Thank you!

Pike Road Girl was kind enough to honor me with this lovely award a few days back, and I've been behind in my posting, so I'm just now getting around to saying thank you!

Stop over at her blog and read about her lovely family and all the critters. She and her husband are working on a completely drool worthy barn so she can finally bring her horses home. As a boarding owner myself, it's a goal I applaud and hope to emulate someday soon!

So, as a condition of the award I'm supposed to provide a few previously unrevealed items of interest. I'm not sure how scintillating my seven points of interest are, but here goes:

1. I love flowers and flowering plants, but I'm completely unable to grow the ones that bloom. Other than spider plants - which live and multiply and are apparently immune to the black thumb that kills everything from pansies to African violets. I do, however, have a pathos and an ivy plant that I've kept alive since my college days. Not a bad run.
   
2. My new favorite kitchen tool is the breadmaker I got for Christmas. Never thought I'd say that - I'd resisted getting one for several years. Thank you to the someones who knew better!
3. Until I went to college I had always lived in the same house. After my sister was born we shared a bedroom - which was a lot more fun in hindsight than it was at the time. But I did learn how to pick a lock....
4. I've gone swimming in almost all of the five Great Lakes - I think I'm missing Eerie.
   
5. I dislike meatballs, Swedish and otherwise. I make them, I just don't eat them.
   
6. I once almost walked into Donald Trump. Right in front of the Trump Tower in NYC - I was looking up and my friend grabbed me so I wouldn't run into him.
7. My favorite form of long distance travel - other than the four-footed kind - would have to be by train. You meet the neatest people, and the rocking and clickety-clacking is incredibly soothing.
   

Now, the second condition was to pass the award along to 15 of my favorite bloggers. Hmmm... Well, I think this award has already hit most of my list! But here are a few - in no particular order - you should check out if you've not encountered them yet:

1. Just Another Day on the Prairie for a hearty dose of cow sense, gorgeous Canadian scenery, and the occasional yummy recipe.
2. BrownEyed Cowgirls - I started reading when they were still located in western SD, but even though they're now in Colorado there's plenty of horsey action. This year it's been a new house, new rig, and plenty of barrel racing on the horizon.
3. How did this happen? Following Jennifer's progress from hesitant to confidant has been great, and I hope I someday manage the riding time she gets in on an almost daily basis. Inspiring!
4. Horsetrailriders.com - We share a bit of the same weather often enough, and here's another lady who really gets out and rides - and shares her stories with humor and great pictures.
5. Down on the Farm - okay, not horses here. Cows. But the adventures of dairy farming are apparently many, and they make educational and often entertaining reading.
6. Braymere Custom Saddlery - Model horses... it wasn't an area I had any familiarity with. Most of mine didn't survive my childhood in very good shape. I loved them a bit too well, perhaps. But when I stumbled across this site I had to start following. From fantastic pictures come incredibly detailed miniatures decked out in custom tack. Amazing.
7. Less is More - I wish she'd post more - now that there's more riding on the horizon maybe that will happen (hint, hint)! And there's the amazing Limo. 'Nuf said!

For more... well, I could go on, but really you can just check out the blog list down the right side over there. Or you could just visit one of the sites above and see what they're reading :)

Thanks again, Pike Road Girl!

Honest Scrap Award

I opened my email on Monday after a super long day at work and discovered this waiting for me:
Pretty cool! Jennifer over at How did This Happen? passed it along to me. Thanks, Jennifer!

And I'm passing it on to the following... 7? Oh, dear, so many good choices...

• Denise, the lengthy Limo, and Lester over at Less is More
• Palomino Girl and her big Yellow horse at Life on the Farm
• BrownEyed Cowgirls - good luck with those prairie dogs!
• Callie and the MidWestHorse Blog gang. Hope your snow has come to an end!
• Saddle Mountain Rider at Middle of the Road
• JJ & Cass at Life with a horse (hope to see you blogging publicly again, soon!)
• and last but not least, Latigo Liz and her crew at Cowgirl Up - yeah, Arabians!

Here are the rules, if you have been chosen:
1) Write a post (on your own blog), announcing that you have received the Honest Scrap award. Be sure to mention It's Sunny in SD, the blog that conferred the Honest Scrap Award upon you. Add the Honest Scrap Award graphic.

2) Choose at least seven blogs that you admire. List these (with links) in your Honest Scrap Award blog entry.

3) Visit the blogs you have selected, and leave comments to let the bloggers know you have chosen to honor them with the Honest Scrap Award. Include a link to your blog post in each comment. (Click here for instructions on making simple active-links for blog comments.)

4) Visit the blog that offered you the Honest Scrap Award, and leave a comment with a link to your post.

5) List ten honest things about yourself. Try to have fun with this one, and include facts others may not already know about you.

6) Display the Honest Scrap Award proudly on your blog sidebar.

Ten honest things about me:

1. When I'm reading a book I hear NOTHING that goes on around me. If you ask me a question and I respond, don't ever take for granted that I actually heard you. In fact, when I was in grade school anyone who sat near me had permission from the teachers to reach over and poke me when I was reading and didn't here the lectures start.
   
2. I helped out with a Girl Scout Riding camp for two summers. I learned that many horses are endlessly patient with hyperactive, bouncy, and sometimes terrified, children - actually more patient than me.
   
3. I enjoy singing with the radio. But most people don't want to be in the car or the house with me when I do - LOL!
4. I'll drink cold coffee. Not the iced kind, just the left-too-long-in-the-cup cold coffee, and actually enjoy it. (At least I'll enjoy it as much as I enjoy it at any other temperature.)
5. I really dislike caramel.
6. I have more horse pictures up in my office than I do people pictures. Also more plants.
7. I hate, hate, hate asking for things. It opens up the possibility of "No" so I tend to maneuver things so that if I have to ask, I'm sure pretty sure I'll get a "Yes."
8. I have a hard time not following the rules, whatever they are. But if I'm going to break them, I tend to do it in a big way.
9. I spent a summer working in Norway. I took lots of pictures of horses & horse-related stuff, including some Thoroughbreds on a breeding farm there, and of course, some really adorable Fjords. The TBs seemed really short, for some reason....
10. You know the Punch Buggy game that people play in the car? Well, one long trip to MI when we were still dating, my husband invented a new game: Slap-Horse-y. (I was leading the PB total.) Unfortunately, by that point I'd driven to MI from SD umpteen times, and I knew where all the horses were apt to be located before we got there. **grin**
    (That last sounds rather violent, doesn't it? No actual hitting is involved, honest!)
    

So there you have it. Ten things at least some of you probably didn't know about me.

Friday Book Review - Firehorse

Christmas is coming - wouldn't someone you know love a horse book?

I've read a LOT of horse books over the years, and there always seem to be new ones out there. Since I now have a thirteen-year-old (albeit one who isn't particularly horse-mad), I thought I'd take a few minutes on Fridays to profile one horse book that I think might appeal to the thirteen-year-old girl in all of us. (Well, I liked them, anyway!)

Firehorse by Diane Lee Wilson

Fifteen year-old Rachel is growing up in a man's world. When her family abruptly moves to Boston, Rachel's beloved horse Peaches is sold without ceremony, and Rachel is told she will become a proper young lady. Bereft, in a strange city with no friends, Rachel pines for home and Peaches.
Boston in 1872 is a city with its own problems. Built mostly of wood, it has relatively few fire departments. During that long hot summer, a firebug strikes repeatedly and at random, terrorizing residents, who fear their neighborhoods will be the arsonist's next target. When a mysterious illness strikes the city's work horses, and then the firehorses, too, begin falling sick and dying, disaster looms.

Following a horrific fire in which a number of horses are killed, Rachel's brother is given the care of a badly burned firehorse, the Governor's Girl. Assisting with the mare's care, Rachel finds her calling: she will become a veterinarian. Rachel's father, however, is a man typical of the times: convinced women must be protected and managed. Even when Rachel finds lukewarm support for her goal from the kindly vet caring for Governor's Girl, she still faces the stigma of impropriety and indecency for wanting to do a "man's" work.

Wilson's characters stand on their own, from Rachel's feisty grandmother, to cheerful James and browbeaten Mrs. Selby. Careful research fleshes out the story, and Wilson's love of and familiarity with horses shines through. A great book for horse lovers, and also a good book to accompany an introduction to the suffrage movement. Even if you aren't usually a historical fiction fan - I'm often not - this was a good read.

The horse detail in this book is not only excellent, the author's note mentions that Wilson, a horse owner & rider herself, went so far as to seek out and ride a large breed sporthorse (can't recall which, though) so that she could bring some authenticity to Rachel's careening gallop through the Boston streets on the Girl.

Firehorse is a 2008 Middle School YARP selection for SD.

Somebody likes me!

It never ceases to amaze that I have readers :) You guys rock! And now, thanks to Latigo Liz over at Cowgirl Up I have this nifty award to display, too! And I'm going to share.

In no particular order, here are a few of the ladies whose blogs I've come to look forward to seeing updated...

• Pike Road Girl
• The Eventing Percheron
• How Did This Happen?

And I'm reserving the right to nominate a couple more down the road as I come to know and grow fond of them, as well!

Of course, nothing in life comes stringless, so here are the rules:

1. The winner can put the logo on her blog.
2. Link the person from whom you received your award.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on your blog.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of those you have nominated.

As has been already pointed out, some of those that share a gabby, horse-y bent have already been nominated - and it's great to be in your company. I don't know about you all, but reading everyone's horse-related adventures brightens up those days that I don't get to spend any time out with the four-feets.

And somebody's always horsing around somewhere. So thanks for sharing!

Wow - an award!

See what happens when you're gone for a week... People give you stuff ;)

Thanks, to Latigo Liz over at Cowgirl Up, I get to add this nifty award!

(Now I just need to figure out how that works exactly....)