BHFD

I Guess things sure change when
you leave work. Looks like
party time with out me Thank you for the picture.

Memorial Weekend Roping/Boulder Creek Festival

Chelsey and I took Heidi to her first roping event, I do believe she was interested. When we got back to the apt. Heidi had taken approx. 400 pics. on her camera. Heidi even had action on a couple of her shots with a header falling off his horse. He ended up taking first place.

Saturday we went to Boulder with the onions (Chelsey, Sara, Cat).

Boulder has a creek that flows thru the town and they were having a big festival. Lots of people and booths. People would sit along the creek or even fish.

We sat and watched Wendy Woo, and her band play at the festival. Wendy was the lady who helped us at our rhythm class. The announcer spoke of the home grown mountain singer.

What a following she has, including us!

A shot of the creek

Hoof Care May 21

This was taken after our hoof care class. You just dont know what these two are going to do. I guess they just were used to hanging out with stiffs. We wont tell them he wasnt real.

This is Bryan our instructor for hoof care, making a horse shoe from a stick of steel to this.

We watched Bryan disect a hoof and a lower limb. We were able to see the tendons, joints in leg and the one to the right is the navicular bone the yellowish white area, in the middle of the lower portion of the hoof.

Here youll see the laminae, the straited looking stuff running along the inside of this hoof.

To complete the fun, Jessica took off in the parking lot and I roped her foot, note-' purse on shoulder.' I guess this is giving the femine touch to roping

Palpation

Palpation class was great, our student was even better. He didnt care what we were doing he was just standing there.
As you can see he wanted to study up on the equine anatomy himself.
Here I am not sure which ass we are suppose to palpate. The question is which one has the gluteus maximus?

Lipizzaners May 15, 2008

The whole class was there for this except Miss Jessica, who flew back to home for a wedding. We missed you Jess!


The Lipizzaners are all stallions, they come from Europe, most of them. Many years ago they were used to fight in wars. The army used them to help with the fight by having them rear up and hit the enemy with the hoof, or just block so they could get a different angle to fight when coming down.

This was an awesome show. In the begining they showed different moves and steps in dressage, which we had just studied the week before in class. So we had a review.

Top of Mtn

On our way to the next dude ranch, this one at least 10,000 feet, we met at a place called verns for breakfast. This old phone was on the wall and the mtn. lion was staring at us while we ate.

Here is the filleys (onions) enjoying their lunch. It was in the 40's I believe, was suppose to snow, we got lucky only clouds and gusts of wind once in a while.

Scenery going up the mountain, the pics do not do it justice.

This sign was posted on one of the tack sheds inside a corral. Unsure if it was for people or the horses. They are let out each winter in the mountains and if they are not on their game they will not make it to spring. I guess it is a nature thing, the bears and the moutain lions need to eat also.

Mothers Day

Our Mothers Day started with breakfast at Perkins, Jessica took the 3 moms out. Chicken fried steak was ate for the first time by a couple of us and was a hit.
Liw had these beautiful flowers waiting at our apt. when we came back from Estes Park. Liw was not able to go to Estes Park that day, for she was awaiting her parents to arrive from Nebraska so she would be able to spend Mothers Day with her mom. They actually had a picnic
lunch at Estes Park on sunday. The picture below is of Liw and her parents at the dude ranch a group of us took a horse back ride on Mothers Day.

Here is some landscaping as we started our ride, and the group picture.

The ranch has some beautiful drafts, and their job on the ranch is to give wagon rides.
When we stopped for our group photo they came by.

This is the Thompson River, that runs thru the ranch. You will see people fly fishing in it. The river is flowing pretty good right now because the snow is melting off the mountains.

Estes Park May 10

Estes Park is approx 30 min from Loveland, a beautiful drive. As you can see it started snowing on us this day. The snow came down pretty hard for about 30 min then stopped, then the sun came out and it was a pretty day. The town is built between to mountain sides like Jerome just a little wider. Lots and Lots of shops and nice little places to eat.

Here is Cat and Chelsey modeling the snow.

Here is a little carriage that went thru town, and inside is a couple that just got married.

On our way back into town we stopped to take pics of the big horn sheep and Jessica had Heidi and myself stop for a pic as well.

Big Horn Sheep, these sheep let us get pretty close to take pictures.

A Fox which was crossing the road, this was the second fox we had seen.

Lastly, some elk grazing on some property on the side of the road. I did not put the deer in here, but we did also see deer across the street from the sheep.

Rhythm Class

Wendy (above) who brought the instruments and sang to help us get our rhythm
Pat who joins in playing a small drum.

This is Raeann who is the owner of the place we went to, to learn rhythm. She and her horse Oryan . Performed a dressage routine which was beautiful! Wendy was there and played several songs to help us with the different beats of a horses gait. I will post pictures of this soon.

It felt like a family get together. Instead of sack races we all teamed, one person in the front and one in the back and we had to walk, trot or canter in the gait that a horse would so we needed to be in sync. This was challenging for most. We did not get any pictures of this. Thank goodness we were inside for this class because it rained all day. we played drums, congos, sticks.
wendy even brought her childs toy instruments for us to play with. We used these when the horses feet would come down, we would use our instrument. This was to help us get in rhythm.
Pizza was delivered for lunch, which was a hit!
Most of our instructors were there to participate with us. Was a great experience!

I would like to thank Michael and Sara for putting alot of thought into our learning process. It is an enjoyable class which makes it easier to learn. The instructors they have chosen to teach in various areas are very knowlegeable and every one loves what they do.