Wine Country Horse Ride

So, I am in the process of planning a Wine Country Horse Ride for my lovely cousins and friends. You may not know this, but next to the Napa Valley, the Yakima Valley and Columbia Valley are the second biggest wine producing regions in the country. And I live smack dab in the middle of the two!

About a month ago I found a Bed, Breakfast & Barn that gives wine tours on horseback! You can bring your own horses or rent them. You stop at 5 wineries over 5-6hours of trail riding. Sounds like a dream come true to me! I can't wait until it's easy for me to get on a horse again...

I am planning on treating my mother to this ride because her birthday is in May and that's when the weather and the wine will be just about perfect! I'm going to insist that my mom ride Yellow so she doesn't have to worry about anything. I'll ride her goofy horse, and hope for the best. I'm a lot more, agile, mobile, and hostile and can handle shenanighans better than most. I'm sure they'll both be fine. But it's nice to get those rides, every now-and-then, where you just put your horse on cruise control and enjoy the scenery.

The day after the wine tour I'm arranging to use a friend's arena. This arena is HUGE! And it never gets used. He used to have ropings there all the time, but is pretty much retired now. Actually, I'm hoping he'll come down from his house on the hill and give us a little roping demonstration! We might get to work with some cattle, work on our barrel racing and pole bending skills, and just goof off and show off our horses. My mom's horse has actually done a fair amount of roping, so I might ride him and see if he remembers anything or if he's become a completely girly horse now and just likes to go in little circles and hit the trail. Yellow has been roped on twice and definitely isn't scared of it. But really, what is he scared of? Oh yeah, baby cows. Ridiculous horse.

It's been a wonderfully mild Fall and there have been several days where an afternoon ride would have made my day...but I've been pretty busy working on a nursery, trying to keep my feet up so I don't get spider veins, and bugging my fiance about every little thing that still needs to be done.

The nagging of a pregnant woman is never done!

Hello? Is it me you're looking for?

Well, I finally saw my horse! I barely recognized him, and he hardly recognized me after our month away from each other! I'm carrying another person around, he's getting his winter coat, we both had things to marvel at!

I don't like it when my horse gets fuzzy. I think he looks funny. But I REALLY don't like it when he first sheds out because, as any of you who have or have had palominos know, they look like they have a skin disease. All horses shed out in patches, depending on blankets and such, but with a yellow horse it's SUPER obvious!

Yellow during his "fuzzy" phase last year.

My poor neglected horse wasn't too interested in me. I showed up right around feeding time and his attitude was, "If you're not gonna feed me, what good are ya?!?" I can't really complain, I'm the same way, especially to my poor fiance. "Of course I missed you today, dear, but I really need some potato chips right now."

Oh, and I just got baby shower pics on Friday and was out of town all weekend, so I'll try to get some up asap! But, with my crazy schedule, don't go holding your breath or anything!

MIA

So, I can only write until my fiance wakes up and realizes I'm not in bed at 4:30 in the morning! But I have certainly been EXTREMELY MIA the last few weeks!

I have to blame most of this on starting a new job where I commute 35 minutes or so each way. I haven't even seen my horse since I started this job--when I leave it's dark, when I get home it's dark! So if anyone is going to complain about my absence, I'd like to think it would be him...in reality he's probably relieved.

Also, I have officially reached the point where I cannot ride. Bummer.

And on top of the job, last weekend was my baby shower! It donned on me about 3 weeks ago that we were about to have a baby shower and the nursery was FAR from complete, so we were not going to have anywhere to put our gifts once we got them!

So that has been the focus while I have been absent from BlogLand. I apologize! I know my advice (usually opposing all the other advice) has probably been missed around here! I do check in and read blogs when I can, but no time to comment when there's a crib to build! Is this how the rest of my life is going to work? I have a feeling it is.

When I woke up about a half hour ago, I thought, "Hmmm...I should really read and try to fall back asleep...or maybe I should go do something semi-productive and get used to waking up at all sorts of hours of the night!" A lot of the advice I got at the baby shower was to get as much sleep as I could now, because it was soon to be a thing of the past. So now that I've written the shortest blog in Palomino Girl history, I think I'm going to follow some of that advice and try to cruise back to bed.

Pictures of the baby shower to follow--while it was not horse themed, I did get a BEAUTIFUL boots and spurs quilt for the baby that I will have to show off...as soon as I find it in the pile of baby stuff sitting in the middle of the nursery!

Happy Trails--please, enjoy your horses for me. I am now living vicariously through you!