Who's that Girl? Who's that horse?

Well it's Equestrian Girl riding Bodi - a big Standardbred that belongs to a friend at the barn who let her take him for a test ride the other night.  He's definitely not a Stanley!

Stall Friends

This is Slimmy - he's Stanley's new next door neighbor.  He's an older Morgan but very sweet and has nice owners.  He looks a little weird in this picture with a white eye!

And this is Nikko.  He's a new Hanoverian that came to the barn a few weeks ago. He's as sweet as they come and loves affection.

He especially loves Equestrian Girl.  He gives her kisses.

Yes, More Deeetroit Sunrises!

This was the other morning - the whole sky was glowing so bright that the inside of the building looked pink!

This set of three were on Friday, March 23rd but they are in reverse order. Something about 75 degree spring days that make for beautiful sunrises!

Taking a Spring Dip

This is Carmen.

 We were sure she was going to roll in the giant puddle we fondly call Superior Lake.

 Instead she just scared of the ducks and tried digging to China.

I am so glad this isn't Stanley's idea of fun!

Spring? Yep.

Those little dots all over my car.  Bugs.  Seriously, why do they love my little Alien so much?  I didn't see ANY on the other cars parked around me!!

Happiness is...a horse and girl

Equestrian Girl and Stanley were enjoying a drink of sunshine on a beautiful, 80 degree Saturday afternoon - on St. Patrick's Day.  That's March 17 and yes, 80 degrees in Michigan.

They caught me watching them and started to ham it up.

Aww...huggies for the horsey!!

And then it was time to teach Stanley some Yoga moves...but his attention was out the door where dinner was being served.

Tornado Weather

This is bound to go down in history as the funkiest winter we've ever had.  Hardly any snow and warm, warm, warm temperatures.  I mean seriously, 80 degrees in the FIRST half of March?  More than a week in the 70's?  But with the warm comes the storms and the first one of the "spring" (if you can call March 15th spring in Michigan) was a doozy.

This was the sky looking north just after the tornado sirens stopped.  At the time, we didn't know that the tornados had hit Dexter, one town over from here.

My friend's parent's were smack in the middle of it and had a lot of damage to the barn and trees but luckily the house was fine.  The barn is pretty much totaled - the roof is gone and most of two sides.

The piles of debris and trees was amazing.  Part of their neighbor's garage was in this pile.

This is three days into the clean up.  An amazing about of wood has been cut up and stacked everywhere.

 Their big goal was to clear a path so they could get the semi truck out of the back yard so Sheri's Dad could work again.  That got done!

So many big beautiful trees all gone in the blink of an eye.

When you lose so much in such a little amount of time it really makes you pause to think about what's important in life.

Our Champion

In consideration of all their hard work the past 3 years, Equestrian Girl and Standards Gold Watch won their Versatility Award!!  This is only awarded when the horse and rider combination have achieved a certain number of points in each of 4 classes showing they are able to compete in a variety of classes.  It's quite an achievement!

They also won their first Superior in Showmanship!

IEA Travel Clothes

Equestrian Girl got her travel clothes for her IEA Team just in time to wear them at Findlay.  She has one more meet at the end of March where they should come in handy too - especially the heavy coat if it's as cold there this time as it was in December!

The Contortionist and the Pretty Girl

This is our horse.  He can bend and twist and put his nose out through this little hole really far.  This isn't as far as he can go.  This is how he begs for treats and kisses.  Well, mostly treats.  I don't think he cares much about the kisses.

This is the pretty girl.  This was on our way to her Michigan Paint Horse Club banquets where she won lots and lots of awards with the contortionist above.  High Point for 13 and Under and High Point for Novice Youth and like 9 other first place class awards.  It was huge.

Country Living

I've been doing a little house hunting for a friend.  This isn't one of them.

Equestrian Girl and I spotted this house though deep out in the middle of nowhere and decided we liked it an awful lot.  It's hard to see in the picture because it was kind of cloudy and dismal but the place was HUGE!

Green Fingers

Motocross Boy always gets the strangest conditions.  He's had this one for a while - when his hands get cold, they turn colors.  We call it green.  You can sort of see it in this first picture - his ring finger and part of his baby finger are starting to turn.

You can see it better in this picture -that same ring fingers has turned green at the tip and down one side.  Ignore the black on that next finger.  That's dirt.

An Unwelcome Visitor to the Barn

He's pretty hard to see up there in the rafters but that is NOT a cat.  Rocky the Raccoon came to visit and wasn't in any hurry to leave.  He alluded capture for almost a week before he was finally tricked into the humane trap and taken far, far away.

The Big Storm

In a winter of totally weak weather, THIS was our big storm.  It barely did much of anything in lower Michigan but threaten.  But it sure did make a pretty colorful radar map!

Donating Blood - a rough hobby

I have been donating blood with the Red Cross off and on since I was 16 and in high school.  Whenever it's convenient, I do it and since they often come to work, if I happen to be in the building that day, I will go do my duty and give them a pint of my A positive blood.  It's the right thing to do.

I have little veins and they are deep and they move.  I always tell everyone who is trying to draw my blood about these tricky little guys because it usually saves me getting poked twice.  This time was no exception.  I made my speech and he found what he thought would be a good vein.  It looked okay to me though I think the one a little further to the outside of my arm is better but who am I to judge?  I've never drawn my own blood or tried to stick a needle in my own vein.  So the guy drew some little lines on arm (the purple dash marks in the pic below) to mark his spot and popped it in.  It didn't feel much different than usual but he almost immediately got a little worried and called another nurse over.  He warned me that I was going to have a bruise.  No biggie.  It's not that unusual that I get  a little bruise when I give blood.  I bruise pretty easy.  Afterwards, he put ice on my "bruise" and told me to keep the ice on as much as possible all day (this was early morning) and to start putting warm compresses on it the next day.  Yeah, whatever.  And off I went back to work after stopping for the mandatory cookies and juice!  Breakfast!

When I took the bandages off when I got home I was a little shocked.  This was more than a little bruise!  Not horrible, but not a little bruise.

Almost a week later, it was definitely not a little bruise and wasn't even close to where the needle had gone in!

I think next time I'm not going to say anything about having little deep veins that move.

Moon rise?

I think I have to send this one back for editing...it WAS a beautiful moon rising between the clouds and was so pretty but you sure can't see much in it now!

Deeetroit Sunrises part 16 or something

Just a few short weeks ago we had ice on the Detroit River - you can see it all chopping and moving in this picture.  Within days it was gone as our weird winter turned warm again.

Pulling into the city on Jefferson as I cam under Cobo Hall, I caught this beautiful sunrise - looking across Hart Plaza and past the Ren Cen.  I need to go back and photoshop out the street sign but I love the way the sculpture circles the color!

How is it that even looking across a parking lot can be beautiful when there's a stunning sunrise at the other side?

Abby the Wonder Dog

Abby the Wonder Dog isn't often featured in my blog.  She should be.  She's the best dog ever according to Equestrian Girl. 

Motocross Boy is pretty fond of her too.

Showmanship Practice

Sometimes it's just too cold to ride in the winter...although we can't really say that about this winter.  Well, sometimes you just don't feel like riding.  So you practice showmanship!  Stanley doesn't mind practicing showmanship and Equestrian Girl gets to hug on her horse a lot when she does!

Vacation is over!

I can't believe its been over a month since I posted!!  I totally did not intend to take a vacation but since I wasn't really taking any pictures since we really weren't doing all that much....it just happened.

Lots starting to go on now and I'm ready to go!