Ava's 4th Riding Lesson

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Today was my grand-daughter's 4th riding lesson at our barn.

She begins by going to get him from his stall after she puts her helmet on.

Of course Stephanie is with her the whole time.

Then she grooms him and helps get him saddled up.

She is learning all the names of everything.

Preacher is calm and patient and gentle.

She got to jog today for the first time.  She giggles and loves it.

I'm praying that she continues with her weekly lessons.

Here's a little video of her jogging.
(I forgot to turn lights on so video is a little dark)

              

I wish I could've started lessons at 6 years old!!!

Shirley

A Treat For My Girls

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I got my chickens a forage cake and gave it to them today.

It has good chicken treats in there like scratch and corn etc.

They were very hesitant at first but finally pecked at it.

It was warm this morning (40) but got really windy and dropped about 10-15 degrees.

I like spending time with my animals at home as well as my horses at the barn.
Someone asked me if my chickens have names.  Of course I named them!  After all. I'm the only mother they ever knew since I got them at one day old.  : ))
The two golden ones are Martha and Molly, the black and white one is Dottie, the white one is Lily and the dark brown one is Eggo.  Actually the white one and the dark brown one are the same breed, just different colors.  They are Easter Eggers and they give me the green and bluish eggs.

Shirley

My Ugly Trail Contest Run!

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Well, I didn't exactly do well in the trail contest.  : ((

Preacher was acting up and I completely forgot about trying to do everything FAST.

Even though I felt calm, I was more worried about making it through all the obstacles alive!

(Especially after Preacher reared!)

Here's the video of my run which actually took 12 min 41 sec!!!

The winning ride was a young girl on a haflinger pony with lots of experience in these types of things at 3 and a half minutes!!  (Gives you an idea how slow my run was!!)

And I thought this was going to be so easy!!!  HA!!!!!!!!!!

Oh Well, it was fun anyway.

Shirley

Another Kids and Chickens Video!

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My grand kids were to visit on Saturday and they are fascinated with the chickens.

Ava is 5 and Jack is 3. 

They like to visit Nanna's little "Square Acre Homestead"!

I bet they'd really love it if I got a couple little pygmy goats!!

Sweet, sweet, Sweet!

Shirley

The Chickens and the String Cheese

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This is the first time I offered the chickies some string cheese for a treat.

(Click on YouTube to see it bigger.)

I can't find any worms in my soil.  It must be because it's been so dry!

But I think the chickies may think these are worms!!

Funny little creatures!

Shirley

Getting Back Into Riding

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Echo has been in training with Stephanie and Sarah this summer.  Besides working on his phobia about things on the ground, Stephanie has been working on polishing up his attention to our aides and getting him more collected etc.

(To watch it bigger, click on YouTube)

Here is his jog with Stephanie

And his nice canter departure he is developing.  I really like that.  He used to just leap into it!

I rode him after she was done.  And today was my first lesson since early summer and the heat wave hit us!  It was a great lesson and Echo feels so much better.

The temperature today was perfect.

Shirley

First Video Blog, Boxwood

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I'm trying something new.  I thought I would do a post with a video instead of just printed words and photos.

Please let me know if you like it and if I should do more once in awhile.

Thanks!

Shirley

Today at the Barn

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Today at the barn I took the herd of horses that Echo and Preacher go out with and ran them around. They had a lot of pent up energy. Echo was full of it. I wish I had thought to take a video 5 minutes before this one but I was trying not to get trampled!!

After they had calmed down. That's Preacher behind Echo.

Shirley

A Girl and Her Horse

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My daughter and her horse Satire have something extra special. This weekend a friend of Michele's shot this video/slide show for Michele. It shows the strong connection the two of them have.

Kristi Gay is a photographer who comes from Indiana to be a second shooter when Michele does wedding photography. She stayed an extra few hours on Sunday because she wanted to do this for Michele

Thank you Kristi.

Video and photography by Kristi Gay

(If you click on the address right below the picture window, it will show a bigger version of the movie.) (Turn off my blog music as this has it's own.)

Michele & Satire: Fusion photo/video slideshow from Kristi Gay on Vimeo.

Bella Vita Studios
bellavitastudios.com
bellavitastudios@gmail.com
260-440-3889 studio/office
260-438-7246 cell

A Younger Satire

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This is dedicated to Satire. We love remembering how wonderfully he moved when he was a little younger. He's 25 years old in this video. He's 33 now and is completely retired and on stall rest for now because of his ligament damage.

You're beautiful either way Satire!

(Please turn off blog music as this has it's own.)

I'll be linking up this post with Chari at Happy to Design for "Sunday Favorites".

http://happytodesign.blogspot.com/

To see more about Satire's problems see "Updates".

http://shirleys-world.blogspot.com/2011/05/updates.html

Thanks,

Shirley

Kids and Horses

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This past Tuesday, my son Carl and his wife Linda brought my grandkids, Ava (4) and Jack (2), out to the barn to play with the horses.

Michele was there too and led Satire around with them aboard bareback. Carl rode Echo and they both got rides in the arena and out in the little paddock.

It was a fun day!!

Riding for Fun, Easter 2011

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Fun At The Barn

I was trying to steer him with just my seat position. He does pretty good.

Echo loves to play ball.

When Echo got tired, we decided to ride him bareback. Michele is used to doing this.

Me, on the other hand am not! My balance isn't near as good as it used to be! (And when you don't have stirrups, your balance better be good!) A horse is slippery!

Below is a little video of today.

My daughter Michele and I always ride together on holidays. Today I wasn't having Easter dinner so we went to the barn.

Satire's Amazing Recovery. Christmas 2010

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Echo Free Jumping, Christmas 2010

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The Running of the Little Remuda

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This video has music so shut off the blog music before playing.

Enjoy.

Shirley

The Little Ones

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Little Bite Meets Our Herd

Here is a cute little video of out horses meeting the pony and the mini at the new barn.

*Please turn off my music because the video has it's own music about 30 seconds into it.

Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXKyCwzOBzk

Shirley

Satire in the Spring, Video

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This is one of our most favorite videos of our first Arab named Satire. It was taken in 2005 when he was 25 yrs old! He's 30 now and still going strong. Arabs are like that you know!

Before clicking on the YouTube video please turn off my Playlist music on the right side bar near the top, as this video has it's own music. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/user/scorwin814#p/a/u/0/j09o71cZwoA

Happy Easter,

Shirley

Re-Riding Echo

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This is Sunday Favorites. It's hosted by Chari at: http://happytodesign.blogspot.com/

Be sure to stop over there and see everyones favorite posts.

I'm putting this back on as this is what I'll be doing Sunday when you watch this! I know it's only been about a month since this was first on but this is what I love. I'm sure a lot of bloggers didn't follow me back then. So enjoy; this is me and my youngest horse Echo.

Went to the barn today. I spent the day letting horses run in the arena as it was muddy out in the pastures. I ran a little herd of 6 of them around to let them get some exercise out of their stalls. Thought you might want to see a video of me on Echo a couple months ago. My daughter was taping and incidentally she took this beautiful photo of him. Below is the link to YouTube.

By the way turn off the blog music before you watch YouTube as it has music too. ( The play list is near the top under my profile.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22f9aung8nA

You might also want to see my daughter's photography site:

http://www.mzezulakphotography.com/

Thanks and enjoy!

Shirley

Riding Echo

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Went to the barn today. I spent the day letting horses run in the arena as it was muddy out in the pastures. I ran a little herd of 6 of them around to let them get some exercise out of their stalls. Thought you might want to see a video of me on Echo a couple months ago. My daughter was taping and incidentally she took this beautiful photo of him. Below is the link to YouTube.

By the way turn off the blog music before you watch YouTube as it has music too. ( The play list is near the top under my profile.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22f9aung8nA

Thanks and enjoy!

Shirley