Marvelous Memorial Day

I hope everyone has had as wonderful a Memorial Day weekend as I have. I spent almost the entire weekend with our animals. And my kids and hubby joined in, too.
We did a much needed Spring Cleaning of the barn, raking, mucking and shoveling and then laying down fresh, clean straw.
Of course, the minute we were done, a couple goats and a lamb came in and pooped and peed on all of our hard work. Maybe that just their way to say that they like what we did?

And on Monday I spent the entire day around horses, my neigbors' and mine. It started out with me just skipping out the door to take a picture of the love birds, Scout and Baby Doll together. Baby Doll is in heat and has been shamefully flirting(winking) with Scout. Together they've been snuggling, rubbing heads, noses, nibbling necks and faces, squealing, walking the fence line with one another, and sleeping together. Ahhhh! Love is in the air!
While I was outside, I noticed my neighbor friend, Valerie out in the round pen with her arabian mare, Annie.
She lunged her a while and then hopped on to ride around for a little bit.
Valerie talked me into getting up on Annie for the first time. This gal has tons of spirit and is too much horse for me, but I accepted the offer in the round pen and was happily surprised at how responsive and quiet she was for me. And yes, I know I'm wearing clogs. Remember I had only popped out for a minute to take a quick photo of the two lovebirds and was actually heading back into the house to finish my breakfast. When you have animals (or kids) it seems that meals often go cold. Animals and kids are terrific at distraction. haha!
Annie is such a beautiful horse.

After I finished my breakfast and made lunch for the kids, I headed up to the barn, groomed Baby Doll, and brought her down to the round pen. I lunged her a bit and then, with Valerie's help, we rigged up the halter, and I got up on Baby Doll for a brief bareback ride around the round pen.
Baby Doll did terrific in only a halter, too. She turned on a dime, stopped and stepped back for me with only a light finger touch to the lead/make-shift reins. It felt really good to be back on her again riding bareback.

Then we got Valerie's other arabian, Nadia, and Baby Doll saddled up and we rode the 'back forty' behind our houses. It was the first time Baby Doll had done any trail riding since she came to live with us, so I asked Valerie to ride her and see how she'd do. She did really great. She did spook slightly at a few things like flapping signs and a metal sunflower, but with Nadia, the calm rock, showing her that those things wouldn't hurt her, and Valerie walking up to those 'spooky' things and asking Baby Doll to face her fears, Baby Doll calmed down and continued happily on her way.

We also met a neighbor, Ronie, over the hill from us and she was excited to let us know she was bringing her horses home this week, a couple foxtrotters, and was looking for some new friends to go riding with. Sounds great!
She also gave us an exciting tip about how to access the National Forest Lands. Last week, Valerie and I had walked up to the locked gate leading into the forest, but couldn't figure out how to get in. Apparently, we only have to walk a little way to the right along the fence and there is an unlocked access opening for hikers and horse-back riders.
I am so thrilled about this because now we don't have to trailer the horses to explore miles of forest trails. We can just walk the horses 15 mins away from our houses, along dirt and gravel roads, to have access to the National Forest! Wahooo!

Here's Valerie riding Baby Doll in our 'Back forty'. I'm up on Nadia.