Happy New Year (Trigger update, plus other horses)

I started 2013 off with horses.  Yay!

Trigger's trainer, S, invited me (and Nathan) over to her house last night for cards, and what turned out to be spaghetti dinner, too.  At first, the only cards we could find were very very tiny.

But then this little guy's parents brought a TON of (full-size) cards and dinner.

Almost all the photos I post here were taken by me,
but this photo is courtesy of S's two-year-old son, JC.

Nathan had a good time playing with S's older boys (both pretty close to his age), and I had fun playing cards and talking horses with the ladies (the boys had their own card game, and kept trying to change the subject AWAY from horses).

I left around 11, though, so rang in the new year at home.

However, I'd forgotten to bring my checkbook with me, so even though I had brought his food and said hello to him on New Years Eve, I needed to head back to the barn on News Years Day, too.  I also said I'd help with a few chores to help with board.

Nathan and I had a lazy morning making Norwegian pancakes, then moseyed toward the barn, stopping at the mountain viewpoint to take some pictures, but there were fences and power lines and stop signs breaking up the view.

I was about half a mile away when I realized I had forgotten my checkbook AGAIN.  So I drove all the way back home to get it (25 minutes or so), stopping at the viewpoint across the highway from the other one, for a better view.

This is a panorama of 40 pictures--click to view it bigger.

I figured we might as well snag a geocache near our house while we were back there.  We found it pretty quickly, and when I started the car again, I saw that the check engine light was off again.  Yay?

I pulled up to the barn about one minute before S, so she put me to work, filling this:

I soaked in the view for a few minutes...

Then S asked if I'd like to ride today.  Um, of course!  I fetched Trigger so he could sit in a stall and eat his grain while we rode, plus one of the three horses S was going to ride.  Her son fetched my mount and another one for his mom, plus one was already right there in the barn.  I took a few photos in Trigger's pasture (he's wearing the green blanket) and of him up close after I fetched him.  This, by the way, was the first time he didn't come right up to me.  He stood there enjoying his snowy domain, bossed around a couple of foals, then finally ambled in my direction, and I met him halfway.  Anyway, here are the photos of him.

I didn't take any pictures while riding, but it was just the arena, nothing too exciting.  :-)  I'll be plenty sore tomorrow, though--lots of posting trot, even a brief canter stint.

While I rode just one horse around and around, S rode three horses in training.  The first was that adorable curly horse, though he was a bit freaked out in the arena with other horses around--he's just barely been started.  The next was a trail horse who was purchased from her, but the new owner is having trouble with her, so S had a little bit of a come-to-Jesus with her, and she was quite a bit calmer by the end of their ride.  Last was a little Arab gelding who's just getting started.  This is one of her first few rides on him.

I put Trigger and Nevets back out in their respective pastures, and it was COLD out there!  Probably only 15 or 20 degrees.  I'd been warm enough while working my muscles both shoveling poo and riding, but just walking and standing around was bone-chillingly cold, even for someone with as much insulation as I have.

Oh, and did I mention that while I was riding, Nathan was being towed around on a sled behind a dirt bike, having the time of his life, but also bone-chillingly, because he was wearing jeans (without snow pants), no gloves, and only the hood on his coat, no other hat.  But he certainly seemed to be enjoying himself!  We both thawed out on the car ride home.  :-)