Today is a relaxing, amazing, wonderful day off.  I am spending today not only cleaning because Mom is coming to visit, but I am also spending today reading and napping.  Apparently I must be rather short on sleep because I have been sleeping a lot the past few days.  I just got back from a two day ride with a family from New Zealand.  They were rather nice and none of them had much riding experience so, it was a bit slower paced ride than normal; all walk trot.  The family consisted of a mom who was rather amusingly worried about her makeup and was out on this trip for her birthday gift, a dad who was rather laid back, a twelve year old boy who was not overly into riding, but was very polite and seemed to have fun, and a very energetic eight year old girl.  I couldn’t believe the energy of the kids.  After five hours of riding the first day, they got off their horses, played a game of crocket, went swimming in the pool, ran around a bit more and still had energy. The mom rode a peppy chestnut arab named Bert, the dad rode one of our classy thoroughbreds named Ox, the boy rode another thoroughbred who is a complete gentleman named Mr. T., and the girl rode a nice little mare, Bonnie.  I got to ride Lawson for the first time.  He is a giant dark horse who loves his job and has endless energy.  I led the ride and Michael was on a new-ish quarter horse mare, Janey, in the back. 

The second day of this two day ride dawned rainy and dark.  When I went out to catch the horses they didn’t even attempt to run off like they usually do.  They just took one look at me and streamed through the gate.  They were about as grumpy as I felt.  The Janey mare was completely lame.  She was very sore in her sciatic muscles from her girth and was off on one of her front feet. So, I did not ride the second day of the ride.  I ended up driving back to the stable with Sally and the kids while Michael rode Lawson on the second day of the ride, then I would ride out with another group of two day riders and meet my group at the winery. I saddles up Cole, the same black gelding I rode last week, ponied Jacko and headed out with the other ride.  Cole was a bit fresh, but his gaits are so comfortable that I love him despite some of his behavior.  I got to have a relaxing lunch at the winery with my two day group.  On the ride back to the stable, I was back on Lawson again and when I was attempting to close a gate off of him, he was being bratty (this horse knows how to close a gate). So, after a number of attempts, Michael got on him… a while later and still unable to close the gate in the proper manner, I got on Cole rather than back on Lawson and we rode the rest of the way home.  At the end of the ride we had an awesome trot.  I am starting to love Cole, though not as much as Snowy.  Snowy is my man! 

Right now the blackberries are ripe, so last night after an amazing tea of fish and chips that Brian made for us, we had pancakes, icecream, and blackberries for desert.  YUM!  Also, we found yet another plum tree that we can have all the fruit we can eat off of.  It is amazing the amount of food that we can forage for out here.