Moon rise, thoughtful eyes

We got a lovely snow on Wednesday and it was still clinging to the trees Thursday morning for my ride on Pie. The snow melted and is mostly gone now. I uploaded these two photos and could not figure out what the heck was in the foreground left corner. Then I realized that my mother took her gloves off to snap the photos and they are featured prominently! I spend a lot of time cracking up laughing when I see my day's photos.

Pie's ears with the barn in the distance. Foggy and Sovey are two brown blobs in front of the barn.

Our shadow in the snow. Pie shied right after I snapped this one and I flew forward onto his neck and did a face-plant in his mane. It almost was a face-plant into the snow!

Our trails were so beautiful, but the boughs were heavy and low and Pie and I couldn't fit too well underneath most of them. Tons of snow fell off and landed all over his back, my saddle and me. I had planned to ride Foggy too yesterday, but I had to go home because the snow was wet and melting and my clothes were soaked.

Here is a view of poor Pie's butt after the first bough of snow dropped on us. 

Maizie didn't have school on Wednesday because of an in-service day. It happened to snow so she and I listened to music and baked snowy moon cookies - yum!

Here are the Daddy and baby Mock Orange shrubs at our house during the snow.

And this is a view of our moonlit walk to the bus stop on Thursday morning.

In a garage by the motorway

Yesterday morning we had an impromptu winter party at our gate that leads to the Webercroft neighborhood. Here neighbor Bill is to the left and neighbor Russ is framed by Sovey's adorable ears. I love meeting up with them and talking in the spring and summer, but winter time usually means no visiting. This winter has been different because of our great temperatures. It makes you realize why people in the south are so friendly - they have more temperate time in the year for chatting. We northerners are usually squirreled away in our warm homes with great big mugs of coffee!

Bill and his wife recently moved to Webercroft and amazingly, coincidentally, we bought my first bike from Bill back in the 1970's. My mom and Bill's mom taught swimming together then, and now, all these years later, we ended up being neighbors. I loved that bike! It had the banana seat and high rise handlebars of the seventies. I stuck the ubiquitous oval STP sticker right in the middle of the seat.

Here I am on my new bike, the cute Sovey as we head out at the beginning of our ride. It was breezy, but I have on my trail running shoes so you know it can't be too cold! Sovey was a perfect boy. We did lots of trotting and I was able to get him to lower his ostrich head and stretch out for a few circles - no easy task!

Brown woods look tangled and dead, but they'll come back green and lush. I sure hope my pastures do too!

Sorry for the delay in posting about the kind Liebster award bestowed on my blog from Kristen at Sweet Horse's Breath. Kristen blogs about her first horse, sweet OTTB, Lazarus. She and Laz have come so far together and are inspirational to all horse lovers. Thanks Kristen!

Liebster means "dearest" in German and is passed on to blogs with fewer than 200 followers. 

Here are the five blogs I would like to pass the award to - I think you all already won - no worries about doing it again - just enjoy. If you haven't won before you can copy and paste my badge or get the real one online. 

1. Allison's Dream 

2. Travels With Harley

3. Once Upon an Equine

4. A Thousand Pounds of Fragile Horse

5. Calm, Forward, Straight

I may be absent from commenting on all the blogs. Don't worry - I will still be reading your horsey adventures! I started a new horse writing project in December and it is great fun. I am going to try to keep up with my own blog in order to have a journal of what I am doing with the boys.  

All the young dudes

Blurry cell phone camera makes a comeback - this is me on Pie this morning. Lately, it is chilly in the mornings (35 degrees) but then it warms up to near 50. Last Tuesday, it was 60!  I have been having great rides on all my young dudes.

With the warmup, I am able to ride bareback and Friday Sovey went in just a halter. Spoiled boys - spoiled me.  How lucky am I to get to ride bareback in a halter in February in Pennsylvania!?! 

Today was the first day I took Foggy for a long ride off the property. I did use a saddle and the bitless bridle just in case. No need to worry - he was amazing. He loved the diversion. My normal rides are often made up of many loops in our woods and fields. Our farm is surrounded by subdivisions - Brian calls it "Little Central Park" - 40 acres in the middle of developments. So after my Pie ride, I hopped on Foggy and took a small trail to one such development, Sunnyland. We walked down their quiet streets and Foggy was adorable - an absolute dream. He never flinched. If he were fatter, I would ride him off the property and just keep going...