Let’s Remember a Bit of Summertime

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Kristy

My mind is preparing for winter. There is nothing I can do to hold it back. Like it or not, it will happen, and according to weather experts, it sounds like it could be one with more snow than usual.

I was looking through my phone today and found these photos. This was a fun evening. Shinanigan had her first experience in the lake and she didn’t love it, but didn’t hate it either. Kaelyn had a great time trying to get her to go deep enough in the water so she would be forced to swim. Each time Shinanigan got deep enough to need to swim, she would turn toward shore, and bounce back onto the beach, with Kaelyn hanging onto her mane for dear life!

We all enjoyed watching the show and finally, watching the sunset.

Basic Horsemanship Honor

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Kristy

My kids are involved in Pathfinders. This is a co-ed club, similar to boy or girl scouts, with an emphasis on service, building friendships, and learning new skills. Each year the children work on various “honors”, giving them an introduction to a wide variety of skills and activities.

I am so proud of my daughter. She has stepped up and is TEACHING the Basic Horsemanship Honor. She completed the honor a while back, and also completed the Advanced Horsemanship Honor. She has owned her own horse/horses for several years, and is quite qualified to head up this group of younger children. As an older teen in the club, they are encouraged to take on more leadership positions, and it’s exciting to see my daughter stepping up to the challenge. It was her idea to teach the honor, and we all just said, “Go for it!!”

This has been a great experience for her, learning organization skills, keeping the kids’ attention, planning games, activities, and quizzes. I dare say she is a natural teacher like her mother and grandmother:) The girls are interested, engaged, and eager to learn.

Here she is quizzing the girls on what they’ve already covered in the past few weeks. When it was time to ask for a volunteer to help with Shinanigan, every single hand shot up and pleading faces looked in her direction!!

Most of the girls saw my daughter ride her horse, Shinanigan, in the fair a few weeks ago, and they all couldn’t wait to see her up close! On this night, the girls were able to brush, lead, saddle, mount and dismount the horse! They all did great and had a super time learning together!

We Left Our Cats in California

Posted on August 21, 2011 by Kristy

When we moved to Washington, we did not bring the cats with us. They were nothing but trouble with the dogs, and we didn’t want any trouble!

But shortly after we arrived, and after one weekend of fun away from the house, we returned to find a mama and 2 wild kittens in our wood pile. My daughter, being just 10 years old at the time, caught the kittens and made them friendly.

Suddenly we had 3 cats, when we didn’t want any cats.

Those 3 cats have multiplied, several times, and I don’t know how many cats we own.

I do know that we own more dogs than cats.

This is Cali.

She is our #1 barn cat. We like her. She’s the mama from the wood pile. We got her spayed.

She is cuddly and loving and affectionate and spayed! Sometimes she comes up from the barn and visits us on the front porch.

We like that! She likes to be scratched behind the ears, and she purrs for us!

And she’s spayed. Did I say that already?

She is a typical cat, lazy, sleeps the day away, and today she decided to take over the puppy photo area. She was sleeping peacefully until I came with a basket of puppies. Then she had to get up, or be mauled by tongues, and bodies, and feet, and wagging tails.

She wasn’t all that pleased. She’s so thankless. “We do feed you, ya know. There are a lot of barn cats that only get mice. You get real food out of a bag. You should be grateful.”

“Why did you name her Cali?” Because she’s a Calico Cat.

We’re creative with our cat names. We also have Black Kitty, Gray Kitty, Orange Kitty Tom, Orange Kitty Mama, and a few un-named ones. They hardly ever come to see us, so I may, or may not ever be able to show them to you.