A Fun Family

Sunshine today and mid 40's made it seem almost like summer, well early spring but with the promise of warmth. It was so warm on the patio this afternoon that Diane and I sat outside with our coats off.
Karin arrived around 8:30 am and we talked over the plan for this morning before heading up to the barn.  Our guests at the apartment arrived at 9:30 pm last night and were ready for horse stuff by 9:00 am.  Their 8 year old daughter is in 4H and was working on her judging badge. They needed to be able to judge 4 mares of the same breed and luckily we just happened to have 4 mares here. Indy, Oksana, Anna and Marika were all brought out and of course with all the rain and mud needed grooming. Below is the horse lover 8 year old.

 It turned out that her mom and sister were also horse lovers and joined right in the work. 

 Below are the 4 different mares used for the judging. 

Next the horses were taken to the round pen.

The father of the family had their two dogs out playing in the field.

The puppy hadn't seen such big animals before and was a little intimidated.  Kayla started the liberty work with Indy and Oksana. 

While Kayla was working with the mares, the dad was playing football with his son in the big open field. They were a fun family to host.

The riding lesson went very well. Karin had Kayla ride Oksana and the 8 year old ride Indy.

At the end of the lesson we had a group picture taken of our guests.

If you would like to see the rest of the pictures from this morning click HERE. 

They spent about 2 hours grooming and riding but then needed to pack up to leave. They had been visiting family in Nebraska and still needed to drive 12 hours to home which is in Virginia. We were thrilled they came and stayed with us and very happy to have shared the horses. The middle paddock was in need of a new bale but instead of moving that in, the two weanlings in the paddock next to Evan were moved into the breeding shed paddock which had plenty of hay and the 3 mares in the middle paddock moved over. I'll move bales on Monday if the weather holds. 

Mark did a little work on Karin's car this afternoon while I ran to Big R to pick up 40 pounds of cat food, 100 pounds of salt blocks and 500 pounds of grain. After that was unloaded and the work all done is when Diane came over so we sat and enjoyed the sunshine until Mike picked her up for their trip to Middle Grove. Mark went back out to work on our driveway. He had a load of gravel dumped yesterday and today he spread a bunch on the hill driveway then spread it with the skid steer. It is passable now.

I sure am thankful for the machines we have here, each one makes big jobs small.