The Daisy & Stormy

We stopped by our friends' barn and they let The Daisy ride her favorite horse, Stormy.

Even The Boo sat on Stormy and we got this smile out of him seconds after Stormy sneezed and scared the bejeebers out of him!

While The Daisy rode in the arena, The Boo climbed the hay stack

Here's my friend Regina before getting on that crazy cutting horse that's in training:

Always time for a little fun in a puddle

What I won't miss

Ok, days and days of rain and that just meant flooding. I have less than a week left here on the farm and I'm totally over the flooding and having to shift horses around and stare out the window: is the water rising? is it going down? Done, I tell you.                                                        

 Before:

After:

There's actually Peeper Island out there, totally under water at this point.

Of course, the kids found fun in it.

And we let the ducks out of the laundry room to enjoy some water.

The Daisy asks the ducks how they like the water

Fat Baby guards the ducks:

Easter egg activities

While we were at the grocery, The Daisy reminded me we needed to dye eggs for Easter. I'd totally forgotten! So we got our supplies and that's what we did in the afternoon.

The finished products:

So then we waited for our neighbors so we could have an egg hunt in the yard. Now that was a new experience for me: four competitive boys shouldering each other for a dadgum Easter egg!

The Boo was having a hard day so everyone was very patient with him in allowing him to find the easily hidden eggs.
Some parting shots:

That's Anthony flipping over in the tire swing.

Boo's 1st riding lesson

The kids were outside when The Boo came in to tell me he had a surprise for me. So I followed him out and that's when he told me he could ride Tara Jean all by himself.
The Daisy had put him on and was teaching him to ride.

Well, he sits on her and clicks to her and she just stands there until The Daisy gets a stick and waves it at her backside.

He was very proud of himself and I was proud of him and The Daisy for doing that!

Duck, duck ...

The kids begged for ducks even though we have very little luck raising ducks. But they used their own money and bought them and have cared for them housed in our laundry room.
The Daisy took them outside on this day while the house was getting new bedding. It was pretty windy out and the baby ducks kept getting blown over.
I don't know who's who, but there's Violet (The Daisy's), Little Mr. Duckling (The Boo's) and Ducky (mine).

Goose!

I was dropping off the kids at their dad's work the other week and there was a goose walking in front of the building. The Daisy got out and it started hissing at her so she high-tailed it back to the car.
Now I am scared of birds. Little birds. Little teeny-tiny birds. I don't know why so don't ask me.
So I said,"C'mon, let's walk QUICKLY around these cars for the door. HurryHurryHurry."
I got The Boo inside just in time to hear The Daisy screaming and turned to see the goose flying at her. Then it turns into a horror movie because she FALLS DOWN and the goose is attacking her legs.
Ok, me ... scared of itty-bitty birds must now go get my daughter being attacked by a 20 pound goose. It was flapping and hissing at me as I'm trying to yank The Daisy to her feet and, thankfully, she had a bag of stuffed animals that I hurled and beaned that goose right in the head. It deterred it long enough for us to run inside.
She sported bruises on her legs a few days after that. I think the wildlife department was called and removed the geese.
So today ... there is a goose in front of the building again and the both of us started with palpatations and decided to head to the back door instead. The only interaction we want with geese from now on is on a dinner table.

Taking the posse to Keeneland

We as a family love going racing and wanted to share this with our young friends up the road. The best part was that a trainer I knew was running a few horses so I knew that would make it even more fun.

This is trainer Neil Howard's horse heading to post:

Here Neil talks to his assistant trainer Ricky in the saddling area:

Trying to take a nice family photo by the paddock with a tired, hungry 4-year-old. Sigh.

The Daisy got this shot!

I really like this picture of all the kids watching the horses enter the track:

I love these guys!

Ok, be serious:

The Boo was insistant he wear his "tie shirt" to the races so when he put it on, I just envisioned this scene about 15 years from now when he has a beer instead of a Yoo Hoo in his hand!

I don't know where the karate moves came from while he was wearing his "tie shirt."

75th Carolina Cup

Let me tell you: horses and sunshine and South Carolina. Good to be home again! (Photo of me by Samuel Coles from The Augusta Chronicle) Here are a few pics from the 75th running of the Carolina Cup in Camden last weekend. All the horse pictures are by Jamey Price Photography - I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, but Jamey is now my new favorite steeplechase photographer. These are a much different perspective and quite good. Sunshine Numbers' groom gives trainer Arch Kingsley a fist bump. I love this picture.Sunshine Numbers with Jody Petty up had a wire-to-wire win. It was an amazing run to watch because I thought for certain he'd fade off at the half, but nope. Jody had to look waaaaay over his shoulder to see his competitors and they were all lagging far off the pace so he pulled Sunshine into an easy gallop home.Class Century refused to go out on the course and behaved badly, dumping jockey Xavier Aizpuro here. The he went on to win the race. Go figure.My new Cup friend Marian from Charleston:The final race was for fillies and mares, who are usually uncooperative and more than high strung. I asked starter Barry Watson if I could go out to the start with him and he said sure. Now I was thinking I would ride out to the start line with Barry in the truck and just sit myself in the truck and watch the show. Noooo, I had to pick the start where we were in front of the stands and I was surrounded by 11 flippin' out racehorses. It was like feeding time at home! I will say it was a really interesting perspective and I certainly appreciated that it is an even harder job than I can see from the stands for Barry and his starters and the jockeys to get everything lined up just so for the race.