Gracie's First Jump!

Gracie and Gemma made their first official jumps today on Shadow! It was so exciting. I was a nervous wreck but it turned out to be no big deal. But I'm still nervous about those higher jumps. Thank God they only go up in small increments! Hopefully we'll get a picture of Gemma jumping tomorrow. Their courage continues to amaze me!

The Jump

The Approach

She failed the first attempt.

First successful jump!!

Ahhhhh.......

This was the view out of my laundry room window this morning! The land of the Good Life!

Good Life's Golden Daisy Mae

Introducing "Good Life's Golden Daisy Mae!!" "Daisy" for short. We picked her up on Sunday and she is staying here at our house until she is potty and crate trained. Then we'll move her out to the farm. (I wanted to potty and crate train her because I'm anticipating alot of "sleepovers!")

I wanted to call her "Sunny", Scott wanted to call her "Sophie"..... but the kids insisted on Daisy. She's as cute and sweet as she can possibly be and seeing the kids with her these past couple days has been priceless. I'm just trying to soak up every second of it because they grow so fast! (the dog and the kids!) Click HERE for more photos of our first day with Daisy!

Ketta's Stormy Night

Geesh....it seems like my blog is becoming a horse blog!! Lots of horse activity for sure! I showed up to feed the horses this morning and look what I found! This is Part 1. To see more, you can click PART 2, PART 3 and PART 4! To see the still photos, click HERE! Aunt Karen plans to sell this filly because we have a "no more mares" policy on the farm but Gracie is not handling it too well. She cried all the way home, begging me to buy her from Aunt Karen. She's offered to do 10 chores a day for $10/week allowance! Ketta (the mare) was born one day before Gracie so Aunt Karen has always called her "Gracie's horse". Gracie is wailing things like "It's not fair! This is Ketta's only baby! This is MY horse's baby! How can you do this to me? They are part of our family!" Ugghh.....how do you explain these things to a 9-year old? Karen, you need to hurry home and help me deal with this!

Pony Club Rating Day

The girls passed their D1 rating today. They are now qualified to compete in local and regional competitions and clinics. They picked out the song for this video. I LOVE the chorus....."life's what you make it, so let's make it rock!!". Girls.......YOU ROCK!

The Gelding of Jack

Remember Jack? The little yearling that was bit by a stallion? Well Jack's been getting a bit frisky this spring so we knew it was about time to have him gelded. I'm sure Aunt Karen would have rather waited until she returned from Japan but unfortunately late June is a terrible time for gelding due to the heat and the flies. So.....she entrusted the little guy to us once again and we accompanied him to Aurora, NE to Dr. Dennis Smith for his "procedure"! We wanted to wait until his wound was about closed so his body wouldn't have to work overtime trying to heal TWO wounds.

The whole process was quite fascinating and of course I had my camera along so for you brave souls, I've included pictures of the procedure HERE. For those of you interested in the scientific details, I've included captions under the photos. Once you're in the album, if you hold your cursor under the photo, you can read the entire caption. It never ceases to amaze me how different veterinary medicine is compared to human medicine (no sterile field, no pain meds etc.).

And, by the way, Jack's bite wound is almost completely healed. There is a small area left but it has finally filled in with new tissue and no longer requires a dressing. The vet said within six months the hair will probably even grow back!!

Backyard Shots

Scott got some great shots of the kids in the backyard. Click HERE to see the whole role!

Happy Memorial Day!

We decided not to make the annual trip to Buckhannon, WV this year where my mother's family gathers for reunions and Memorial Day services. Instead, Scott caught up on yard work, played with the kids and today I harvested spinach and four different kinds of lettuce from the garden. Then, we all headed into town to our house for burgers and brats.....oh, and fresh salad of course! The garden is really starting to take off! Unfortunately, so are the weeds.

Here I am tasting my first picking of spinach and lettuce! Yum!

I caught this photo of Grandma's watering can hanging from a branch on a tree.

Spring Views Around the Farm

I took some pictures around Grandma and Grandpa's farm house today. It was the perfect spring day! This is where we spend alot of our time, especially now that school is out AND the garden is taking off. Scott's mom is coaching me on my first organic garden! It's been awesome to have her right there to ask questions and guide me through the process. Some of you already saw these on Scott's Facebook page but if you haven't seen them yet, you can view more photos HERE.

Shadow's Arrival and First Day

Shadow arrived safe and sound at 9pm in the evening on Gracie's birthday! She didn't drink much on the trip over from Virginia so she was a bit dehydrated, but she bounced back quickly. You can see pictures of Shadow's arrival and first day on the farm HERE.