The Visitor

My friends went to Hawaii last week and I babysat their dog, Lexie. She is very sweet! As you can see she got along great with my dogs, especially Dobbie. She is quite the lap dog and was in my lap the moment I sat down. I miss her already!

Strawberry Cake

Doesn't this cake look yummy? I just finished making it for a retirement party at work. It's a Strawberry Cake and has a about a cup and half of pureed strawberries on the inside, in addition to the ones on the outside.

I won't be able to have any of it as I am just dropping it off at work. I'll have to find out later how it tasted!

Wendy's Rooster Dining Room

My sister, Wendy, decided she liked roosters and wanted a rooster motif for her dining room.

She had this cabinet custom built. It has Chicken wire over the top compartment. You can see many rooster figurines. And it looks a little "barn like".

She did this counted cross stitch in the middle. Then she paid to have it specially framed and matted. Their is chicken wire over the top. The four side pictures are not cross stitched.

She found this desk at a second hand store and repainted it herself.

She even has a rooster rug! Now she wants to stuff a rooster she has in her yard and add it to the collection. I wasn't happy that she would kill him off just for decor. She told me she would let him live for a while yet. My city values are not the same as their country values! But stuffed rooster not withstanding, she has done a great job with her dining room!

Horse Back Riding Part 2

I had another glitch, so here are the rest of the Horse back riding photos.
Another shot from between Shadow's ears.

After Keegans horse bucked her off, he ran off. So Aaron gave her a ride. You can see the mud on her pants leg. Thank goodness, she was alright.

Here is the "old wood lot" our destination. And a view back down over the valley. Keegan riding double again with Aaron.

The "View". Someone coming up the hill on an ATV,found Keegan's horse and brought him back to us. Here she is remounted as Aaron shuts the gate.

I can't wait to ride again! I have booked a trip down the Grand Canyon on a mule. It isn't the same, but I am excited none the less. I have always wanted to do that!

Horse Back Riding!

Ok, one of the things I really wanted to do when I lost wieght was go horse back riding. I had a horse through high school and loved riding. I have ridden a few times since, but not a lot. Then I decided I was too fat and shouldn't ride.

So now that I have met goal, I had to go riding! I was excited to go to my sister's in Idaho, because they have horses and I was going to get to go riding. I rode twice. The horse I rode was my brother-in -law's. He was a great horse! All I had to do was lean a little in any direction and he knew what I wanted and was doing it. I wanted to bring him home. This is photo of Rusty. My neice, Keegan rode him on our first ride.

This is Apache. He is a pony. My sister's nephew, Dylan, rode him on our second ride. All of their horse's are really nice.

This is Shadow before I saddled him. He is a very pretty horse. This is me on Shadow. I even got on by myself, both times! I was really afraid I woudn't be able to.

This is my neice, Keegan on Rusty. She did great until later in the ride. Rusty got tangled in some wire and bucked. She wasn't expecting it and got bucked off. This is Amy, my sister's stepdaughter. She was schooling this horse for someone else. The horse was called "Blondie".

This is the view from Shadow's back. That is Amy's Jack Russell Terrier.

This is the view of where we started riding. We got higher, into some trees later.

We crossed water a few times. Much to the dogs delight.

Talking on the cell phone while riding! That is Amy's son Aaron. He is the same age as my neice Keegan.

OOPS

Ok, I didn't finish writing and ended up getting that last one posted. There are also photos of: My sisters parrotlets, their cat, the Bassett with one blue eye is Ellie, The other small mostly black dog is Beau (he's great!), the other dog with the basketball, is my sister's stepdaughter's dog, Sadie, there is a photo of the ram my neice has that is 1/4 Desert Bighorn, there is an appaloosa named Rusty, another horse grazing that does not belong to my family, but I thought it was a nice photo, two photos of Sandhill cranes, a meadowlark on a fence wire, a partial photo of a moose (kinda hard to tell), me holding one of the twin baby goats. I think that is all of them!

Animal life of Idaho

I just came back from a weeks vacation at my sister's in Idaho. It was a lot of fun. My sister, Wendy, has always loved animals and has always owned several. When we were kids, there were raccoons, an aviary with assorted birds, rats (ugh), gerbils, mice, dogs, cats, fish, guinea pigs and finally horses. She has been lucky to be married and living in a situation where she can continue to indulge her love of animals. Her daughter, Keegan, is just like her and loves to have animals just as pets, usually. They live in the country, but not really on a farm. They still have enough land to indulge their desire to have animals. Keegan informed me that she wanted a camel next. She said she had wanted an elephant, but had finally decided she couldn't probably really take care of it there. My sister has told her she can't have a camel, but the reason was she has disliked all the camel's she ever met. Keegan had llamas last time I visited. The llamas are gone now but have been replaced by sheep that Keegan is raising for meat. We'll see. None have been slaughtered yet, but I think they probably will be. Not by my neice, but them take them to a slaughterhouse. I neglected to get a photo of the rooster. They have a lovely rooster that woke me every morning. My sister has her dining room all decorated in roosters and says she wants to take this one to a taxidermist and have him stuffed. She told me she was going to let him live a few years first. Country living sure is different from the city in a lot of ways! Here are some of the inhabitants of my sister's place.

This is her 125 gallon aquarium. It is really pretty and makes me want to set one up again, although much smaller.

This is their dog, Baxter. He is a really nice Chocolate lab, who LOVES water. Here he is throwing himself in the creek with abandon.

This is me on Shadow, one of their horses. He is a great horse and I really wanted to bring him home!