It's Time To Say Goodbye....

Chance and I, August 2013.

I have come to the very difficult decision that it is time for me to quit blogging. I have been debating this for the last year and a half and I just couldn't quite do it. Now I think it is time. I haven't had much motivation to continue this blog for awhile. In between being busy with life and my horses, my posts have dwindled to about once a month, if that.

First, I would like to thank each and every one of you for following my blog over the years and the wonderful words of encouragement, support, advice and just for being there in the good times and the not so good times. I have met some truly wonderful people blogging and a few of you I have met in person and will be friends for life (and how I acquired Chance and Flirt.) For that I am very thankful that I started this blog! Blogging has been a very positive experience and you all have made it even more so.

If any of you are on Facebook and want to continue to follow my horse and non horse adventures there, please feel free to friend me! My information is on the side bar. But remember if you have a user name like Paint Girl for blogging, I may not know your real name on Facebook. If that is the case, please send me a PM and let me know that because I do not friend just anyone unless I know who you are! ;) You may also follow Flirt's adventures by liking the Find Flirt page. I keep my personal Facebook and Flirt's page up to date.

I have been reading blogs, but I just haven't been commenting much, if at all. I am planning on keeping up with your blogs when time allows and if I don't comment please don't take it personal. I feel like I personally know you all by following your horse, pet and family lives for so many years and I still really want to keep up on you all! Not blogging is going to be extremely hard, but it is a decision I have put a lot of thought into and I feel it is for the best for me at this time. This is NOT going to be easy..... (As I wipe tears from my eyes.)

Again, thank you all so much for everything!!!

Forever Wild?

Can you believe that I have had Rio for a year now? I can't. The year went by so fast. And I would have to say it was the toughest, most challenging year with a horse... ever. And we still aren't there yet. 

Lovely girl.

Rio has had a really difficult time trusting completely, which has made this whole gentling process quite the challenge. I would have to say she is "gentled", to a certain extent. Oh sure, I can walk up to her and pet her. Heck, I can even brush her. But not without her getting scared by a quick movement and her fleeing from me. She doesn't do that all the time, but at least a couple times per session she will exit from the human presence. I have tried desensitizing her to ropes to get her ready for halter breaking and that did not go well. She swore that rope was going to eat her for dinner. I would take the halter and lead rope and rub it all over her body including her face. She eventually relaxed a little, just a little when I rubbed it on her face. I did get as far as putting her nose in the nose band of the halter, but there was no way I would be able to get the halter all the way on. She can't handle it. I took my handy stick/string and flung that string all over her body, legs, head. I had the best results by doing this then I did with a rope, halter or lead rope. But I still could not get her to accept that a rope, halter or lead rope was a good thing. I increased the pressure on her when round penning with very minimal results. Almost every training method that works with other horses, does not work with Rio. I know not all training methods work for all horses, so I have had to become quite creative with what I do, or don't do.

Shoulder scratch!

Of course I started to doubt my abilities as a horse trainer. I mean, how can one horse have such a difficult time accepting human companionship? I feed her, water her, love on her. What more does she want? Well, for one, she is a wild horse. I never expected it to be easy. Even though my first wild one was about as easy as it gets, but she was just a wee little thing. That certainly helps. For another, not ALL wild horses can be domesticated. They just can't. So it's not necessarily me and my abilities. I just ended up adopting a wild horse that can't "get there" and may never "get there". I don't want it to never "get there". But right now, Rio says she can't do it.... not yet. I really hope she changes her mind.

Forehead sniff.

She can't trust completely. She is very reactive. She can't let go of the wild. So where do I go from here? I contacted Tracey, from Mustang Diaries to see if she could come down and give me her opinion. Maybe she has more ideas that could help. Or maybe I am just stuck with a wild horse that will never become domesticated. Tracey has been busy and out of town a lot, so not sure when or if she will be able to come give me her advice before the really ugly weather hits.

Love.

So for now, I go back to square one. I just brought a wild horse home and want her to get used to my presence, what do I do? I sit. I take my chair, book and a pocket full of carrots and sit with her.... within seconds she approaches. She sniffs my leg. She sniffs my hand. I give her a carrot. She sniffs my head. She inches closer. She is so close her leg is touching the chair. I pet her nose. I give her a carrot. She nudges my arm. I pet higher up on her face, behind her ears. I kiss her nose. I give her a carrot. She moves behind me. I can't see what she is doing. I feel warm breath down the back of my neck. My hair moves. I feel her whiskers tickling my neck. She rubs her nose on my head. She moves back to the front of me. I give her a carrot. I kiss her halfway up her face... for the first time. 

Kisses.

She wants to be with me. She does trust me. Just not enough to give me her all. Yet. She has so much potential. I see it. I will not give up. I have fallen for this wild horse like no other, even though I can't halter her and do the things I do with my other horses. Just sitting in that chair and having complete trust in this wild horse approaching me and her trying so hard to give me what I want. But that wild heart of hers can't trust fully.

Rio is now legally mine.

So I continue this emotional roller coaster of a journey with my wild horse..... I love her, I really, really love her.

I'm Still Here!

I am still here! I promise! Life has just been super busy and I haven't had much computer time. I will try to do a better job of posting and visiting you all! I have been reading blogs, but just haven't been commenting. So here is a rundown of some of the things that have been going on in the last month and a half.

Flirt is doing well. I have just been doing ground work with her and I haven't really had time to do all the things I wanted to do with her before summer ends. I'd still like to get a saddle on her before that happens and that is coming soon, so I better get that goal accomplished!! Since she is only 2, I will not ride her until spring. She is growing and filling out nicely.

Miss Flirt looking pretty as always!

Chance has had her ups and downs. She is still a baby, so she has her baby moments. I took her to my sister's ranch for a Mustang event and she had a mental breakdown. She just needs to grow up and needs many more wet saddle blankets. I had to put her back in trailer loading school because she decided she didn't want to load in the horse trailer anymore. It still takes me about 10 minutes to get her in, but she is doing better. I think what happened is she doesn't like being up on the wall in the trailer. I had to start putting her in that stall because I needed to pick up a friends horse as well. After a few rides in that stall is when she started not wanting to get in the trailer. So I am now putting her in the middle stall until she figures out how to balance herself in the trailer.

Chance learning to accept scary umbrellas.

I have been having my best friend, who is the assistant trainer at the Arab farm I used to work for, come out and put a couple rides on Chance. I wanted her to help me with some things that are more her level of expertise. I wanted to make sure I didn't mess anything up too bad. She told me I did an excellent job so far with her. That was great to hear!!

Chance and I at the Mustang Rendezvous.

Rio is still a tough nut to crack. She has come a long way, but she just can't let go of the wild. She is having a hard time trusting completely. I have been spending a lot of time round penning and desensitizing her to ropes. Getting her over her rope fears has been quite challenging. She is still not halter broke and won't be until she can accept ropes. I have been able to rub a lead rope all over her neck, shoulder and even her face. I have even gotten the nose band of the halter over her nose, but that is as far as I can get. She panics and flees if I go to fast or if she starts to get uncomfortable. I can pet and brush her pretty much anywhere, but she still gets nervous about human touch. Once I start petting her, she usually relaxes, but one wrong or quick movement and she's says "No way, I'm outta here!" So I continue plugging away. She has so much potential and is probably the sweetest horse I have ever had. Sometimes wild ones can never tamed. I am hoping that is not the case with her.

My OH getting his Rio time in.

Cooper is still a trouble maker. I sometimes wonder if he will live to see his one year birthday.

Pooper Cooper.

He gets himself in so much trouble. He gets the buzzies and races up and down the house, running head first into tables and chairs.

Cooper trying to get on the ceiling.

He thinks he runs the household now. He is definitely the boss around here.

Looks like a good place to take a nap, I suppose.

One morning while my OH was in the shower, Cooper was in the bathroom window sill and he slipped and fell and got caught up in the double towel bar. He injured his leg and we had to rush him to the vet. Thank goodness nothing was broken. He just had soft tissue damage and had to be put on "stall" rest for a few days. That was not easy. Who would have thought that a cat in a large dog kennel could still get himself in trouble? Only Cooper. But he healed up quickly and was back to his crazy and clumsy ways.

Cooper on "stall" rest.

My chickens are pretty much all grown up now. Those cute baby chicks have become cute adult chickens.

Such big combs.

We are now getting about 9-10 eggs a day. We have already given cartons of eggs to our neighbor, friends and family. I am finding myself using a lot more eggs now then I ever did before. I love eggs, so that is not a problem. And believe it or not, farm fresh eggs are a million times better then store bought eggs!! I did the taste test challenge last week. Huge difference!

Eggs!! Lots of different sizes and shades!

I love taking goofy chicken pictures, although they are very difficult to photograph. They don't hold still!!

Well, HELLO there Rosie!!

It is now that time of year where we spend weekend mornings and most evenings at the river fishing.

My view yesterday morning while fishing. Beautiful sunrise!

We have had a lot of success fishing and have already completed one batch of smoked salmon. Love that stuff!!!

My fish and I.

I got my limit of 4 salmon by 8:00 a.m. yesterday, so I sat on the beach and waited for the guys to catch up. They never did. Yes, I still out fish the guys!

My view yesterday morning while I was waiting for the guys to limit out.

That is only a brief run down of the last month and a half. I will get into more details about certain events in future posts!

Our New Additions.... Chickens!!

First off I want to apologize for disappearing for a month. I have had to work at the Arab farm for most of June and part of July. June is the busiest month for them with horse shows and one of their girls was injured in a freak horse accident and was injured pretty bad, but she is okay!! So I ended up working more then I anticipated and we all know that when I am working at the farm, I have no energy or motivation to do much of anything else! My poor horses did not get much done with them, except for Rio. But that is for another blog post! Now, lets talk CHICKENS!!


My OH and I have talked for years about getting chickens. Back in April we were at a farm store and guess what they had hundreds of? Yep. Chicks. We looked and looked and looked, then we talked to an employee about them. I had chickens growing up, but they were already adult chickens, so I had never raised them as babies. Well, we decided to get some chicks. We bought 6 chicks and all the stuff we would need for them. Once we got home, an hour later we decided we wanted more. So we went to another farm store and bought 6 more. We ended up with 4 Barred Rocks, 2 Gold Sex-links, 2 Buff Orpingtons, 2 Production Reds (like a Rhode Island Red) and 2 Araucauna's.

Baby chick!

We set up their brooder and handled them daily. I guess I didn't realize how quick they grow! Before you know it we had to move them into a doggy playpen because they outgrew their "horse water trough" brooder. We had to make a decision quick on what our chicken coop plan was going to be. We decided to take our old garden shed and convert it into a chicken coop. Then we would add on to the back side of the coop and make an even bigger garden shed. My OH worked his butt off to get the coop done so we could move the chicks into their new home. They were quickly outgrowing their new brooder.

The ultimate chicken lounger.

My OH finally got the new coop set up and it was time to move all the chicks. We transferred them a few at a time in our cat carrier out to their new digs.

Bailey just wants to eat the chickens.

They absolutely loved their new home. They had so much room to run around. We had put up the chicken run using chain link and then ran 4 feet of chicken wire from the ground up along the inside to prevent a chicken from sticking it's head out of the chain link and getting their heads bit off. (Yes, Bailey would bite a chicken head off.) We then took deer netting and put it over the top to prevent Bald Eagle's, Owls and Hawks from swooping down and stealing one of our new beloved birds.

Pretty chicken head.

We wanted friendly chickens, so we started taking our chairs and sitting in the run with them. We would feed them bread and other treats. Before long we would each have a chicken in our lap.

Chicken leg stretches.

They started to become really friendly.

So friendly in fact, that at each sitting we would have more and more chickens on our laps, arms, shoulders....

The chickens LOVE my OH!

We let our niece name a couple chickens. She picked out the names Rosie and Flower.

This is the chicken I named after my OH.

Every time we get up out of our chairs, a chicken always steals our seat.

Chicken checking out my beer.

We had contemplated letting them out into our yard if we were home. But we quickly found out that Bailey would eat them. He has a very strange infatuation with them and he would kill them instantly. So the chickens can't leave their run.

Sadie wouldn't hurt the chickens. She just loves watching them.

We have been sitting with the chickens every afternoon or evening. They love their human time.

My OH enjoys having a beer with the chickens.

We got lucky and ended up with 12 hens. We did not get any roosters, thank goodness. We didn't want any.

My OH telling the chicken named after me, to quit talking back.

They should start laying eggs in the middle of August. I can't wait!

Chicken on my knee. We named her Dolly Parton.

I have people lined up to take excess eggs, which I know I will have.

Chicken named after my OH. This chicken will lay blue/green eggs.

My OH has had up to 6 chickens on him. They all fight over roosting space on his lap.

My OH makes a good chicken roost.

My neighbors love the chickens. They bring over watermelon and bread for them.

Neighbor K trying out the new fashion style. The Chicken Hat.

I think our chickens are extremely spoiled.

3 Barred Rocks.

They fit in quite well on the farm!

Chicken bonding.

In fact they are so spoiled that my OH put in outdoor chicken roosts.

New outdoor chicken lounger.

Yep. They are a part of the family now. We are having so much fun with them. I couldn't imagine my life without chickens in it! 

Always Expect The Unexpected....

I had my second trail challenge with Chance a week and a half ago. And when it took me 45 minutes to get Chance loaded in the horse trailer, I just knew it was going to be one of those days! Ever since we brought Flirt home, Chance has been a pill. She went into heat and has just been awful. She has never been like this when she is in heat. So when she absolutely refused to go in the trailer...... I said "You are absolutely going in the trailer!" I finally got her loaded and went to pick up my friend. (Chance will be going back to trailer loading school.... she has NEVER been a problem to load.)

We arrive at our destination about half an hour before the start time of the trail challenge. The woman who put on the trail challenge told us to head out for a trail ride first and when we got back the course would be ready for us. The trail head was packed, there were way more people there this time, but also the weather was quite a bit nicer then the time before! The sun was peeking through the clouds and it looked like it was going to be a gorgeous day out. So we saddled up our ponies and headed out to the trails. I had never ridden the trails out there before, but they had marked the trails with ribbons, so as long as we followed the marked ribbons, we would not get lost. Hopefully.

Lovin' on my girl, Chance.

The trail ride was a 2 hour ride and I have to say, it was the most challenging trail I have ridden Chance on. Not only was there a lot of mud, but the trails in the woods were long, narrow, steep hills and there was a lot of dead fall. Chance does not have a problem walking over logs, but there were so many. And she gets nervous on the woodsy trails. Plus we ran into more horses out there then we typically do and Chance gets really nervous about that. I would have thought she would be over that by now, but she can't get over having another horse come up behind her on the trail. She was jigging and being awful. So we had to have a few training sessions while on the trail. Chance and I even led part of the way. My friend is great because she is so patient with Chance and I. She waits while I work out a training issue. 

We arrive back at the trail head and got ready to do the trail challenge. We watched a few riders go through the course. My friend and her horse were going to be my buddy rider again. By watching the other horses, I felt that Chance should be able to do every obstacle. My OH did not come this time, so I do not have pictures, but the trail course consisted of walking through branches, trotting a figure eight around 2 trees and then to whoa and back up. Then we were to pick up a canvas bag off a barrel and carry it through a "mud" bridge and drop it on another barrel, where we then had to open and close a rope gate. I had been practicing picking things up and I can open and close my arena gate while on Chance, just had never done a rope gate, but thought it should be doable. While in line waiting for our turn (there were probably 35 horses there that day) I was talking to some other mustang people. They just loved Chance. I told everyone she was really green, but I was trying to get her out and experience a lot of different things while she was young. 

When it was my turn to go, my friend rode onto the course first. We followed behind. She stopped by the barrel to give us room to trot the figure eight, which Chance did quite well at. I have trotted figure eights at home, but on a much larger scale then we had to on the trail course. Chance had the most awesome whoa and back, ever. I was pretty happy so far. Then we walked up to the barrel. She didn't really like the barrel, I don't have any barrels to practice with at home, but she doesn't usually give me a problem going up to something new. I got her up as close as I could to the barrel and reached down to pick up the canvas bag. Chance eyeballed the bag for a couple seconds and as I was bringing the bag in to me, Chance blew up. Literally. Full on bucking bronco. I had just found myself in the middle of a rodeo, riding a saddle bronc. I dropped the bag immediately and every time I am in this kind of situation.... I just CAN'T think straight. Like, why the heck didn't I try and pull her head around? What the heck? Instead I just try to ride out the darn bucks. After a few seconds, I thought I was coming off, but then I felt myself gain control back and thought I had it. Well, then the bucks were getting bigger and bigger. Her nose was to the ground. And stupid me, did nothing. I just can't think in these kind of situations. I knew I was coming off at that point. I started sliding, I pulled my feet out of the stirrups and down I go. I looked up and it looked like Chance was going to come down on top of me and I rolled off to the side... as she ran off and continued bucking. I jumped up pretty quickly. I had heard everyone yelling my name, asking if I was okay. I just nodded and went to get my horse. My friend had jumped off of her horse and we tried introducing the canvas bag to Chance again.... from the ground. Well, what the trail course people had neglected to tell me, was that there were noisemakers IN the bag. I had not practiced that yet with Chance. If I had known there were noisemakers IN the bag, I would have skipped that challenge. (The same trail course was used for green horses, as well as experienced horses.)

So I got back on and finished the trail course. I did not open the rope gate, since I had not practiced with ropes, only a real gate and considering how Chance reacted to noisemakers in a canvas bag.... I had my friend open the rope and I rode through. So we sure finished the trail challenge in style. We rode around the parking lot afterwards, it was the only place to ride. If I had an arena, I would have worked her butt pretty good. But I didn't have that option. 

Immediately after I hit the dirt and got back up, I knew my legs were pretty messed up. They hurt so bad. While she was bucking, I kept coming down on the pommel of my saddle. I knew I was going to have some nasty bruises on my thighs. My right shoulder was a tad sore, but other then my legs taking most of the beating, I felt fine. We hung out for about another hour and a half. Everyone kept coming up to me and giving me a hug, making sure I was okay. Chance has never reacted by bucking, NEVER. She is spooky, but she usually just tries to turn the other way or jumps to the side. She has never bucked. Never. Not even the first time she was saddled and I got ON her the first time she was saddled. She has been so good about everything. I know I have been pushing her pretty hard. She has ONLY been under saddle a total of maybe 45 days, and approximately 22 of those days are from last summer, she had the winter off and then the rest of the rides are from this spring. So she is super green. I probably shouldn't be doing these trail challenges with her yet. But I want to get her out and to experience all there is to experience. I don't want her to be 9 years old and only been ridden 9 times with a couple trail rides (that is how old Brandy was when I got her and how many times she had been ridden, she was so green and it took years to get her to where she is today... and she is now 18.) 

So I have a lot more desensitizing to do with Chance. I do not have any more trail challenges coming up this year. I will get her more broke in the arena and take her out on some less challenging trail rides to get that experience. She just needs miles, lots and lots of miles. 

And guess what? We took 2nd place in the green horse division and 3rd place in the mustang division. How about that? I swear they must have thrown in a few extra points for the most stylish, unscheduled dismount!!

Oh and the next day? I was extremely sore. I couldn't move my neck, my shoulder hurt bad and my legs were badly bruised. But after a couple days, my neck and shoulder were better. It's been a week and a half and I still have bad bruises on my thighs. This was the first time in 7 years that I have been dumped. And I sure hope it's the last!

Welcome Home Flirt!!

Flirt is now home! We couldn't bring her home until my reassignment paperwork was completed and approved from the BLM. Once that was done, we were able to pick her up last Saturday. We just love her! She has been a very good girl and is settling in very nicely at our farm.

I have a lot of updates, but I will be working at the Arabian farm the next few days and I will be out of town for a few days next week. I will get another post done before I head out!!

And this is the first time I am posting from my phone, so I sure hope it goes through okay! I have so many things to share and so little time. I am really trying to post more often, but I am sure you all know how that goes.... life just gets busy! And busy it has been!

Trail Challenge Preparation....

I have already done one trail challenge with Chance and I was supposed to have gone to a big indoor Trail Competition in Oregon with Tracey (Mustang Diaries). Tracey was to take her green mustang Oz and I was to take my green mustang Chance. But about a week prior to us leaving, Tracey had a horse back riding accident with Oz (she is okay) and we had to cancel our trip. But in the month and a half leading up to the competition, I had been riding Chance in the arena, on our property and out at the local trails a couple times. She was really coming along well, but I was quite nervous about the indoor trail challenge! For one, she has never been in an indoor arena and for another, she has never been to any event, especially nothing like the caliber of the Oregon Trail Challenge. To be honest, I was actually quite happy that we weren't going. I really think Chance needs more time under saddle before attempting something like that with her. So here is a recap of what Chance and I worked on before we cancelled the trail challenge.

One of Chance's biggest issues has been water. As with any young or green horse, they have to be taught that water is not to be feared. Even last summer when we took Chance out on our local trails, she would not walk through water. She jumped it. It was horrible. So I knew I was going to have to really work with Chance and water. The Oregon Trail Challenge would have water. So if I wanted to succeed at that obstacle, we would have to get her through water. (Remember my first Trail Challenge with Chance and it was pouring rain and almost every obstacle was under water, which made it difficult to get through the course?) I started by doing water obstacles in hand. I thought this wouldn't be as difficult as being in the saddle. Boy, was I ever wrong. Luckily we have access to a lot of water, about 9 months out of the year. We get big mud puddles so I don't have to make my own water obstacle. It took quite awhile, but we finally had success!! Chance could now easily navigate mud puddles in hand! I eventually did the same thing with her under saddle. That was not easy. But I did finally get her to go through mud puddles while riding!! Now the true test would be to get her out on an actual trail ride and see if we could apply it in the wilderness.

Why is this necessary?

One day my OH came home from work early and he asked if I wanted to ride Chance through our neighborhood a ways, while he walked our Aussie Bailey. I was a little nervous to try that, but I had been riding her all over our property and on my neighbors trails. She had been doing well, but she is quite spooky. So I agreed. We were only going to ride a very short distance to the stop sign at the end of our road (we live in a private development where there is very little traffic. Actually we get more concerned about dogs running out in the road at us then cars!)

Getting ready to head out in the neighborhood.

Chance started out quite nervous. She wasn't bothered by mailboxes, boulders or even stop signs. What she was bothered by was a bird fluttering in the bushes, a rabbit or anything that made a sudden appearance. When we got to the stop sign, Chance had settled down and we decided to continue a little further. We ended up riding to our private access river gate which is probably at least a mile from our house. We then turned around and went back home. She was quite good for her first ever neighborhood ride!

Chance meets her first stop sign.

My friend C, who did the first trail challenge with me, doesn't live too far away. So we had been trying to get out on our local trails about once a week. We had a really nice, summer-like stretch of weather, which is not normal for around here and we took advantage of it. On our first "real" trail ride since last September, Chance was struggling a bit with the muddy trails. She wanted to jump the mud, but the problem with that is there is so much mud, you can't just jump a 2 feet wide section of mud and be done with it. You actually have to walk through the mud a ways before you hit a dry stretch. So it didn't take too long for her to figure that out. The other thing was when my friends horse spooked in front of us, Chance did NOT spook along with her. I really like that! I was actually quite shocked because Chance can be quite spooky. When we got the big water crossing, I was going to use this as a training experience, no matter how long it took. She actually walked through the water, not jumped it, but she was trying to hurry! So that will take some work. She also gets quite nervous walking over bridges. I have worked on bridges with her since she was a yearling, I have a wood bridge at home. But it is different when you are out somewhere else. She has no problem getting on the bridge, she just feels all tense and ready to take off at any second. But that will all change the more she gets out and the more bridges we cross!! Then we had just finished our last narrow trail of the ride and it opens up onto a wide, sandy trail that takes us back to the trail head. My friend gave me a warning that she saw a dog quite a ways up the trail. Dogs are not an issue for Chance, but she wanted me to be aware in case Chance saw some movement up in the distance and spooked. We rounded the last 2 corners of the wide, sandy trail and all of a sudden my friend says "Oh look! There's that dog!" We stopped our horses and I looked and said "That is not a dog. That is a coyote!!" It was just standing in the middle of the trail staring at us. And it was huge and healthy. It just stared. By the time I got my cell phone out to take a picture, it started moving off the trail so I couldn't get a very good picture of it. But if you look closely in this next picture, you will see half of the coyote. Our horses never spooked or seemed concerned about it. I think they thought it was just a dog. Even when we walked by where it disappeared into the bushes, the horses didn't care. So Chance passed the wildlife test! We run into deer all the time out there, but we have never run into a coyote. And we literally came around the corner and ran into a coyote.

Coyote in the trail.

Then about a week later, we went on another ride. I took my friend a different direction from the last time (she is not familiar with these trails, I know them like the back of my hand!) We were on a really pretty trail in the woods and then all of a sudden it opened up into a clearing, which was new. I had been on this trail numerous times and although it had been awhile since I had been on this trail, I was shocked to see them taking all the trees down. Well, I shouldn't be shocked. It is a "tree farm" and the owners are just kind enough to let horse back riders use their property for trail riding. But that was a cool trail that is no longer a cool trail.

New clear cut.

Chance had no problem with the heavy equipment that was at least 5 times bigger then our truck.

Scary heavy equipment? No problem!!

We always take a break at the outhouse to let the horses rest.

Isn't my girl just beautiful?

And she walked through the water crossing again, although a little nervous and fast!! But the more water crossings we do, the better she will get. I am just happy she isn't trying to jump it anymore.

Scary water crossing? You bet!

Chance has been doing so well. I am so proud of my baby!! We still have a lot of work to do, but summer is almost here! I have another trail challenge coming up this weekend, which is the last one of the series. And I am taking Chance to my cousin Betsy's for a 3 day visit and trail rides, where she will get to experience an indoor arena!! I think that by the end of summer, Chance will be well on her way to being a fantastic trail horse! The possibilities are endless!!