Not that horses aren’t “real life,” of course, but lately our non-horse pursuits have taken over. Apparently some of you have noticed – wow! How flattering! We appreciate you all, and promise we’ll be back soon. In addition to work, school, parent-teacher conferences and my birthday (the big 2-9, again…), we are working on a huge, non- horse-related video project with a deadline of Sunday. Weird deadline, I know. It’s for our church; it’s our pastor’s 20th year with the church and Bill and I got suckered into willingly volunteered to produce a video montage of his 20 years there. (Just kidding; it’s very time-consuming and stressful but we’re happy to do it, it’s gonna be great). So we should be back next week. In the meantime, here are some upcoming topics to look forward to:

• Putting up hay for the winter – we spent one recent Saturday in a hay field collecting freshly-baled hay.
• Learning to train in a round pen – can’t wait to have time for that!
• An overnight trail ride – if we can get Valentine in shape in less than two weeks, I’m going camping with him along with my best horse buddy, Shari, and some friends of hers in mid-October.

…and on a related note:

• Why you should own and use a riding helmet.

See ya’ll soon!