February Photos

 Summer is technically over, although in reality the Highveld will feel richly green and abundantly rainy for another month or so before slipping into the verdant splendor of its autumn, a final fanfare to announce summer's passing.

For the first time in four years, I can say that I'm quite ready for winter. Not only is the beloved home this winter (he worked away during fire season for the first three years we were together), but it's also been a wonderful summer and left us with lovely grazing. I'm also quite ready for dry ground, no flies, and beautiful, balmy days. Hot chocolate and cuddles. Fluffy ponies. Thunder with a smoothly clipped coat, no longer itchy.

I'm no longer riding Shy Boy at work, but I did get the ride on an incredible mare I used to ride when I just started there. She went to Coach J's to be schooled for nine months and returned basically a schoolmistress. I'm so lucky to get to ride her. We'll call her Lady Lionheart because she is a total fireball (yet so trustworthy!).

This isn't Lady Lionheart, though, this is the three-year-old I've started working. We'll call her Miss Sweet and hope she doesn't make the nickname ironic. She's a half-sister to Miss Sassy and out of a stallion I don't know, so it's interesting to see the differences.

The beloved is completely in love with my Wynnie. (Also can we appreciate the very straight and correct legs? Hers, not his. He's toed out but you know what they say - one can forgive a conformation flaw if the temperament is exceptional).

Wynnie herself has been just wonderful and so much fun. We started teaching her to load this week, and she was a little hesitant at first, but soon followed her mommy in for a piece of carrot and a scratch.

I really look forward to Horse of the Year, although I'm admittedly a bit nervous - I've never shown such a young foal before. I don't think she'll be particularly bothered though, because Arwen will be by her side the whole time and she's a very confident young lady. I'm curious to see if showing as a young foal is a better first experience for them than showing as a youngster on their own. Anyway, she had her feet done today for the first time, and while she did get bored and impatient - and a little nervous of the sound of the rasp - she was OK. The farrier was quite happy with her.

My birthday was last week and the beloved surprised me with an unexpected chocolate cake, which somehow made it down our very washed-out dirt road (6km of it, nonetheless) on the passenger seat. It was so sweet of him.

Sir Flashy is doing so well and being so good for his little riders. He has such a special place in my heart 💜 He has three kids riding him for SANESA now and it makes for a long day for him, but he does well.

I tried to get a cute photo of Wynnie and Thunder together and then Wynnie tried to bite him.

She looks and acts more and more like Arwen with every passing day. Obviously I'm not complaining.

Lassie is getting bigger and sweeter by the day. She is just so beautiful and too cute for words! I've seldom seen a foal quite as friendly and at the same time quite as gentle as sweet Lassie, and I think she's going to make an absolutely incredible riding mare.

Miss Sassy's older sister, who has a foal of her own, was unbelievably sick in early February. Monitoring that IV was one of the most stressful experiences of my entire existence. Thanks be to God, she came through it so well, and now she and her little filly are doing so great.

Miss Sassy's body is starting to change a little, although there's still quite a bit of a hay belly going on there.

We almost stood on this little guy one night. He's a raucous toad, very common here, but normally the ones we find are palm-sized.

Just a few steps before, we'd nearly squished this little frog, whose species name I have totally forgotten. I've never seen frogs in this particular spot before - it's been a crazy wet summer. I haven't seen a platanna (a really flat frog, so sorry, I don't know the English name) on the farm at all before this summer, when we watched one float down the middle of the driveway in the river that was currently running down it. 

I have a huge thing for beaded horses, and I'm forever buying them for the garden. They're just so cute. I call this one Arwen because it's grey with a black mane and huge ears.

Lassie posed for a photo. She's greying so fast.

We road tripped to Frankfort, a tiny farming community south of us, to pick up our latest addition to the menagerie - a tiny Japanese bantam hen named Debbie. It was a beautiful day.

Old Skye looking round, shiny, and healthy while my poor sweet farrier knees down to trim her front right. This is as far as her knee can bend.

The broodmares at dawn. Rene was confirmed in foal this week - she put on weight so nicely on the summer pasture that she could happily go straight back to Dakota again (this time for a different lessor). It was Dakota's first time doing in-hand covers (he's used to having a group of mares out in the field) and he was so well behaved. Rose is getting very big, too.

Faith was also supposed to go back to Dakota in February, but she cut her leg quite badly right before coming into heat. She'll go back to him next week when she cycles again. Her condition is fantastic - she's the fattest broodmare we have and she's hardly getting any feed at all.

Wynnie escaped and celebrated.

She's becoming quite the little chunk.

Then she ran off to say hi to her daddy, who is back to cover Rene and Faith (Arwen will go back to work once Wynnie is weaned for a few more years before she retires to stud full-time). He's a bit ribby after a long season running after his girls, but he's still pure class.

On mornings when Thunder and I have a lesson booked, Lancey gets Thunder's usual 5:45am slot. The light is perfect - just perfect.

In two or three weeks all of this green will be in bloom - pink, purple and white. We call it cosmos.

Lassie and Rosie also got their halter training done, although they've yet to do their first farrier visit. They're both doing absolutely great.

This is the aforementioned Debbie (named after the chicken in Lost in Space). She loves mealworms.

The morning of SANESA Q1 was picture perfect.

Not a bad view, given that we had to leave the yard at 6:00 on Sunday morning.

Flashy was a superstar, of course, bringing home lots of satin for his kiddos.

And Dawn is just the most perfect creature for her child - even if her constant weight fluctuations make me want to scream. I'll never have another thoroughbred of my own, thanks. Friesians and Nooities are where it's at. 

Another kid on Flashy, another grin, another fistful of satin. This kid has been riding with me since she was 3 and she is now almost 11. It's crazy.

Lady Lionheart, who carries me through my Medium debut this Sunday, God willing. She's a firecracker but golden-hearted and one of the horses I trust most in the entire world. Which is a good thing because the debut will be in a spooky indoor lol.

The day after SANESA, Lancey and I took the kiddos out for a ride. Spirit, Midas, and Dawn above.

Flashy had done 5 classes at SANESA so he had the day off; his kid rode Dusty instead. I haven't been using Dusty in my own lessons much lately because my kids have outgrown her, so she's been with K's beginners, but I have a nervous intermediate kiddo joining in who needs a few months on her to build his confidence.

Look at them 💜💜💜

The newly baled hay field always makes for stunning scenery. Isaiah is still overweight but can spend an hour running with the horses on an outride without apparent effort.

Titan has become a trusty companion on rides, too, and it burns off some of his ever-present psycho energy.

Golden summer days, laughing kids, shiny horses, perfect skies, thriving crops, glorious African scenery. Can't ask for a whole lot more than that.

Wynnie exhibiting her pretty neck, cute head, and GINORMOUS ears. Don't worry Wynnie, big ears are in if you're a dressage horse. They flop attractively when you're relaxed. (She's more likely to use them in extravagant Mare Faces).

You know autumn is coming when the kiddos' ponies all come home from an outride with cosmos in their bridles. Lancey and I had to go bushwhacking to retrieve specific colours for kids who couldn't reach/whose ponies wouldn't go there. Of course we got some flowers for ourselves too. After all, who am I but a kid on a pony, deep down inside?

A kid curled up in the arms of her Father. God is good.