Sunday, December 13, 2009

Birthdays first - then Christmas

My little brother turned 40 this year. A scary thought since he is my baby brother. My sister Trisha spent weeks (really, months) sorting through and scanning my mother's slides, so I went searching for some pictures of Jason.

Jason looked so cute riding Chocolate with me, but he turned to the dark side, and now is Mopar obsessed.

Chocolate was my dream pony. A beautiful bayhorse - I believed the most beautiful horse in south FLA. We rode in a rural pasture (west of Miami along the Tamiami Trail) complete with black FLA mud-holes and FLA-Holly hammocks. http://sofia.usgs.gov/virtual_tour/enp/index.htmlenp/index.html

Knowing a little more about horses now, we were really lucky that Chocolate was a safe-enough horse. My grandfather bought him at an auction of horses confiscated from abusers for $50. My Dad bought a $75 (new) saddle and the horse lived out on property owned by my grandfather. Chololate was for all the grandkids to use, but he was MY horse since I was the oldest and really the only equine obsessed of the batch - Trisha wasn't interested in horses even then, Lil was to young to give me much competition in the horse crazed department, and my 3 cousins were boating boys.
After I went off to Furman, Lil took over and then took Chocolate to Texas when she went to Trinity for college where she rode him into his old age. And I moved to OK and eventually accumulated a small horse herd - no Bayhorse included.

And about those birthdays - Jason's was on the 8th and the girls will turn 11 on Dec. 17. So, today we will go to the movies for a girly birthday party (the Princess and the Frog) and then we can start to think about Christmas.

After that... perhaps a trail ride before the new year - although I am planning on a Party Lesson at Patty's next weekend. Splash is reveling in his early Xmas present - no riding this week because the 4-H Horse club had their banquet on Saturday including Pot Luck and the famous wooden nickle auction. Both girls won belt buckles for placing reserve in one or more classes in the 4-H show series.
And it's been VERY COLD. I will wear my winter riding boots next week. But we did get to do some horsey stuff - the GCC/ODS club had the annual Xmas Party/Dirty Santa/Awards banquet on Friday night. Splash and I did well in Intro Level but we still need PLENTY of work in Training Level - And I am vintage. Alaina didn't qualify because Diez foundered mid-year but Ivy was Champion Jr. Training Level 14 and Under with Pico. YAYA.

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