Disney World!

We will be leaving for Disney world in 15 days! I'll tell you about the trip when we get back.

Trail riding

I've only had 3-4 riding lessons and I've already
gone on a trail ride with Tali, and Delainey.
Delainey invited  Tali and I to have a sleep over, and then go trail riding in the morning.
And of coarse Tali and I said Yes. We made arrangements to go over.
I would be riding Socks a tall Missouri fox trotter, Tali would ride Libby a Tennessee walker,
and Delainey would ride Blackie a short Quarter horse.(Delainey dose barrel racing with her)

This is Delainey, doing morning chores.


Here are the horses at Delainey's house.

  This is Josephine. She was offered to us to barrow her but dad said no. I can't believe it, he would say no to a female pony mule and say yes to a Donkey jack!(but then again we didn't know that Ruffous was a Jack.)

This is Libby.(She is the horse that Tali rode.)

 I don't know the name of the chestnut mare but,
the other horse is Zack.(one of two stallions)

I don't know his name ether.:( He is a Missouri fox trotter. He is the other stallion.

this is a gelding, I don't remember his name but,
he is a very handsome palomino. 

this is Blackie and The palomino gelding.







Here is Delainey on Blackie.(Making sure all the straps are tight.)

              

And this is Tali.(Sadly I forgot to ask Tali to take a picture of me on socks)

Face Painting

I got a face painting kit for Christmas.
I realy like it and I have used it.

Here is my first face painting, I did it on Jessa.

             And this is my second face painting job on Becca

                              Here is what I did on Tali.                            

I wanted to face paint Jo but all he wanted was something on his hand.

                                           And here is Benji.

                                                    

          These are face paintings on people out of our family.

                                                           

              

              I really like the leopard face painting that I did on Jessa, but the tiger looks a little odd.

         

Ruffous the white faced jack.

We borrowed a donkey, his name is Ruffous. He was said to be trained and "he was gentle as a dog".
If he did have training then he has forgotten it all. We expected a castrated donkey and got a Jack. But he is very well tempered for a jack. We don't have very good fencing but he respected the fence, and he will let you pet him if hes not grumpy. Sometimes he will throw little temper tram-tums and put his ears back and paw the ground while flipping his tail, and after a minuet he will just go in the barn and eat hay. Over all he is an O.K donkey.

Ferdinand was a Boar

I was very sad when I found out that Ferdinand was a boar.
Most male piglets are castrated, before they are sold, but Ferdinand was not.
And Ferdinand being a boar instead of a barrow makes him much more aggressive.
So I've sent him to the  butcher, to be ground pork, and now i make very delicious sausage when ever mom needs some. I use my own recipe, and it tastes a little different every time I make it.
We had sausage, eggs for breakfast today.

Reptiles and amphibians

                   Here are some of the different reptiles and amphibians that I have caught, 

and all these pictures were taken by me.

 This is a baby black rat snake. I found him on a walk down the road. The baby black rat snakes have a different coloring than the grown ups to help them hide.

                                           Here is a yong male fence lizzard.(Rebeckah helped me catch this one.) I have caught a lot of Fence lizzards. I can tell he is a male because of the blue on his belly, females don't have blue. Fence lizzards are very fast so they can protect themselves.

Here is a good example on how to tell male from female, the female has a white underbelly

                and the male has black and blue on his underbelly,

                        and here is the tops of them, the left is the female and the right is the male.

                       This is a Leopard frog, they are called that because of their spots. I have caught lots of Leopard frogs.

                                   Here is a tree frog he has sticky feet so he can stay on the tree even when upside                                          
                                  down.(I took this picture on mom's bed, so he could have a nice white background. Hee hee!) I've caught lots of Tree frogs. They sound like toads, with a trilling noise.

                               This is a black rat snake, it's a small one compared to others I've seen. I've caught lots of Black rat snakes. They aren't bad except they do love to get in our chicken coop to try to feast on eggs. Dad once was bitten by an 8ft long blackrat snake. We killed copperheads- it is illegal, but the only ones we have come across have been on the front yard and close around the house when little kids are playing there and the kids startle them. And it's preparing to strike. They can really jump high.

                                                         That's jessa behind the tree. The snake is going up to check out a nest with eggs. It's weird to see a slithery scaly tree trunk moving, until you figure out it isn't the bark-(on a bigger tree), it's a snake.

                           These are mole salamanders. I found them underneath a stone behind the chicken coop. I have also caught some newts but I don't have any pictures of them.

                                          This is a ribbon snake, and I have also caught garter snakes before.(they are the                                
                                   most common arownd here. sometimes we mow them up and that's sad.)

                                             On a camping trip I  found this young female five lined  skink under a log. You
                                               can tell the females from the males because the males have red heads in
                                     mating season, but you can also tell by the five lines the males will have all year                                          
                                     round and the females are alll brown.

                             Here is a female box turtle. It is only one of the 96 that I have caught. You tell the
                                      females from the male by looking at the tail, the females will have a bigger tail for    
                              eggs to come through. And the males have a smaller tail.

This is a red clay toad, we can find them in our garden all the time.

We once had a cat eat a toad and we thought that it had rabies, because the poison from the toad made its' mouth foam, and it got sick, so we kept it in a cage for two weeks, 

and of course it wasn't rabid.

               Now this isn't a sight you see every day. This is Shea, she is a common snapping turttle,  I found her in a small steam that runs in back of our house and I was on a walk with Tali and Beckah. When I caught her I wasn't thinking, I just picked her right out of the water like in the picture below.

                 I have only caught three other snappers and Shea is the biggest. Of course, they can get much bigger. When I came home with a snapper, Jo was thrilled, and went to work at taking measurements,(even with Jo being a boy- he never picked her up They do have a bone breaking, snapping bite.)

Here are the mesurements-shell 10" long 8" wide and 5" tall. Wight 6 1/2 pounds. Tail 9" long. Front legs 4". long. Back legs 5" long. Claws 1" long. Head 3" long. Neak 4" long.  Gape 2" wide. Age 9 years old. You tell that by counting rings on the shell, that layer up as they grow, like trees.  And Shea can jump 2'. I'm very glad  that I kept this information.

Here at home, I put on some gloves and we took the mesruements. She snapped that stick in half. It's fun to observe them, of course, after keeping them a while, I let them go. Sooner if they won't eat, later if they will. We had a little pet fence I would put around the tiny waterpump pond feature in front of our house, and that's where they would stay. Mostly box and red earred slider turtles.

Riding Lessons

I've had other riding lessons then this, but wow did my legs hurt afterward!   I'm riding Lady she is the old fashioned morgan.

 

 Katy (my riding instructor) is one of Tali's grown up friends,  Tali is  almost done with her lessons, she rides very well. Tali goes on trail rides, and I will soon.

 This lesson was mostly on turning the horse(with out using the reins) and stoping her.

                                                   After my lessons Katy, let every one (exept for joseph because he wasn't there)on to ride around her front yard.                                                                            

 here is Jessa with me in the sadle,->

 and there goes Benji,

                 
       

and now Beckah, hopefully beckah will soon have horse riding lessons.