In addition to documenting training sessions with photographs and video's and giving lessons, my daughter and I have found little pockets of time to get out on the road this past week. I am anxious to get in lots of miles in my new Barefoot London treeless saddle to give it a fair trial.. so far, we still love it- my horse and I.

Sunday, the 26th was a gorgeous day.. warm and sunny. We went out for a fun ride with Lilly and Keri. The only drawback with these 2 mares on the road/trail... they tend to compete with each other and get racy. They have always been that way-- just the mix of personalities I guess. It's funny how each horse, when paired with another, takes on a different disposition and behavior. The 2 girls were great on the way out.. but on the return, closer to home, we had to circle them a lot to get them back to focusing. Now-- take Lilly with another horse or by herself, she's perfect-- same with Keri.. Together-- they get that race thing going on. Lilly's walk is long and ground covering, so Keri was lagging behind the whole time... which frustrated her. Maybe that's one of the reasons she is a tad belligerent about being Lilly's riding partner.

Lilly is a smooth forward horse, so much fun to ride. Seems she's been with us forever, born here out of Little Pet- who we rode until her passing. We also rode Lilly's sire quite a bit- Peacock's Banner. Lilly's maternal brother- Col's Pasqualie Kid also was with us forever as a super stud, loads of talented foals, and also a nice smooth forward riding horse. A great family-- and so far Lilly has not disappointed us with her offspring either-- all of them even better than she is !! We are keeping her daughter sired by Frostfire's Tadpole. Recently there has been some discussion among Curly breeders about changing bloodlines and introducing new blood, "up-dating" the broodherd. I say--- if it keeps working.. why change ? I keep the same studs and broodmares forever it seems... if I am happy with the outcome and the foals grow up and perform... that's enough for me.

Halloween day, we took OYY Brigitte out in order to get some fresh photo's and do a short video that I posted the other day on the blog. Then we saddled up Keri (of course) and Zoe rode OYY Sweet Bee to give her a chance to go out for a good ride. We just did the 6 mile loop- as Sweet Bee has not been out that often - did not want to push her or tire her.. just enough to be a challenge and short enough for her to thoroughly enjoy her outing. Now-- these 2 are a great pair. They walked and trotted side by side nearly the entire way.

Here we both are in a shadow portrait.

About 1/2 mile down the road I saw my neighbor in her yard- so we decided to duck in the driveway for a quick visit-- show off my saddle. It is almost Thanksgiving, but we did not expect a flock of potential thanksgiving day dinners to be out and gobbling. The turkeys were curious about us as well and began puffing up and gobbling- the horses stood perfectly and we had a 10 minute visit- then on our way.

This was just a fun photo- Sweet Bee is such a cutie.

We also got out this week with Keri and Teasel Obi. Now there's the perfect riding pair of horses. For some reason, Keri sees 'Mr. T' as we call him sometimes (other times- the "T-man") and she nickers and gets excited-- YAY, we are going out with Teasel.. this is going to be fun ! We have had a LOT of super rides with these 2- and have created some really great trail/road memories with the 2 of them. No photo's of that ride--

OYY Pal's Job gave his first therapeutic riding lesson on Saturday- he was awesome ! He will be gradually integrated into the program and used much more often now. Such an honest trustworthy pony.

Sweet Bee also was used on Saturday with a young girl who usually rides Camille. Zoe and I realized as we brought Sweet Bee up for the lesson-- she is the THIRD generation lesson horse- her grand-mother Teena gave lessons, her Mom, Sudie Bee, is one of our best lesson horses... now Sweet Bee will carry on the tradition. Kind of neat !! That will make a great post on my Curly Horse Therapeutic riding blog.

Now- it's November already.. a new month of riding and training-- also time to finish up preparations for winter- draining all the hoses and putting them away. As it gets chillier, I'll have to set out the tub heaters and plug them in. Continue to stock up on wood. It's comforting to be set up for winter-- but I always wonder if I ever will be truly ready ? I guess I can only do what I can.

Enjoy your day ~