"Listen my children, and you shall hear..."

"...of the midnight ride of Paul Revere." -Longfellow

I was thinking about Paul Revere's ride last night as we galloped through the woods in the moonlight. I think that is the most alive I've ever felt. Fast horses. Sand underfoot. Clear skies. Good conversation. The wind in my hair. Sigh.

We are training (we being Lydia, Steve, and I--this is Emily) for a 100 mile ride over my spring break. It was Steve's idea, and he is known for his really good ideas. I just hope we can make it. 100 miles is a long way to go in 24 hours. Maybe this isn't positive enough thinking. Huh.

We had lots of fun putting out round bales, at least I thought it was fun. Kind of like mud-wrestling inanimate objects that weigh twenty times as much as I do. The method is that you put a tarp under the end of the trailer, roll the bale off onto it, then keep rolling the bale onto tarps moving them one in front of the other until you get to the hay cage or whatever it's called... The bales were soaked from the epic rains we've been getting and the mud was very sloshy, so it was a challenge. Jacob put garbage bags over his boots and tied them up like mukluks so they wouldn't get muddy but the mud pulled the bags right off. I though that was funny. There were loads of people there helping, which made it into a kind of party.

I took Rain-in-the-Face, a two year old colt, on a walk while I waited for everybody to get there to do the hay. The sky was, well--I'm not even going to try to describe what sunsets look like around here. It had rained hard all morning and had cleared up, so the whole world felt like it had been scrubbed clean. Ours were the first foot prints on the path after the storm. Rain is going to be a very nice horse when he is full grown, he quite a good-looker when he arches his little neck and spooks. I love my life.

Wind and Rain?

I (Emily) am very sad that Mom and the girls have gone home now. It was a gray, rainy day which didn't help my mood this morning. I drove out to Steve's to spend a day at the horse lot with everybody which helped my day get better eventually. There was a very good fire going in the woodstove, which was wonderful.

We wormed horses and Steve trimmed some hooves. There is some horrible muck in some places, and which at one point I waded through to get to a particular group of horses. Nasty, nasty stuff. Steve and Co. thought it was pretty funny that I did that in my "church" boots (I wear my boots everywhere... They polish up nicely with Crisco, just ask Jemma).

At 6:30, we started the Parelli dvds. That was fun. It was so warm and cozy in the Little House that I started to fall asleep on the couch. After the tape was over, we stopped by the Carolton fire station to hear Steve's brother's bluegrass band play. They are very, very good. Steve's brother is a champion fiddle player and is fun to listen to. I forgot to call the Barr kid's momma to tell them we would be later than we had planned, and I felt bad after I remembered.

Ride with Abby and Cilla

Steve on Ta Sunka.

Abby on Roxy.

Priscilla on Ice.

Walking through a scary spot.

Lydia!

Huge Surprise!

My (Emily's) mom and two sisters just SHOWED UP at Steve's Little House tonight, totally surprising me. They are here visiting for a week, and I am so excited!

important things...

We are richly blessed.

sick :) or sick :(

I Lydia think being sick is good for watching lots of movies.
I also think Emily is good to have over when you are sick and watching movies.

List of good movies to watch when sick:
Jack and the Beanstalk-Abbott and Costello
Sound of Music
*Jane Eyre
any Jane Austin or Elizabeth Gaskell...
*Cartoons
*Robin Hood
Monsters Inc.
Miss Potter
Incredibles

*extra good one to watch

Running shoes and Starbucks

I (Emily) got new running shoes today. This is a big deal, as it means that I have no excuses not to run now. I think I will start out at a measley one mile a day for the first week and then hopefully build up to three miles five times a week. I also went to Starbucks with a friend, which was fun. I got a Awake tea latte, which I was not expecting to be sweet but it was. I'm not sure what I think about that. Class starts tomorrow at 8:00am and ends at 9:00pm. Hmm. Will be interesting. I am looking forward to things getting moderately busy, though. There was a beautiful sunset this evening.

Query: What should we do for Lydia's birthday? We want to do something fun and crazy and cheap. Let us know what you all think.

puppy-dog eyes

This is Lydia,

I just got back from my cleaning job and do not want to start school.

Lucy is so cute and she keeps looking at me irresistibly. She has to much power over me but I do not mind in the least:) I have 2 more math problems to do. Whoever decided to call them problems, aptly named them.

Blustery Day...

Today was cold. Super cold. I was cold all day, and I'm from Alaska! (this is Emily talking.) We did bits and bobs of chores in the morning like giving everybody that needed it hay, grain, and water and figuring out a system to unload and feed 1,000 lb. round bales without getting them covered in mud (we have a mud problem because of the crazy amounts of rain we've been getting).

After the chores were done, we saddled up and went for a ride to get our blood pumping. I rode Ice, Lydia rode a horse whose name I can't spell, K.C. rode Manteo, Carly rode Porter, and Steve rode Ta Sunka.

Lake-Erie-as-the-trail-goes-into-the-woods (that's what the locals call it anyway) was frozen with a good two inches of ice covering it. It broke up into ice floes when we rode over it.

Why not.

Hi! We decided to do a blog. It's not about anything in particular, it's just about life. And we have interesting lives. So you should read this.

Today Lydia went to co-op for Geometry and Science and did Ballet and Spanish.

Today Emily went to the DMV and tried to get a Virginia driver's licence but instead ended up spending the day at the courthouse. Well, it sounded good to introduce the subject that way, but I had planned to go to the courthouse to watch. I wasn't in trouble. :) My friend Steve Edwards is a prosecuting attorney and was prosecuting a bank robbery, which was fun to watch because the robbers weren't so bright. They planned the robbery on their morning smoke break and intended to be done with the robbery start-to-finish over their lunch break. Sawed-off shotgun and all. As I said, it was interesting.

Tomorrow we are planning on getting up early-ish and driving out to the horse lot to ride wild horses into the sunset starting at nine o'clock. We have great lives. So read our blog. And we're fun.