Animals R Us

My mother's love for animals was passed to me (and my dad) and now the kids have the same passion. We were asked by the barn owner to take pictures with the new animals for their website. I'm not sure if we were chosen because of the super-cute kids, our ability with a camera, or because we're there every day anyway. So we took pictures with the goats (kids!), new donkeys and some of the bunnies...oh, and some chickens.

Our other loves at the barn are the five cats that come running to the car when we pull up....could be because we feed them. And we enjoy the 20+ horses, too. We do NOT enjoy the duck. He's just not friendly. He's downright MEAN!

You can see additional pictures of these super stars at www.rrranchlithia.com . There is a GORGEOUS picture of my mom and our horse. Photo credit to me, of course - but I also worked some photo editing on that one. There are some of us who can go to the barn and not get a speck of dirt on us....and then there is my mom. She steps out of the car and has a smudge on her shirt. So I removed the dirt from her shirt and did a little lipo-cropping by shading in her throat a little so extra skin wasn't so obvious. Pretty neat that we can do that, I think. Works to my advantage, too. ;-)

One of the neatest things for me to see is my kids riding my old show horse. Connor is getting the hang of trotting and Austin and Connor have learned balance, how to ask the horse to do things (not yank on the reins), and how to bridle the horse so the horse has balance. So very neat to see them develop. The boys have different riding styles, though. I did not teach them this. Connor sits upright, ready to show. His back is straight and he has perfect form. Austin rides like a cowboy. He slouches and is in tune with every little bump that horse makes.

The boys started riding twice a week as we began rehab on the horse. M Buddy turned up lame over a year ago and we could not figure out what was wrong. He hurt somewhere but we couldn't figure it out. After x-rays and ultrasounds, we found that he had broken two itty, bitty bones in his back legs. When you have 600 pounds of pressure on that leg, it hurts and it's VERY hard to heal. To help build his strength back up, he needed to be walked and walked and walked. The boys volunteered since they weigh relatively little. The horse is just about up to par for his age. He is 22 and we've known this baby since he was 6 months old. We bought him at age two. He's family to us. We treasure the memories we are still making with our Midnight Madness. Horses generally live between 18 and 25 years. We are blessed for all the time and all the fun we have had with him.