Sunday Stills: (some pretty random) Sounds

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This was a tough challenge...All the pics were from my archives.

Check out more Sounds "caught" on camera at Sunday Stills!

Horsefly Season

Bonjour, my blogger friends!
No, I'm not in France. I'm still in NY, in the height of the horsefly season. AKA, the WORST time of year ever. Even worse then winter.

Horseflies are JERKS. I was wondering already where they were this year, but now I realize they must just not come out until just before fall. These buggers are HUGE. And disgusting, and PAINFUL. I read up about them a bit; these flies have "scissor-like" teeth that slash open the skin of a horse/cow/person, so that the blood comes out and they can lick it off. It's very painful. Luckily, due to them being so huge, they're very easy to smack and kill. However, I must have killed at least 30 or 40 this season already, and they're still there. Of course.

Riding is kinda a pain right now; literally. I haven't been bit, but I DO NOT want to be. They fly all over and threaten biting you. Yesterday Daisy got bit by one while out grazing, and she was bleeding, so I felt SO bad. Today, I had her out to free-graze, and I listened to her outside the window running back and forth to avoid them. She went in her stall, the only place to avoid them, but came back out; poor girl just wanted grass! I had sprayed her with fly spray already, so I was trying not to watch; I knew she wanted to graze, but I hated the flies.
Then I looked out and saw this:


Daisy doesn't normally go in the garage, but apparently she was about to go in, hoping for some relief. And I found these munching happily on her:

OUCH(just so you all know, I killed all three just after the pic was taken).
SO. I stood there wishing I had a flysheet. I've never bought one, used one, never considered one...but then, like *magic*, I thought of my show sheet! And, voila:

I got it on my birthday a year ago from my cousin, Anika, and planned on using it for showing, to keep Daisy clean...I never ended up using it, though, because Daisy never rolls anyway (yey for me!).
Daisy kinda spook at it, though, as she always does when wearing a blanket for the first time in a little while. Notice how her butt is pulled in; yeah, she spooked BAD, trying to run away from herself :-P lol.

Then she was fine. Fly-free and happy, she got to keep grazing. :) yey!

I must say, I think she looks like she's grazing in a pair of pajamas :-P lol

Soo...I imagine I'm not the only one who struggles with the horseflies....what do you do to keep them away??

Until next time,

Sunday Stills Challenge: The Open Road

I realize these aren't the most impressive pictures, however, I went far to get them ;-).

We have a fair going on in our town right now, and I took these on Friday evening at two different times while at the top of a Ferris-wheel type ride...I think I took the evening picture while the wheel was in motion, hence the blurriness... :)

That's one of the main intersections in our town...

I have more photos up of the "Umbrella Ride" at my other blog, http://lifeoutsidethebarn.blogspot.com

To see more roads all over the world, check out Sunday Stills.

P.S. I've posted my Sunday Stills on Saturday because I have a busy Sunday ahead of me, so I thought I'd put them up early. :)

Happy 11th Birthday, Miss Daisy-Mae!

Today, Miss Daisy is 11 years old. She was born August 19, 1998.
Happy Birthday my Daisy girl!

BTW, for those of you who may notice, those reins *were* new...picture taken about a month ago. They were new and in-use until the day Daisy took off galloping with me using the reins on a halter and the snaps broke :-(...

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About a month ago I bought a box of "All Bran" the cereal, or w/e it's called, and a jar of molasses. Today, I put them to use. I made carrot and molasses bran cookies.

I almost got sick while I was making them. My stomach still feels funny now, just looking at the cookies. The molasses had the most disgusting smell EVER. I really felt like I was gonna lose my lunch :-P. I found the recipe here. The recipe is:

• 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup bran
• 1 cup molasses
• 1 cup grated carrots or apple

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees and oil two cookie sheets.

Put aside a small bowl of white sugar and a drinking glass with a flat bottom.

In a large bowl mix all the ingredients thoroughly. The mixture shouldn’t be too wet, and should stick together.

Add more flour to make the mixture firmer and hold together if necessary. Drop by teaspoonfuls, about 1 ½ inches apart on a greased cookie sheet. Grease the bottom of the glass, dip it in the sugar, and stamp the cookies to flatten them slightly. Bake for about 10 minutes. This makes about 25 cookies, depending on the size. Store in an air-tight container or bag.

I probably should have asked you horse people if you had a recipe...one NOT involving molasses. EW. The cookies turned out ok...they look strange, and although they described them as "crunchy" mine seem more like "rubbery" :-P but I did the ultimate test: I gave one to Daisy. And she ate it with gusto, nodding her head up and down like she does when she REALLY like something and licking her lips...well, as long as she eats them. :-P I have a mounted 4H Yautzy Road Yahoos meeting tonight (I'M RIDING BUBBA AGAIN!!!) so I'm considering taking some for the horses there...but don't want to be laughed at in case those horses don't like it. :-P

BTW, if you make the recipe, you WILL need to add more flour. Either that, or less molasses, I guess...

(My First) Macro Monday: Hanuta and Duplo

This is my first Macro Monday! :D

A friend is visiting us from Germany, and brought these chocolates along; my favorites. My parents are German, and I was the only one in our family to be born in the US, my brothers were born in Germany as well...so I love Germany. :) Whenever we go there, we take a bagful of German chocolate and candy. Yumm! When I was little, I LOVED Hanuta, but I called it "Tanuta" :-P.
Sooo anyway...These days, Hanuta has special joke stickers in it...The one in the picture says "I'm just unhappy with the whole situation..." haha. (I think...it's not that funny. :-P)

Hanuta is a kinda waffle cookie with hazelnut chocolate filling...and Duplo, when opened, resembles a Lincoln log...chocolate on the outside with a crunchy waffle filling. :)

Hope one day you all get to try some Duplo or Hanuta! It's delicious. :)

Check out more Macro pics around the net here!

Saturday, August 15th, Evening Game Show

Daisy and I went to another game show (Gymkhana) on Saturday evening! We had a BLAST. It was an evening game show, started at 5 pm...we finished I think around 9:30 or 10pm. It's been really hot here this week, so it was nice that it was a little later in the afternoon when it was starting to cool down. Daisy was great; better even than at fair, I think. We didn't actually win any great ribbons (so much so that I didn't bother to pick up the ones I did win :-P) but we had so much fun, and that's what counts. She was SO fast; watch that gallop back on the video up there! What a little race pony I have :-P. She LOVES the games; she really does. Unfortunately, I didn't have it filmed, but our cloverleaf pattern was great this time; normally we aren't that great at clover, Daisy doesn't seem to like it, and we end up doing the majority of it at a trot. Not so on Saturday! She kept up a good canter the whole way, a fast one, and even did lead changes. When we turned to race home, she went ALL OUT. She was hauling like crazy; I don't think she's ever galloped like that before! :-P

Be sure to watch her lead changes in the video up there, on our first line weaving :)...and I thought she'd never do that!

Sunday Stills: Clouds

Hey, look who's BARELY getting the post out?!

Yeah, I don't blame you if you miss my Sunday Stills post this week; too busy to post my pics until now...

The first one is of the new guide dog puppy my friend is raising; that cute pup's name is Dahlia :).
The second is the sky, already featured once in my other blog :-P.
The third was taken with my camera phone, which is why the quality isn't THAT good; it's my chicken, Sydney.

Have a great week!
I'll be updating you about my show on Saturday evening tomorrow (hopefully)! :)

Check out more clouds here at Sunday Stills!

Horse Blogger's Meme

So we all love horses. First of all give us the name, age, gender, breed, height and markings of one of your horses. This can be a horse you ride, a horse you own or one you owned.

Name: Miss Daisy-Mae (Daisy)
Age: (On August 19) 11
Gender: Mare
Breed: Quarter horse/thoroughbred cross
Height: 14.2 hands
Markings: Socks on hinds and sock on left front, and crooked blaze w/ snip...her blaze looks like a penguin :-P

We need a visual of that horse. How about a picture standing still and a little description or story to go with it.

This is Daisy on her first day at our farm...or, rather, the first day our farm ever had a horse :-P. Originally, her fence had metal T-posts, but after a week they were replaced with wood posts, and part of her pasture was sectioned off for grazing. The picture above is her in the place where now there are two grass pens...every year she was fine int he pens, but this year she's been colicky each time she went in them...so now I can't let her graze there anymore and I have empty pens sitting there :-/

Now that we have seen a pic how about one of clip clop being ridden. Tell us about the picture.

I look so young in this picture! The first summer I had Daisy I didn't show, so I just had her as a fun backyard trail horse. I rarely do the above anymore; ride in shorts, bareback. I only ride bareback a lot in the winter; summer she's too sweaty. The first summer, I'd ride her in the morning or afternoon, and then in the evening, around 7, after dinner, I'd hop on her bareback and go for our "after-dinner ride" down the driveway...


Show us a head shot and a short story of a time with your horse. Doesn't have to be related to the picture.

Daisy LOVES to beg for treats...she can be food aggressive, but when out of her stall in cross ties she behaves for treats. She's not all "up in your face" pushy for treats. She stands there, stretches her neck out but doesn't move, puts her eyebrows up REALLy high, wiggles her lip, and waits for the treat. She tries to make herself look really cute. But she doesn't push you around; if she did, I'd NEVER hand-feed her, because that just BUGS me.


Horse have any bad habits?

There are miniature ponies that live down our street. Daisy knows that. So she's always trying to get down to see them. This year, my last ride before she got picked up for fair, I tried to ride her left off our driveway onto the road(the ponies are to the right). She told me she didn't want to, but she stepped out. But just a few houses down, she stopped. She does that sometimes; she'll go from walking along to just stopping and not budging. No matter what. Normally, I give her a smack, and eventually make her go foreword; I don't let her just turn around. But where we were stopped that day we happened to be in front of a house with kids playing in the front yard, and they were watching me and Daisy. So I feebly tried to give her a smack, but I didn't want the kids to think I was being mean to her (they were little; wouldn't understand) so I let her turn around and trot past our driveway and go down the road until we reached the minis. Then she gets all offended if you don't let her go right over to see them. So Miss Daisy forced me to get off and walk her back and forth in front of the property, to show her she couldn't go there until I said ok. We went off past the place and did some canter work farther down, and then I let her turn around and visit. The kick? Once she gets there, all excited, she just smells their noses once, then stands there and stares into the distance like they aren't there...I'm like, wow. ANYWAY, the pony she's visiting with above is Jax, the stallion she has a mini-crush on :-P.

A picture of your horse in action (ridden or not)

Daisy and I at county fair this year; one of her wild starts for barrel racing :-P.

Five things your horse likes

1. Being ridden. I keep her alone at home, and if I don't ride her for a day she's sad. I know it. She has her ears pinned 99% of the time when I'm on the ground, but on her back, just walking or trotting along the trail or road, they're never pinned. She's happy.
2. Treats. Apples, carrots, stale bread, sugar cubes, peppermints, skittles, horse treats, animal crackers, etc.
3.Barrel racing. Besides just trail riding (Where she snorts a TON in happiness at the start of the ride) she loves to barrel race. She may have her ears pinned the entire time, but that doesn't mean much; she obviously likes it :-P.
4. Galloping. I always let her go on pretty long gallops on the shoulder of the road and she LIVES for it; she knows it's coming. Her daddy was a thoroughbred; she's definitely got it in her. I haven't galloped her for real in a few days, and today she was really fidgety. I was wondering why, and then it occurred to me that I hadn't galloped her. :)
5.Having her face brushed. I really itch her face with a soft curry, and then brush off the loose hair, and she LOVES it.
Five things your horse dislikes
1.You brushing her chest. BIG no-no. She does NOT like that.
2. Spraying water under her tail. She doesn't always put up a fit, but sometimes she'll kinda curl her hind end in and act offended.(I guess I don't blame her)
3. Other horses near her. She will pin her ears and though she's never done it, I wouldn't be surprised if she kicked them.
4. Tennis rackets. At fair this year, we had to use one, and I thought she'd be fine with it; normally with stuff if she smells it and you let her see it and you talk to her you can talk her through being afraid. NOT with the racket. She was nervous of it the entire time :-/
5. Motorcycles. Those things are SCARY! She's pretty good about them passing her on the road as long as the engine isn't really loud, but she half-reared at the last parade and got really scared because bikers revved their engines. Dumb biker people :-(.

Random picture of your horse and the story behind it.

I got my hair cut about a month ago and I really liked it...so my mom did a photo shoot with me and Daisy and I didn't wear a helmet *gasp*...but she stood SO still when I sat on her like that. A lot of times at shows when I'm waiting for a class (in Western) I sit Indian style on her with my legs crossed over the horn :)

A picture of when you first got your horse.

Not sure if you can tell in the picture, but I have tears of joy on my face because just literally 5 seconds before my mom said the words "Should I write the check?" and I knew Daisy was mine. *Sniff*

Give your horse a kiss and tag a few friends

(the first week that I had her)

If you read this post and you have/had a horse/lease a horse/ride a horse, whatever, feel free to consider yourself tagged and do the Meme! Just let me know you did it so I can read it! And get ready; you need a wide variety of pictures! :)

I got this meme from Sydney at http://bitlesshorse.blogspot.com .

We Have Another Show!

Daisy and I went to a horse show about an hour away with Jean on Sunday and participated in English and Western combined pleasure/equitation, etc, classes. We got 2nd place in Pleasure! :D Out of a lot of people, so that was cool...and 3rd in command...we had to leave early, unfortunately, because of thunderstorms, so we didn't get to the barrel racing :-/...BUT I have another show on Saturday evening! I'm going to ride both Daisy and Sissy in the show so that should be fun! Plus, I'll still be in the same division, just ride twice each time, so I'll be beating "myself" on the different horses :-P

These videos show first the 8 horse trailer our club uses (the most we've used it for is 7 at a time) and the second is Daisy and I running Texas T in July at a show...we're kinda slow there...It annoys Daisy that she can't do Texas T without my help :P.

Sunday Stills: The Elements

The Elements: Fire, Wind, Water, Earth.
I tried... :-P
The sun on the water, the wind making the water ripple, the tree for "earth", and, well..."water" should be obvious.

This is the lake near our home, and where I spent a bit of time at the beach last week. :)

County Fair: Friday; Gymkhana

Gymkhana day is, as always, the very best. The day started out with Egg on Spoon race, which we didn't get first in...we didn't drop the egg, but neither did anyone else in my division :-P so it was all based on time.

Then we had "Feely Mealy" where you have to ride to the end of the ring to two spotters. One holds your horse, the other holds up a cardboard box to you. There's a slit in it to stick your hand in. The box is filled with lots of random objects: batteries, flashlights, pens, hole punchers, corks, bouncy balls, erasers, you name it, it's there. I rode across the ring and was told to find a pine cone, by feel. EASY! It was huge; I finished in 17 seconds, so I won by a landslide...kind of a hollow victory, though, because I had an easy object :P.

After that, Daisy and I really got into it. She was amazing; I never told people I had a "gamer", but now I can! She was a ball of energy at the start line. A few times I had to wait for a minute for the timer to get ready, or to fix the course, and Daisy had to pace back and forth, ready to run. She loves the patterns. Ones like quadrangle and texas t bother her because they're not that simple; it seems to annoy her that she has to listen to me tell her where to go, verses just run it herself :-P. She's great, though. I think there were 12 or 13 classes; we won 7 of them. Bam, bam, bam, we racked up the points. She was awesome. At the end, they have one called Ready, Aim, Fire, where you ride around shooting balloons on the outside of the ring with a squirtgun; that was fun! Daisy didn't know what to make of the balloons, but she was fine in the end.

At the end of the day, we had an awards assembly. Oliver, Jean's son, got Most Improved Rider. "S", who was riding Mouse (From a few posts ago where we went trail riding) got a few high points for the day. Another member who didn't ride this year still got Most Helpful . :)

High point is determined by who got the most wins in a day; the better placings you have, the higher "points" you have. It's pretty special when you get a high point. I ended up getting High Point for Western day (Which I had NO idea I was getting) and Gymkhana (Which I did figure out)!!! That was cool; two trophies. Then I ended up getting the Overall Jr. Division High Point Champion trophy, for high point for the entire week. That's because I rode in almost every class, every day...it's pretty nice to be awarded stuff like that. "S" also got Overall High Point for her walk/trot division. YEY for the Yautzy Road Yahoos! :D I LOVE county fair! It was awesome!

I was overall very impressed with Daisy this year. She was awesome already last year, but this year, without THAT much work, we really improved. She was much less fore-handy, she had her leads correct 98% of the time, and she sidepassed over the ground poles in trail class like they owed her money. She was awesome. She listened SO well. I was soooo proud of her. Plus, for a horse with slightly bad conformation, she looked beautiful. I love how much she's improved apon this last year, and how willing she is. The best horse ever. Maybe not in looks or breeding, but for me, she's perfect.