Absenteeism

You know what they say about time? Well all of it's true! For some reason last month just vanished. I've been a bad blog parent.... So here's what's been doing lately:


The ponies are fine - as you can see the pastures are starting to green up.

But at the moment everything's still pretty wet, so they're locked in the lot eating their heads off and looking longingly out at the new grass.

No riding yet, although I'm crossing my fingers for this weekend.

We hit the SD Horse Fair in Sioux Falls mid-March. Very disappointing turn-out horse-wise. In past years there've been horses wall to wall. This year there might have been maybetwenty? Five or so Arabs, a pony, a couple of POAs, a couple of Morgans, four or five QH studs & a couple of paints. I'm sure there were lots of horses there for the ranch rodeo on Saturday evening, but had to feed, so we didn't stay. It was mostly vendors. And the one horse clinician I did get to see spent a lot of time trying to sell his stuff. Although the lady with the sheep herding dogs was cool to watch.

Spring cleaning took up another weekend - 'nuf said on that front. Ugh.

We spent Easter with T's relatives in Kansas. It was a beautiful drive - and you know that green horse post? Scroll down if you missed it. Well, we actually passed a truly green horse (the color, not the state!) out in a field somewhere slightly north of Spencer, Nebraska.

I suspect someone got a wild hair for St. Patrick's Day, because they had a couple of solid color horses, and then one a lovely shade of Mt. Dew bottle green that was slowly fading back to its natural white. I meant to take a picture on the way back, but we ended up coming up a different route, so I missed my chance.

Otherwise the trip was uneventful. T tried out his new fly fishing rod. (I napped in the car, which was nice and warm - it was a wee bit chilly outside and I was feeling lazy.)


One of T's sisters made a giant bunny cake - it got decapitated and mostly consumed before I managed to get a picture, but it was impressive (and tasty!).

The kids all declared themselves too old to want to hunt Easter eggs, so we deviled the hard-boiled ones, played a lot of cards, napped, yakked and generally relaxed. And of course ate way too much.

Sunday this came home with us.

That's where she started the trip, anyway. She wasn't thrilled to be in the crate, but she wasn't too vocal about it. There was the occasional plaintive "meReOw" from the back seat, but I've ridden with worse.

We found an open Family Dollar somewhere in northern KS - I thought we'd have no trouble locating a harness and leash (that's how Mabel made the trip) to stick on her in case she tried escaping, but no luck.
What we ended up with was a cat collar, a small, buckle dog collar (you can't see it, because it's buried in fur, but it's just behind her front legs) and a flexi-lead. Run the clip on the flexi through the ring on the dog collar and snap it to the ring on the cat collar, and Presto! cat harness.

Meet Nu-Nu

(I was told she was named after
a cat character in a children's book...
Being curious, I attempted to locate it.
Ummm - well, let's just say if anyone knows
what the book is I'd be happy to hear it,
because what I did manage to find
wasn't exactly children's material.
Maybe I'm spelling it wrong?)

Being strictly an indoor kitty - she's absolutely terrified outside - she had no interest in leaving the car, but better safe than sorry. She spent the rest of the trip on either my lap or T's, depending who was driving.

And that's the news for now.

South Dakota Horse Fair

The South Dakota Horse Fair is an annual event, and it's on my calendar every year. It starts tonight. They have some cool presenters this year, including Stacy Westfahl, who I'd love to hear speak. My favorite part of the fair - which I'm unfortunately going to miss - is the Stallion Versatility competition. It's tonight at 6 PM.

They don't always have the same "classes" but the general idea is that there are 5 or 6 events and each stallion must compete in at least so many. They get points for placing in each class, with the overall winner being crowned at the end of the evening. They usually do halter, pleasure (English/western), trail, freestyle reining/dressage, and some sort of action - barrels one year, cutting another. I think they sometimes wait to see what horses they have lined up before deciding definitively on what events they're going to have.

This being western country, the entries are usually heavily weighted toward QHs & paints going western, but there was a very nice Friesian one year, a woman on a Palamino who rode sidesaddle for the western pleasure portion, and a beautiful leopard Appaloosa took high point the very first year. It's fun to watch - particularly because with the same horses in and out of the ring you really start to notice things you like about each - sometimes about the handlers, as well. And with the English & western riders in at the same time, it's also interesting to see how gaits and ways of going compare in each discipline. It's always fun to watch the freestyle portions - and of course, attempting to guess who's going to come out on top is part of it, too.

The fair runs three days - Friday evening through Sunday, and while it isn't as big as the Black Hills Stock show, there are vendors for all things horse-related, and plenty of stuff to keep the kids busy and occupied, as well.