Sun Lit Evenings. . .

Yesterday evening I wandered outside and picked a bucket of fresh grass for Chester. He really wanted to graze and was a little bored. I eventually just let him out to graze up by his yard. (That's was where the white fence was.) 

But before I let Chester out, he munched on the grass I had picked. The sun was starting to sink behind the hill and was warm and beautiful. I sat there with my pony as he munched on the fresh grass. It was a sweet little moment I had with Chester. 

Afterwards I went to pick him another bucket and he started nickering and whinnying at me for more grass. That's when I decided to just let the pony out to graze on his own. :) (There's no way I could pick enough to fill that stomach!) ;) He enjoyed it immensely and grazed until his dinner time. And of course he was right on time for dinner- he ran up and stood in front of his feeder. Because he wasn't going to miss out on grain!

   

The sun was quite bright, but it felt so good.

~Shadows~

Sunlight and horses never get old. 

.....Swish.....

Lets Just Be Who We Really Are

A couple weeks ago my sister had a friend over for a photo shoot. The girl had made a costume and wanted pictures with her costume and a horse. And...I have a horse. :) So my sister got to practice her photography and I got to hang out and watch them take pictures. Then when it was time I got Chester ready and worked with them as they took pictures with him. Afterwards, my sister snapped a few pictures of Chester and I just being ourselves. I think we got some really fun ones.

Chester being his sweet gentle self.

I'm giving him a treat. He's so fuzzy!

(Nummm, I love peppermint treats!)

He was sooo good!

This is one of the best. I love it!

Then he thought (as he does every once in awhile, silly boy) that one of the chains on the hackamore bridle was supposed to go inside his mouth, like a bit. It doesn't, of course. There are two chains that go under his chin. 

                                           Uhhh...do you have any more treats?

 Uhh, Malory I think this chain is supposed to go in my mouth. No, Chester, I have told you before that does not go in your mouth. Smarty pants...

Me loves my pony! 

There is nothing new and exciting on the horse front here. It rained really hard here for about two  weeks straight so the ground is super soft and my round pen is a lake. Chester's exercise consists of walks in the front yard and hand grazing on the hill. I did get on him before the rain came and trotted around in the front yard a little bit. I do love that about Chester. That I can let him "sit" for a little while and still get on him and he's fine. He can get excited to be out and have energy to use, but he's not totally crazy. 

Our farrier moved to another State, so we are getting a new one. He's scheduled to come out on the 24th. I'm not nervous about Chester, (I know he will do great) I am excited to see how it goes and wondering how it will all be though.

 The Lord provided our first (and only so far) farrier at the perfect time. Before we had a horse, he and his family visited our church and we had them over for lunch. Come to find out he was a farrier. We mentioned that we had goats that needed their hooves trimmed and that we weren't the best at it. He was like, "I do goats too!" So we all marched out to the goats and he showed us how he did it while trimming up one of our goats that had hooves that grew about an inch a day. He actually flips the goats and then "sits" on them to trim their hooves. (His wife assured me that doing it that way doesn't hurt the goat. That was nice to hear.) :) 

He gave us his business card and we kept him in mind. Well, four to five months later we got Chester and we called him up and he has been our farrier ever since. One visit shy of three years. He was a great farrier and will be missed. 

In the meantime, Chester and I have high expectations for this new farrier. ;) We like quality work and a good friendly attitude.  

 

 It has been super cold lately so Chester is a HUGE fuzz ball. Like a fuzzy teddy bear. Haha, I will have to take a picture of him with all his fur sticking straight up. 

I hope you all have a great week! Blessings to all!

                          This is me enjoying the cold weather and a hot drink. ;)

Silly Fun

I love this picture right now! It's clear, it's unique, he's not in a "perfect" stance, I put a filter on it, and it just looks so good! I LOVE it! =)

This one is just a fun goofy picture. I got the idea from Kalin. (Thanks Kalin!) ;) I think it's fun to have some random photo shoots with your horse. Whether nice pictures, goofy pictures, fun pictures or even everyday pictures. =) They help keep those memories and fun adventures alive! You all should know by know that I LOVE pictures! I take tons of them! I can't just take one! =)

Here's the first try at it and it didn't turn out as good. I think it's kinda fun that he has his tongue out though. =)

Do you guys have any fun ways or pictures you take with your horse?

Oh, and by the way, I changed my instagram account to @wind_sparrow. Do you guys like that? For the life of me, I could decided on a name! I didn't know whether I should go goofy, serious or something that has to do with my name. Too many choices! :) I'm sticking with wind sparrow for now though.

Sunday Pictures!

The farrier came this morning; SO glad that it's done for another two months! You know what's weird though, is that when you have something scheduled for two months away, those two months fly by!
It's crazy how that happens. It seems like he comes more often then six times a year. Which, he could if we did seven weeks instead of eight weeks, here or there. But anyways! =)

Chester did great! He hadn't had breakfast so he could have been a little more patient. But he did really good. I haven't before, but today I decided to stick some peppermint treats in my pocket to give him while he had his hooves done because he hadn't had breakfast. He really enjoyed them and gobbled them up! At one point, since I wasn't giving him any more, he started giving me kisses and wouldn't stop. He was trying hard to get more treats and he knew that normally if he came me a kiss he would get a treat. =) He was so cute!

One Sunday I went out with my sister and took some pictures with Chester. We didn't really have a nice camera so a lot of them were blurry. Yet, we did get some good ones and thanks to Fotor I put some tints/filters on some of them and that really helped! =)
First I'll get the selfies out of the way! You gotta have those! (Actually, a little side note here, I didn't take selfies until I had a horse...hmm.) =)

                                                  "Can I please have a treat, mom!"

                                            Cheese! "Does that camera give treats?"

                                             See the mud? Uh-huh. Yep. Washington.

That's my boy! Tongue is always out! =) Right there he looks like he was licking and chewing. Sometimes though he just leaves it hanging out. (He's SO cute!)

                                                         " Hey there...I'm cute!"
                                                             

Annies Asteroid

I have been a slacker....I know. But when there are horse adventures to be told, I will tell.
I did have someone over the other day that wanted to brush up on their horse grooming and tacking skills. Chester did great! He did try to sneak off when I was busy talking to someone....but I saw him. ;)
I "weighed" him the other day with my weight tape, and he has gained about 100 pounds since the last time I "weighed" him which was maybe a year ago? I can't remember. =)
He actually doesn't like the weight tape. So after he ran around his yard not letting me get within twenty feet of him, I set down the weight tape and got his halter and he submitted to me. When he has his halter on he switches from a free roaming pony in his yard, to, a pony that's like, ok what are we going to do?
I do groom him free though....I don't always put on his halter when I'm doing stuff with him in his yard. Anyways, back to the weight tape. Once I had him standing there I put the weight tape around his heart girth area and lined it up and what not. I wasn't sure what numbers to look at so I read the directions out loud while holding the tape on him. He wasn't super comfortable but he was standing there quietly and being a good boy. As I was reading the directions a loud I came across, "make sure the horse is not holding it's breath." I looked at Chester and asked, "are you holding your breath?" He was looking straight ahead, not moving a muscle, eyes open a little wider then normal and wasn't blinking. I told him, "I think you're holding your breath".  He did great and I was able to finish and when I was done gave him some peppermint treats. (Actually, before I "weighed" him, I gave him a peppermint treat in the same hand that I was holding the scary white thing.) =)

I then went on to de-worm him. He did great for that too. I'm not an expert at giving him stuff orally. He was totally relaxed about oral stuff when I got him but has since taken to not liking it. I think it might be because I'm "newer" at it? It's not that hard to do though....so maybe not.

Alright, you are probably wondering what Annies Asteroid as to do with this post. Well, I wanted to share a game with you all! It's called Annies Asteroid. My dad made it! You can down load it for free off Itunes. It's made for a phone or Ipad, so if you don't have one I don't think you can get it. (If you don't have a phone I totally understand. I just got my first phone a few months ago, and I'm eighteen.) =) If any of you check it out or get it, let me know what you think! Go Here to see it.
 I think it's really fun and can get addicting once you get the hang of it. Please pass on the word! Enjoy!


                           

Wait, Whuuuuut?!?

This past week, inspired by some of my blogger friends, I emailed the past owner of Chester and asked if he had any pictures of Chester or knew of anyone that would. He emailed back and said he had some somewhere, that he would send my way. I also asked him if he knew Chester's birthday.. When we bought him he was sixteen and now he is "eighteen".
So, he told me his birthday was April 13th. I was like, oh that's coming up! My next thought was, what year was he born? They guy was already on it and had sent me his pedigree. I opened it up and started to figure it out as I have never really (maybe one other time) looked at a pedigree before.
His barn name was Shorty when we bought him but I renamed him, Chester. We didn't think Shorty was such a "loving" name....but, come to find out his "legal" name on his pedigree is Valiant Mr. Shorty! I thought that was a pretty neat name; better then just Shorty. =) His name is actually a mix of his mom and dad. His dad's name was Sold Short, and his mom's was Valiant Quest. I thought that was really cool! There was no picture of his dad, and it said that there was a picture of his Grandfather but the picture won't pop up. =( But, I do have a picture of his great-grandfather! I think there is a big resemblance! His face looks like Chester and even his back end is shaped like Chester's! =)
Here, have a look!

                                                       Chester's great-grandfather

Ok, I know Chester has his winter coat on here so he's not shiny like Top Deck. But I think their faces look alike.

                                   In this picture he has his summer coat on so he's shiny. =)

                                                 This is a picture of his great-grandma

Here are some more pictures of grandfathers....

Great, great-grandfather

Great, great, great-grandfather

And I think we'll stop there. =)

Well, I did find this guy down the line and thought he was a nice looking one. He's a big guy! =)

Back to the pedigree....after I found out his pedigree name, I saw the date he was born. 1992. Yep, my horse is four years older then I thought he was. I thought he was 18 turning 19 sometime this year. Well noooo, he's 21 turning 22 in a few weeks! The main reason I was in "shock" was I lost four years I thought I was (possibly) going to have with my horse.
The thing is, if we knew that Chester was 19 years old when we bought him, we wouldn't have bought him. And I wouldn't have the wonderful horse I have now. I would have never met Chester. I would have never met and own the best horse in the world! God knew that he was older all along and yet He had him picked out for me and provided the right horse, nineteen year old Chester, for me. So even if I'm in "shock" finding out my horse is now definitely "an older horse", as my brother put it, "he is still the perfect horse for you." I agree!

Little Letters

Dear Followers: Thank you for being so awesome.


Dear Chester: Why do you have to be so stinkin cute?


Dear Saddle: Don't worry, your turn will come. Just keep on looking really cool.


Dear Round Pen: I want to use you so bad. But when you are full of puddles and silky mud it's really hard to.


Dear Blog: Sorry I haven't been faithful to you. You see, there isn't anything real exciting, horse wise, at the moment.


Dear Grass: You're back from a long winter's rest. As I watch you grow, feel free to fill my hills with lushess long arms for my pony to munch on.


Dear Wind: When I feel you on my face I can tell summer is on it's way. Please, do help it along it's way and get it here real soon.


Dear Birds: I've missed your songs you sing all summer long. I'm so glad you're back.


Dear Garden: I see you growing through the soft brown dirt and am so glad to once again nurture you as you grow.


Dear School Books: I am can see the light at the end of the tunnel and will once again be saying farewell; and this time it will be the last.


Dear Shiny Pony: I'm coming, I really am. I'm looking forward to the warm summer day's when I can ride you bareback with the sun on our faces and a breeze at our back.


Dear Winter Coat and Boots: Your turn is almost over.


Dear Lovely Cowboy Boots: You will soon be put to work. The work entails a horse, so don't worry, it won't be boring.


Dear Lawn Mower: We shall soon be close friends, once again.


Dear Iced Coffee and Iced Tea: Sorry Tea, I already had an iced coffee on a really warm day so I will have to figure out a time to have you.  


 Dear Sunshine: Please hurry!


Dear Rain: I love you, but do hurry up and leave. You have made our property so so wet. And I can't do anything when it's wet.


Dear Clear Night Sky: You. are. amazing. I could stare at you for ages.


Dear Moon: You are beautiful. 


Dear God: You are awesome and I love you. Lord, I need you, oh, I need you. Every hour I need you.

Tuesday's Special!

I got this super cute idea! Every Tuesday I will "tack" up on my blog random pictures. And I won't necessarily say anything. Like, Wordless Wednesday. But a little different....because I don't want to do Wordless Wednesday. =)
Here are the name ideas that I have; Tack Board Tuesday, Tack Up Tuesday, Tacked Up Tuesday
TB Tuesday or Tack Board Ts. What do you all think? What one do you guys like best? Any ideas?

Here is a tack board picture!
Note: I am still figuring out how the pictures are going to be "tacked" up. I might try a few different ways before I decided on the, one way, I will do it each time.

Guess What?? I'M SO EXCITED!!

I am so excited to tell you guys this! I got a round pen! What does that mean? That means; I have a confined area for the first time ever to work Chester in on our property, I can work him more often, we will both be safer, I can work with him in more ways now, and my wild pony can use up his energy!!!

                                                                        Here it is!

                                                                          It's 40 ft.

                                       It's used but really nice!! I'm so happy and excited!
Every time I think about the stuff I can do with him in the round pen, I get excited! I can now work with him loose and don't have to have him on a lead or lunge line.

                           When the sun starts a shining, this round pen's gonna get a lot of love! =)

 Here is a picture so you can see how it is relative to the other parts of the our yard. That's the garden fenced in over there. 

                             Here, I'm taking the picture from up on the hill that our house is on.

 Now, I'm down by it looking back up there. I was standing on the hill to the right of the house. You can see a little bit of Chester's fence and barn up there.

                                                                Lovely round pen!!
    (Oh, that's our play house over there to the right.)

 When we got home, Chester came over to his fence and watched us unload the round pen from the trailer. Then he stayed out there when we set it up. He's one smart horse!
We are planning on putting sand in it. But we're taking it one step at a time! =)

Day Fifteen

Day Fifteen- If you could say something to any one horse, what would you say?


Hmmm....this could be a hard one. Well, is a paragraph something? haha 

To any one horse; I would choose Chester and say, I love you. Because in those words, mean so much. It's not just, I love you, it's; I love being around you, doing things with you, I'm glad your mine, I care for you, ect.
I would also tell him, that all I want is to be his friend, companion and to be a team together.

I if were to say something to all the horses in the world, now that would be different. I would probably say, "We're not trying to hurt you, we're trying to communicate with you, take care of you and be your friends." I don't know if that would be weird or not, but other then that I don't know what I'd say. Or is that just an obvious one that everyone would say?

                                          Isn't this guy too cute?? He's adorable!

Day Fourteen

Day Fourteen- Your dream barn/farm.


I don't know if I have a dream barn or farm. I love ranches and I know I love the big red barns. Ok, so I do have a dream barn and farm. = ) Maybe we'll sum it up with, a ranch. Would that work? = )

I would love a barn like this! With lots of stalls, a high roof and a windmill next to it! Oh, and notice it's sunny with no mud!! = )

                   This is a cool barn too. But I don't know if I would want to use it every day.

 My dream barn/farm isn't this perfect picture. I like things loved and used. Here is a picture that I found and for some reason I love it. I think it's because it's used and it's not perfect. It's loved.
I do like a clean barn/farm though. I keep my barn very clean. So in other words, if this were my barn, I would probably clean it up a little bit. = )

I couldn't find a picture of a farm I liked or I would want to have as my dream farm. Just think of a dusty ranch with horses, a couple lazy dogs, (but ones that are willing to work) = ) some cats, other animals, and the smell of fresh baked bread coming out of the kitchen window. You should find me somewhere on that ranch; whether out riding my horse or in the kitchen baking. = )

Day Eight and Nine

Day Eight- A little about the barn/stable you are at.  

I am very happy to say, I keep my horse at home on our small farm. He has his own shed/little barn. It's a two stalled barn- with an open stall for him and a tack/feed stall. It was custom made by my dad and me, so it fits us both for our sizes. (If that makes sense.) So if I was another foot tall I would have duck to get into the tack room and also Chester wouldn't fit too well if he was a 16 hand horse. = )
We both love it and Chester stays nice and dry through our wet winters. Sometimes he doesn't even come off his rubber mats. When I feed him he will manage to turn around to say hi, turn and have his head in front of the feed stall door, and then turn back into his stall with out touching the mud. Pretty smart. = )

He has a small yet good sized yard. Mostly fenced in with wood fence but still some electrical fencing, as we haven't finished the wood one yet. He respects both types of fences; which is nice.  

 In the summer I put him out in our field, we have a small one closer to our house and then a big one farther out. I usually have him in the closer one because when he's out in the farther one he is icealated from everyone and doesn't like that. Which, I could work through that but there is plenty of grass in the "First Field", as we call it.

Here is the most recent picture I have of our horse barn.

                      This is from down the hill a little bit. On the path that go's to the main gate.

I wanted to show you guys what it looked like when we first got Chester. It was definitely cleaner and there was no mud! = )

We hadn't finished the upper door on the tack room when we got him.

                                             A couple hours after we brought him home.

He didn't want to walk on the rubber mat. So we took his hay out of the feeder and put it closer to him. This was hours, well maybe one hour, after we got him.

                         Then some pictures from last spring when we added on more roof.

                                                              Further down the hill.

                                                               A little up the hill.

                                              You can see the goat barn below, there.

      I love this picture- Chester's like, "Are you done taking pictures? Can I please eat in peace?!"



Day Nine- Any injuries you've gotten from riding

I haven't gotten any injuries from riding and I hope that I never get any serious ones. = )
Or any at all for that matter! lol