Please let me know if it works or not.

ELLEN
That link worked.  What a nice place!  Do they still use the sled course in the winter?  I bet that would be a blast!  Looks like they have nice facilities left from the Olympics.



Our upper pastures are cut, despite the very cool weather.  I sure hope the hay dries well.....

Ark, all of the facilities left from the '80 Olympics are still used all winter. Some of it is for training, some is for various competitions. Everything is much busier in the winter than in the summer. Although, some of the ice skaters will spend a good part of the summer training there.
The bobsled run is also used for luge and skeleton. They just have different starting points on the course that are farther down from the top.
It's a very beautiful area. The weather was nearly perfect the first three days we were there. Thursday was a bit cloudy, and Friday was a little bit rainy, but it didn't stop us from doing what we wanted to do.

Ellen what is skeleton? sounds like a great vacation place.

Happy birthday carol! hope it is a very happy day!


Gm, stay dry and high...make sure eli has his water wings on....

On luge, they lie on the sled with their feet going first down the slide.  Skeleton is head first.  Considering that they are moving up to about 60 miles an hour on some of those curves, neither appeals to me a whole lot.
In fact, walking down is probably the closest I would be willing to try.  Maybe.  I might do a bobsled.

CB, Eli is storm savvy, for sure.  I watched him yesterday just munching away in a downpour.
In the last round he just walked through water like an old man.  Water?  LOL, what water?  We're having rain today, but nothing like that last storm.  So far………….

CAROL, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!        Eat fudge and birthday cake!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAROL, Hope your day was great

Happy Birthday, Carol hope your day was a good one!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CAROL!!!

Thanks guys.... appreciate the good wishes. truly amazing another year has gone.

Carol

Oops, tried to change my avatar.  That was a bust.  I'll try again at some point.  

Things go better with coffee.  LOL  

GRAYMARE:
I like the new avatar! Eli is such a cutey!

ELLEN:
Your pix were great. I almost feel like I have had a vacation.....

CAROL:
Do anything special for your birthday? Hope you had lots of fun!

SUNNY:
Is it cooling off yet? It sure has here.

TRUDY:
How are the appliance replacements going? I hate it when everything goes at the same time.

RICK:
I liked the dog video...however, I think Donnie would have trouble twirling Daisy on her hind feet. She is probably 9 feet tall when she is standing on them .

INDYAPP:
Been playing with your new Bobcat machine yet? It will be amazing to find out how many things you can do with that thing. My neighbor cleans out stalls with his.


We took Kazi and Daisy to Tech today to have their tootsies done. Both are doing considerably better. Kazi is in the best shape than she has been in over a year. Daisy has a ways to go, but is vastly improved. Their weight scale was unusable, so I didn't get to see how much weight they had lost, but the vet said Kazi was a 6 to 7 on the body scale and Daisy was now a little over 7, after having been a 9.

The hay is still drying.

Up next: An Ivan retrospective!

Ten years ago today, Hurricane Ivan blew through  Virginia.  It left a big mess in some areas, a few tornadoes in others, and a little black foal near here.  Ivan was born about 20 miles from here during the storm.  
 Ivan and his mother, Micah

Donnie and I visited the friend who owned Ivan's mother and took this photo when he was a couple of days old.  Wasn't he cute?  We didn't see him again until he was a three year old stallion, barely handled, wild and fearful.  His owner was trying to sell him and no one wanted an untrained, wild  Arabian stallion.  I decided to try to train him a little if she would get him 'fixed', then return him to her to sell later.  

Ivan at 3 years old.

Ivan arrived here a month later and moved into our arena to live just after Christmas .  Within two months, I decided I couldn't live without him and bought him from his owner.  Training began.  It took a long time before he would let me touch him, longer to gain a little trust for handling, but by mid July,  I was mounted on Ivan for the very first time, and he didn't object at all!

 Ivan's first ride!  It lasted about 30 seconds...

Time passed and years of training have gone by.  Ivan has grown from a gangly, solid black foal and turned into a dappled grey adult horse.  It won't be too many more years before he will be a freckled grey, like his mother.  

Ivan at ACTHA ride.

He is a lovable guy, to me anyway, and gets better every day at handling issues that used to freak him out.  Our longest ride to date was the AERC 25 mile ride last April.  

 At South Carolina endurance ride.

Happy 10th Birthday, Ivan Intrepid!!

Ivan is a monument to your perseverance, Ark. You have never given up, and now you have a horse you can ride. There may be some limitations, but he's getting better and better and so are you.

ARK: What a wonderful story you & Ivan have and every step is immortalized with photos. Hats off to you for staying the course and never giving up. We Foops have been here with you the entire time, cheering you along your way, celebrating your triumphs, and worrying along with you on the bad days. A big CONGRATS to you and a happy birthday to Ivan. Hard to believe 10 years has flown by.

2 outta 3 breakdowns are fixed and the furnace repair is ready to be done as soon as the furnace guys fits us into his busy schedule. The new part is sitting on the patio.

GRAYMARE: Hope you are staying dry with all the rain AZ is receiving. WOW

CB: Did the baby arrive yet? I know you are excited..

CAROL: Happy belated birthday.

ELLEN: WOW what a fun trip you had.

I'm making a cake for the fire hall monthly breakfast and making dinner for a neighbor who just had back surgery, she was in the hospital waiting for her surgery, her son just had back surgery last week and her hubby cut the tip off of his finger making dinner. YIKES...Plus her son who is paralyzed from the service lives at home with them. Now there is a real nightmare situation. Prayers needed for Rita & Byron.

Not much going on here, the garden is finally finished except for a few banana pepper plants. Our neighbor is going to take the peppers when he returns from his fishing trip. We trade peppers for fresh fish plus he gives us a couple of jars of the pickled peppers. I think we get the better of the trade.

Gotta wash the truck today and get her all dressed up for the Harvest Parade tomorrow, we are riding with the Military Order of the Purple Heart Chapter. I LOVE riding in the parades, wish I had my good old parade horse Maxx to ride in the parade.

Love & prayers..

Prayers for Rita and Byron, kudos to you and Ivan, it has been a long road but worth it I am sure HAPPY 10th birthday to Ivan Ark, our weather has cooled down some not enough though we are having spotty showers on and off and not all over the state, one day we get lots of rain and others we get none when other parts of florida get hammerd the Ford dealership that I bought my 2008 is having a football tailgate party for it's customers tomorrow with prizes an hot dogs, hamburgers, and pulled pork sounds yummy, I am going to go and have some fun, it is supposed to rain buckets but that won't put a damper on things as it is being held inside, of course the grills are outside but under cover so no problems the sales women who sold us our s.u.v is wanting to take us fishing, we are trying to get together on her days off so it is hit and miss but it will happen when the time is right hope everyone has a great weekend and lots of fun

ARK

IVAN turned out to be one handsome horse. I hope you get a bunch of pictures this year grays always at their best color from 7-10 years.
Then they just get whiter and freckled.

Ivan says "Thank you very much" for the kind words and birthday wishes!
He had extra carrots and apples to celebrate his birthday.  Everyone else did, too, but he got more of them.  

I rode both Ivan and Areion for lessons on Wednesday afternoon. We did pretty well.  I am having to work at learning how to ride Areion after getting Ivan to the point that he understands what I want easily, and Areion does not.  I tend to forget that Areion has to have more directions and I can't quite trust her as much as Ivan yet.

Anyway, we did pretty well during the lessons.  Ivan and I worked on learning to neck rein (believe it or not, RICK!).  We have a lot to work on there.  Areion and I worked on turning and controlling her urge to spook in one corner.  That went pretty well, no spooks that got out of control during the lesson.

After the lessons, I asked Lori to take a couple of pix of me on both horses since  Ivan's birthday was the next day, and I hadn't taken any photos of him lately, and none on Areion in quite awhile.  She took this picture of me on Areion:



Wow, she is tall compared to Ivan!  I told Lori I really didn't want to fall off Areion, it is a long way down.  I was still on Areion with Ivan standing with Lori next to us.  Two seconds later, Ivan did a mini-spook over some invisible or imaginary thing, so of course, Areion thought the world must be ending and spooked bigger....jumping out from under me.  It was a long way down to the ground, and the ground was not soft.  Both horses stood there looking at me like they couldn't believe what happened.  

So it is official:  I have now fallen off every horse we own with the exception of Zippy and Trinket, who probably want in on the act.  Thankfully, I don't ride them.   Since I have 'done' every horse, there is no further need to fall off anyone.  I don't plan on anymore unexpected dismounts.

I peeled myself off the ground, nothing is broken, but I won't be showing the bruise I have......I immediately got onto the traitor, Ivan, who was calm, cool and collected and Lori then took Ivan's birthday photo:

NICE PICS...!!! BEAUTIFUL animals and the SWEETEST gal riding!! Thank you for sharing these pics, ARK.

"Way back when" We had two horses for riding, the old Speckled Butt ... Dixie ... was really into neck reining. Miranda was getting to be "pretty good" ... it sure made life easier to "steer" with one hand....LOL!!

I'm sure you'll enjoy that when they get the idea!!

Love to all, Rick