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!