Taking It Easy

It was a beautiful day to spend working with the horses.

This is Rascal, Kali's horse.

Actually, Mark worked and I watched.

I spent the morning at the podiatrist having my achilles tendon issue re-evaluated. 

Walking is a major pain right now, so I'm spending a lot of time sitting. 

(This is Gus. Our primadonna, or prima-don as the case may be.)

So I rode out and sat and took some cell phone pictures of the boys. 

Ha! Sawyer is sticking his tongue out at me! 

Actually he was hoping to get some more treats. 

They all were.

Gus always hope for more treats. And he thinks licking the camera will help his cause. Silly Gus!

Then the girls wanted treats. 

No idea why Luna is hiding behind that post!

I swear I think they were plotting against me.

"Let's frolic and be all cute and stuff.

Maybe the lady will give us more treats!"

Sawyer was all like, 

"Grow up, girls!

You have to act all nonchalant, 

like you don't care.

Then she'll give you all the treats you want."

Keep dreaming, Sawyer!

And, back to my ice pack I go.

So Long to Debby!

These are my new feed-the-horses-in-the-monsoon boots!

(Not a good quality picture - sorry - taken with my phone.) We needed to get hay to the horses, so we headed out. What a production! The first thing we noticed is that the road is still a major mess! See the pond where these teens are swimming? That's our road and they are standing up.

Thank the good Lord for our tractor! We were able to travel off-road to get a roll of hay in. Mark only lost the roll off the back of the tractor once - in the road :). Thankfully I was no longer standing on the side of the tractor at that point, because the front of the tractor lifted off the ground as the roll of hay splashed into the river! Uh, road!

The entrance to the fields is still under water, but it isn't quite as deep as it was yesterday. It is starting to receed.

And the front pasture is still under water, although not as deep :).

And in some spots it isn't horrible :).

This is the "higher ground" we moved the horses to. Normally the donkeys have full reign of this area, now all of the animals are housed in this field.

It is always safe to assume that Sawyer is thrilled to see food in any shape, form, or variety! What an awesome picture I got with my phone! I am still afraid to take my nice camera - and good thing when I almost got pitched into the river - uh, road - when we lost the roll of hay!

All in all, a very hopeful day! It didn't rain today - yay!!! The sun was shining for part of the day! The horses are fed, we didn't lose the tractor down a mudhole, and my fancy new boots kept my feet dry! Great day!!! Now, if our friends in Colorado could fare as well. 


Lifting prayers for the Sieberts, Yuens, Rutkowskis, Greens, Craddocks, Schlichtings, Jeubs, Hagoods, and Steve Warren! Several have been evacuated. We are hearing conflicting stories about the house of one family. Praying for safety and a quick end to the fires!

Tropical Storm Debby

This is a test. I am trying to figure out how to post photos from my iphone onto my blog. I think it's going to work - yay!


So. We had a little storm blow through. Actually, Tropical Storm Debby came through and it sat on Florida for hour after hour after hour. It's been raining for so long now. We headed out to check on our horses this morning. This is the main gate leading into the pasture. Mark is standing in water about 9-10 inches deep.

(Instagram picture - hence the frame. Sorry.) Then you move into the fields. What a mess!

Back by the barn is a section of ground that is dry. That's where we moved the horses to. They are now in the back pasture with my donkeys. 

Sadly, this is the road we had to drive down to get to our property. Not even kidding.

That's Scott and a buddy riding a 4-wheeler through the water. There's one place where they lost the 4-wheeler underwater.

Climbing out of the hole in the road. Seriously, it was waist deep there in the middle. What a mess! I've never seen this much water up around the houses and fields. And it's still raining. It's supposed to rain every day this week. I can't even imagine what it's going to be like come Saturday.


All these pix were taken with my phone. Hopefully the quality is acceptable. I didn't want to risk my nice camera out around all the water. Now, back to the art process!

Mobile Shots at the Ranch

We were at the ranch just before sunset tonight. I wish I had my camera there because the light shining through the trees was wonderful. Oh well. Cell phone photography, here we go! The above picture is of Sawyer - with his face in a feed bucket, as usual.

This is Gus, Mark's bad boy. He's actually behaving better lately, so I can't complain.


Rascal. Kali's horse. Kali is coming home in a couple days. I imagine seeing Rascal is going to be one of our first stops!

The Boys

Never let it be doubted. Gus is in charge. All the time.

He keeps watch over everything . . .

. . . and sticks his nose into everything. I say that in love, and it's true.

Rascal is a mite nosey, too. Usually it has to do with treats, food, or the girls.
No one gets near the mini donkeys without Rascal checking it out.


Rascal belongs to Kali :).

If I had a favorite, Sawyer would be it.
But, you know, we're not supposed to play favorites as parents.

Sawyer is always up for a ride. He's probably the easiest of the three to give you a good ride.
Someone pointed out recently (a couple someones, actually) that I hadn't posted any shots of the ranch animals in a long time.
Hopefully today's post will make up for that :).

My Girls

These are my girls. I love them! I'll be glad when it gets cooler outside so I can spend more time playing with them.

This is Mona. She's the boss. Pretty much - haha!

Luna. She was just 15 weeks old when we got her. So tiny and cute! She still had her baby fur.

The only downside to Luna was this - she taught the other two how to bray! Loud braying, too!
Before, Hershey and Mona just made little noises like they had asthma, wheezing noises.
Not anymore! Now all three can bray and make a loud ruckus! So cute!

And they like to eat! This is actually Rascal's food bucket inside a different field.
That certainly doesn't stop the little ones from trying to get to it, though.

Many of you have asked me about the donkeys. Here you see Kali with Hershey, Mona, and Luna.
They are miniature donkeys. In this picture Hershey and Mona - the two on the left - are full grown.
Last time we measured Hershey she was about 29 inches tall - to the top of her back.
Luna has grown a bit since this picture and is now just a bit taller than Hershey and is the same color.
I have trouble telling them apart sometimes, unless they are side by side.
They are a lot of fun! Lately we've been feeding them animal crackers for snacks.
I saw it recommended in my donkey handbook. At least there aren't any donkeys in the animal crackers,
just lots of horses - hahaha!

Getting Married In Style

Awhile back I posted about the In His Wakes banquet and auction. At the silent auction, I won a day with local photographer Brenda Thornton. Part of my day with Brenda was to accompany her on an extended bridal shoot for an upcoming wedding. Mostly I watched and learned, but I was also able to take some shots of my own. The bride, and her family, own some pretty legit vehicles that Brenda incorporated into the shoot. This car was one of two cars - owned by the bride's parents - that were part of the shoot.

Pretty awesome car, immaculate condition! Hopefully before long you will see photos of the bride and groom in front of the church with this car, and also in front of the old county courthouse building - which required the city police shutting down traffic on one block for Brenda's photo shoot to happen.

Dad's tractor. Lots of good pictures with the bride, sitting in the driver's seat. We also used a bicycle, another car (not good with cars, I think it was a ford something, sorry,) and a motorcycle - that belongs to the bride! What a fun shoot! Thanks, Brenda, for letting me tag along, it was a great afternoon!

Tornadoes and Storms

It seems that storms are all the rage now. Literally. All up and down the coast, and across the country, I keep hearing that storms and tornadoes are doing damage, causing injuries and deaths. About a week ago, we had a bad storm of our own. Tornadoes touched down within about a mile of our house. Our area was fortunate, we had some damage to homes, mostly caused by downed trees, and a lot of tree damage and fields torn up. No deaths that I heard about. Like I said we were more fortunate than many others across the country.

Mark and I drove out to check on the horses and donkeys. The first thing we saw were some seriously dirty horses!

The front field was covered in standing water and mud . . .

. . . and I think all three horses must have been rolling around in it. Filthy!

This was the next thing we noticed. No. Not the chickens. (They belong to the neighbors, but live in our field with our animals. They are always there.) We noticed the hay ring - the top half had been mangled up, stanchions were twisted, and the whole thing was basically coming apart. We ended up breaking the top half off the rest of the way so the horses wouldn't get hurt on it.

I mentioned chickens. They live with our animals and eat the feed they drop on the ground. But that doesn't mean that Gus has to like them. Notice the way Gus has his ears penned back. He is not happy.

But seriously. What's not to like about this beautiful little guy? Gus just doesn't want to share his food! Hahaha! Maybe with all the rain from the storm our grass will start growing again.