July 2025

 This will mostly be Chip photos and memes. July was packed as usual. I am nowhere near caught up. I still have to blog about several riding adventures, including swimming at sunset, exploring the valley for the first time in eons, and Chip's first field trip to Horseshoe Bend. Plus we did a NACMO ride and a CTR. 

This cute guy is growing up way too fast.

Taylor gave us a tour of their farm. I loved the goats, of course.

Very bitey.

Our DnD adventures continue to inspire me to doodle.

His proportions seem to change daily.

The month was plagued with violent storms and lots of flooding.

The pasture got opened up full time.

Chip discovered that he can rub himself on other horses like a cat to scratch his itchy spots.

He's big enough to fasten the girth now. 

Does not care about saddles at all.

Too hot to do anything more than hand graze.

Does this saddle make my horse look small?

He is such a snuggle bug.

Mike and I drove out to Leaser Lake and the surrounding area just to explore. We wound up driving a loop from Leaser Lake to Hawk Mountain and back.

That's not what you want.

More doodles inspired by our night ride. 

One more doodle.

This is the first year the deer have stuck around after spring. We have a lot of older does.

The babies have started to appear too.

Mike and I drove out to Stephens on a rainy day. I wanted to scout some extra trail points. I got out of the car for like a minute and something bit me on the forehead. I thought it was a mosquito. Then my forehead swelled like a golf ball. Then my face and neck got tingly. By that evening, I looked like a Klingon. By the next day, I looked like an inbred cat with a Roman nose. It resolved on its own, but it was rather unpleasant.

We also got to see a bear eating berries along the road.

I took Lucy's mane down for a good cleaning, brushing, and a little bit of a trim. Then back in braids because it's too hot to have so much hair. 

I ponied Chip off of Booger for the first time. She was very tolerant. He was a total pest. After a few laps, I dismounted and let Booger go graze in the corner while I did some ground work with the baby.

We have not officially started to work on lunging yet, but on this day he did a couple circles.

Seriously, all I need to do is not screw him up.

Back out with the herd while I finished my ride without him.

All three of my horses. 

The deer come running when they hear the Rav.

The horses also come up.

I glued shoes on Lucy. Because it's bug season, everyone is stomping. I tried the zip tie trick and it worked very well. The shoes stay pretty well even without being secured in any way, but this gave us more security.

Chip has figured out that Mike gives the best scratches.

Just hanging out in the pasture with the horses. I wish we lived on the same property as the horses so I could spend more unstructured time with them. 

One of each color.

Some days were too hot to do anything other than rinse ponies and hand out snacks.

I put everybody out in Happy's old paddock to get some fresh grass.

Like mother, like daughter.

Somebody had a wild hair this night. 

Zoomies!

This big, smooth, ground eating trot has me excited for the future.

Farrier day! This was Chip's first fan. It was also the first time he got his feet done without me holding him. He loves his farrier.

Unfortunately, we have maimed ourselves again. I have no idea how he did this. Luckily, it's superficial.

A few hours later.

Tail update for those interested.

Juli reached out to see if I'd be willing to do some ground work lessons with Daisy's new 2 year old Fjord, Gest. How could I say no to that? So I gave my first official lesson in almost four years. It felt good to shake the rust off.

On the way home, we ran into this guy with a flat tire on his rented trailer. His wife had gone home for tools, but Mike arrived first. 

The police eventually showed up, but Mike had it almost done by then. 

The rest is memes presented without comment.