Sunday at the Ranch

It was a gorgeous day today at the ranch. Dennis and I drove up the south mountain road to take some photos. While there, we saw the turkey flock on the other side of the creek. They are really getting around now. After we took photos there, we drove to Boulevard to support our local candy shop, The Wisteria Candy Cottage, and then stopped by the side of Hwy. 8 to take more photos of the ranch. 

From the top of the hill looking at the riding arenas

Those little dots just on the other side of the creek are the turkeys!

Wisteria Candy Cottage

View of house from Hwy. 8

Doc grazing

Lunch with Bryan

My nephew, Bryan

On the day we returned the Prius, Angie, Mom & I met Bryan for lunch at the Hacienda Mexican restaurant in El Cajon near the Toyota dealership. It was great to spend some time with Bryan, my nephew,  since we rarely see him. His wife, Danielle, had to work so we missed seeing her. Bryan bought us all lunch. Thanks, Bryan!

Pizza Night Sans Pizza

Angie, Gary and the Antipasto

In the old days, we had Pizza Night at Mom's house on Friday nights. Since the diet days arrived, we still have dinner together at Mom's on Fridays, except for the rare dinner out. This Friday Angie and Mom made a spectacular antipasto salad. Good for my diet. Then we had apple pie for dessert--sabotaged again!

Knitting

Here are some scarves I knitted. I love making scarves because they are portable projects, good for taking on trips and knitting in front of the TV. I especially love the ruffles.

Spike takes a Walk

Spike hasn't been wanting to walk with us for a while now. Granted, the weather has been bad until the last few days. On Saturday, however, we grabbed him before he hid in the closet and took him out the back gate. Once he was out, he was happy to go along and sniff his way on the trail around the ranch. We always have to look back to be sure he hasn't been distracted by a squirrel or intriguing aroma. Mostly, he keeps up and sometimes even passes us. When we get back home, Spike expects and gets a cookie. He's such a good boy.

How to Buy a Car

Okay, we decided to buy a Prius; now what? Dennis and I approached it from two sides: I called Cars Direct and he visited two local Toyota dealers trying to find the car we wanted at a price we wanted to pay. Sounds easy, right? We found a good price rather easily, but we wanted the solar roof/navigation model and I wanted a Barcelona red color. Ha. We almost settled for silver because there were no red ones available anywhere. At first, Cars Direct found one in Santa Margarita, but that didn't pan out; then they found one in North Hollywood, but someone else beat us to it. At the same time, Japan suffered a devastating earthquake and stopped exporting any cars at all. Then Cars Direct found a Barcelona red Prius with solar/nav in San Jose, apparently the last red one on earth. We are in the process of buying it (Cars Direct will FedEx papers to us to sign and have notorized). Then, if all goes well, they will deliver the car to us for $500. Stay tuned.

Trail Ride on Thursday

Now I really feel we're back on schedule. Lesson on Wednesday and Trail Ride on Thursday. That's the name we've given to our trail riding "group" of two: me and Joyce. Others may join us from time to time, too, but it's usually only Joyce and I. This was only the second time we've gone to Cuyamaca since my accident last August. Last week we also rode in Cuyamaca because the Lagunas had quite a bit of snow from the last storm. Horses can ride in the snow (Doc likes it), but ice is problemmatic. No one wants to be slipping and sliding on ice riding on horseback, not to mention falling and being crushed by a 1,000-lb. horse.

Even Cuyamaca was somewhat challenging due to all the rain from the storm. Trails we've ridden easily before the storm were running streams last week when we rode. This Thursday's ride, however, was uneventful except for the tree on the trail incident. We were almost back to the parking lot on a narrow trail with a cliff on the right when we came upon a fairly large v-shaped tree limb that the horses would have to step over twice. It was too much for Doc and he balked and started to back up toward the cliff, which was too much for me. Joyce got off her horse and tried to move the limb, but it was too heavy, so she walked her horse over the logs and I did the same. Then, because of my stupid knee and my short legs, I had to hunt down a big rock or tree stump to use as a mounting block. We found a large stump at the mounted patrol's camp so I was able to climb up and mount from there, and we were off riding again.   A good day.

Finally, a Riding Lesson

After several weeks of bad weather or absences, Betsy and I finally got together for our regular Wednesday horseback riding lesson. Doc was ready. He is such a good horse, stands like a rock for mounting and dismounting. That's very important now that my left knee (the mounting leg) has a missing ACL after the electric bike incident last August. I wear an ACL brace now when riding or doing any other exercise that might strain or tweak the knee. Riding with the brace is not excellent but I'm giving it a try and Doc is very accommodating.

The lesson went well. The wind was blowing fairly hard, but horses don't seem to mind it as much as we do. Just another day for them. Doc and I are practicing roll backs as a way to get him to use his rear legs and muscles to push him, rather than his front legs to pull him along. At least I think that's what we were doing. Of course, Doc already knows all this; I'm the one who's learning and, luckily, I have the best trainer ever to help me. :)

To do a roll back, we ride close to the rail in the arena and, as we get to a certain point, I turn my head toward the rail while applying pressure with my leg back from the girth (button 3). Turning my head causes my body to apply pressure along with my leg so that the horse turns toward the rail and pivots (if we both do it right) on his rear leg so that we are now going in the opposite direction with a push from his rear instead of a pull from his front. Ta da!

Is that right, Betsy?