The Realization of a Dream

Yellville, AR. Home 51 degrees

Five years ago we bought our first 6 horses. A big shock at first.This consisted of two mares, each with a 2 week old baby by their side and each had been bred again to foal the following spring. All babies born and unborn have the same daddy.

It all started when I drove by a farmer friends pasture on a trip home and there were the mares and babies standing by the fence. One of the babies caught my eye. A beautiful steel blue gray little stud with jet black mane, tail, and legs. On those legs were bold horizontal stripes called *leg Barring*. What a knockout. I just knew then and there I had to have the pair.

I couldn't stop talking about the pair to C.J. He was not so gun ho but he knew one of my dreams was to have horses and ride before I was too old so he humored me. On our next trip home the horses were still there but as luck would have it C.J. fell in love with the other mare and baby, a little red dunn filly. THAT'S JUST GREAT! To skip all the minor and not so minor bickering we bit the bullet and bought all four. My wildest dreams had just come true. Not only did I have my horse...I had 4 pending 6! Heaven had arrived on my doorstep. Or so I thought.

Leaving out all the little detail, the two babies we now called Majestic Gray Flash (Flash) and A Foxy Dream Come True (Foxy) were growing by leaps and bounds. So were there moms. Each month their bellies grew bigger and bigger as we happily waited for our new arrivals. I played with my Flash. He grew more beautiful everyday. C.J. played with his Foxy treating her like a big dog. She was a joy. She loved her C.J. Followed him everywhere when he was in the pasture.

Soon it came time for our newest arrivals. They were born 2 weeks apart. Healthy and beautiful. We now had Majestic Skye Dancer (Skye) full sister to Flash and H.A.L.'s Starlight Dreamer. (Dreamer) full brother to Foxy. Our family was complete. My heart was bursting with happiness as I looked out over my little herd grazing on our hill. Life was good.

Soon after the birth of our second set of babies, my dear sweet Flash started to change. He was one and a half years old now and realizing that his boyhood was coming to an end and manhood was fast approaching. His personality was changing, he was not so sweet anymore and getting hard for me to handle. Meanwhile, his step brother Dreamer was about 6 months old and still sweet. I put the word out that I was going to sell Flash to someone who could train and handle him. That someone arrived and when he saw Dreamer he made me an offer for both of my precious boys. So on that day I sold my dear ones, gained some peace knowing they were going to be gelded, trained and were to become ranch working horses in Texas. There was less stress now with the boys gone and our herd was now 4 girls and our bills a bit lighter..if you can say that.

My two mares were broke to ride but Magic (Flash and Skye's mom) developed leg and foot problems on the left rear from arthritis shortly after we got her and can no longer be ridden as it would be too painful for her. She is our big pet and will have a home with us till it is her time. She is my favorite, sweet, shy and gentle in nature. Bridgett (Foxy and Dreamer's mom) is a big, well muscled, mare. Headstrong and leader of the herd. She has not been ridden for some time so I won't get on her as I am worried about falling if she acts up and doing damage to my hip. I have my dream of horses but have yet to ride.
That dream is about to come true.....but that story is for another day.

Happy Trails.

Technology..Curse or Blessing

Columbus, Ohio 37 degrees and sunny

I finally have my computer back. It was a bittersweet moment. I opted for a new hard drive in hopes of being able to recover all my pictures and data. No such luck. My heart is broken for all the pictures and memories I have lost.

However, there was one bright spot in this nightmare. C.J. remembered I used a flash drive to download a bunch of stuff from our old desk top PC so we could move it to my laptop. I found it and sure enough all the stuff was on it....all my documents that is. This was great of course and I put it back in my laptop right away. Bad news was......no pictures. I told myself to be grateful for small things.

I did remember that I do have some small concessions. I have Facebook pictures I can get at and I did find 2 CD's with house and cat pictures on them I can put back so I figure if I keep thinking and looking I may find more pictures in other places. In the mean time, I will now learn how to backup all this stuff so this won't happen again.

The first time was a mistake, the second time will be just STUPID!

Happy Trails!