Friday, November 27, 2009

A Bit Of Wilderness



I thought that I would post some pictures of where I work every week. :) I go to this farm every Saturday and work hard all day for a free riding lesson. (My brother, my friend Debbie and I go together.) We muck stalls, feed horses, groom horses, my brother helps with construction sometimes, we clean tack and saddles, change water buckets, empty manure and all sorts of stuff! It's a lot of fun, and pretty much the highlight of the week.


 These two horses are Abe and Walter.  Walter is the smaller horse; he's about a year old.  Abe is the big one - a Halflinger - and only 3 years old! He's one of the bigger horses in the barn, and he's really stocky and big for his breed.  Halflingers used to be bred big, but then they got bred smaller so that now they're only a little bigger than a pony.  Abe had a bad problem with his bones - it had something to do with his growing so fast - and they almost had him put down.  But he didn't seem to be complaining about the problem at all, so they decided to keep him and see what happened.  He seems fine, and they're hoping that by next Spring his bones will have evened out with his growing rate.  He boards at the barn.  They are about sixteen horses there, and about eight of them are owned by my boss. :)


These are Isaac's feet.  He's a thoroughbred horse, and the experienced riders who do big jumps and everything ride them.  He used to be a racehorse, I believe.  I just liked this picture because of the way he was holding his feet while he was being groomed. :D

So, that is where I work every week. I would have put more pictures up of the actual horses, but they weren't very good pictures, so maybe some other time. :)


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

This was an interesting read. ;-)

Thanks for sharing. My aunt has a horse farm - very large - and when I was younger she would give V&I horse-riding lessons all the time. For a while we were actually becoming quite skilled at it but then we stopped and I dare say that I have likely lost any familiarity that I once had. Horses are fascinating creatures though.

Now Ruby, you are an authoress - just not a Hobbit authoress - and you could certainly use a more dainty word than "we muck the stalls"
Just kind of .... Oh, what is the term??? umm, patois and not too "Gem-like" you know? Try this: Ahem (got to get in the spirit now...) "We fecundate the horses alcove with an ordure olla-podrida ." Illustriously spoken is it not? Yet, the meaning is esoterically concealed so that those who don't really want to know you muck stalls would never comprehend that you do from reading that line.

Any nice sleigh rides you get to go on this winter as a perk? That would be worth working for to be sure!

I like your new template except for this J.R.R. Tolkien business ... TONS of great books to name a blog after other than hobbits, Ruby. Please! Why not A Tale of Two Rubies or Jane Rubeyre or Ruby of the D'Urbervilles or Gone with the Rubies or The Ruberbury Tales
JUST ANYTHING BUT THE HOBBIT!!!

'Tis a hopeless cause....

Auf Wiendersehen

Ruby Jean Hopkins said...

I like none of those titles!! They all sound lofty and mighty, and if you even knew the hobbits and the way the lived, or what There And Back Again was about, you would see why I like it... besides LOTR being a genius, it represent such a cheerful, homey atmosphere that's quite unassuming, because that's the way Hobbits are. :)

Anonymous said...

Poor me - I still don't know what a hobbit is. Maybe it is a blend of a Hopkin and a bobbin.

No sleigh rides from your horses I assume? I was authentically asking. IMAGINE THAT!

(Oh, the reason why I italicized patois and olla-podrida is because they are foreign words. I just looked over at that comment and it appeared that I was emphasizing them but I was not. Totally unneeded, random correction)

Ruby Jean Hopkins said...

I didn't make it up. Read the books, and you'll find out.

No sleigh-rides, Ryan. :P

You know, I usually know that when a word doesn't look English and is italicized, it's usually foreign. ;)

Anonymous said...

Oh boy, somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed today.....

Yes, I know you did not concepualize the hobbit. Now SOME people would just tell me but SOME other people are stubborn and after being asked TWICE still don't answer... Now, that doesn't seem too friendly to me now does it?

My aunt used to own a sleigh at her farm. It isn't an obsolete practice altogether. Don't need to get all ruffled up over a simply question, RUBY!

Yes yes yes, but it simply appeared as if I was making sure everyone saw those two words and how grand they are when in actuality I was only being grammatically correct. No accusation of Miss Hopkins' semantic expertise anywhere in these remarks.

Go take a bubble bath; it will cheer you up a bit! ;-)

Ruby Jean Hopkins said...

But I am not going to tell you because that would be spoiling you. No, you must read the book if you want a complete and full definition of Hobbits. :)

And I don't need a bubble bath! :D I'm reading Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English Speaking People. Maybe after that I'll need a bath. :P