Big Oscar Kitty

This is Oscar. He is one of my parents cats that hangs around the house. He always loves to sit on top of things. Either it is on the roof of the house, on a fence post, on a beam in their cabana, or on a stump! One day when I was at their ranch I looked out the window and saw him just relaxing on this stump in their side yard. I decided to go get my camera. Just when I was getting ready to take the picture he yawned! PERFECT PICTURE moment! Then he saw me and I took the second photo! I was hoping it would turn out okay, taking these pictures through the window of the house!

Tired Roxy

Here is my current horse Roxy. This is after a lesson with Ellen. She is an awesome instructor and a fabulous rider. Roxy and I had a great workout. It was a stormy day, look at the beautiful sky. I was fortunate enough to have my mom there to take photos of Roxy and I.

My Son- Drake (the hunting dog off duty)

This is my husband's bird dog. I thought it would be fun to take his picture infront of the Christmas tree with Sadie's scarf! This might be on this years Christmas card!

I had to add my little Sadie to this! She is the little blonde dog!

My Parent's Ranch

Here are some pictures of my parents ranch. I love to spend my free days there. There is always something to do. I feel like I can get away from all my stress and angers. I am able to clear my mind and feel good about things. I really enjoy taking me dog out to the ranch and let her run away her energy.

Here are some pictures that I have taken at the ranch! Enjoy!

A wedding in Boston in January- COLD!

My husband's cousin got married on MLK day in Boston. We flew across the country to find temperature highs of about 15* F COLD! I usually consider 50*F cold, but this was SUPER COLD! On Sunday we had 10 inches of snow. Very pretty. We went and saw Old Ironsides. This was a great tour.
The wedding was at the MIT chapel. Both the bride and groom go to MIT and are finishing up their PHD. You can see how I get my smarts! It was a simple and lovely wedding. I had some great New England Clam Chowder, twice!
Glad to be back in rainy CA. Hopefully the rain continues for a while- we need it!

2 riding lessons this weekend!

I am taking two riding lessons this weekend with the best trainer! I am very excited. Plus, like I said in previous posts, I don't have to pay for them! Yipeee!
I am going to try to get some video and photo clips. Unfortunately, my husband won't be there either day, but I am hoping my mom will stop by on Saturday.

Riding lessons- a gift from the husband!

I am so very excited, my husband gave me a Christmas gift of three riding lessons with one of the best trainers that I am fortunate of riding with one weekend each month! It was too cute how he asked to get these lessons from the lady that organizes the lessons. One weekend in December when the wonderful trainer was in Winters giving lessons, my husband snuck over to the barn while I was at my folks ranch working. He had a picture taken of Roxy (my horse) and the trainer. Then on Christmas morning I opened the wonderful gift. There was a huge box that I had saved to mail my saddle in, when it eventually sells! I opened up the box and there was a bunch of tissue paper, a tool box to add some weight, then I found it! There was an envelope with a note and picture in it. It was a gift certificate for three riding lessons with one of the best trainers I have ever rode with. I am so very excited! It isn't very cheap to ride with this trainer, but I have such great rides when I do ride with her. I am hoping that I will have my husband or friends video my rides!

SADIE- my daughter and my dog

My dog Sadie, playing in the water on a cold December day! She loves to run around at my folk's ranch. She loves to run, run, and run!

Baby horses are checking our my dog

Sadie! What is that dog doing?

After a day at my folk's ranch. Sadie is a little sleepy! She runs non-stop all day at my parents ranch.

Sadie posing in front of our Christmas tree! Look at her cute scarf! This might have to be part of our Christmas card next year!

Mr. Belyea and I at Thanksgiving

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I am thankful for such wonderful family and friends.

Pars- The Very Calm Thoroughbred

In this picture there are three horses. On the left we have Hombre. In the middle is a horse that belonged to one of my Aunts, and then on the right is Pars. Pars enjoyed eatting on his spare time, as you can see!
When I bought Pars I fell in love with his face. He had a white heart shaped mark on his forehead! His registered name is Tinsle Town Boy! He was bred to be a race horse, but was too slow.
Thoroughbreds are usually high energy and always needing to be doing something horses. Pars was not this way. My dad, who doesn't ride horses actually road Pars on a cattle drive. At one point, one of the cowboys told my dad he might want to get off the horse and walk him up the hill. Pars was a lazy horse and that wasn't really into putting much effort into his daily workouts. I owned Pars for about two years, this was during the time I was getting Hombre going. I realized after the two years that Hombre was going somewhere and that Pars was just cute! I ended up selling Pars to a lovely woman that was going to use him for trail rides and spoiling him! I figured that suited him best!

Lindy- aka: Slow Jo

This is Lindy and Sarah at Sarah's first horseshow!
I was about 5 or 6 years old in this picture. Lindy was the perfect horse for any determined young equestrian. She was like a millions years old and had her own opinion of what she would do.
My sister rode Ahab at the time I rode Lindy. Lindy would follow Ahab everywhere, even when I didn't want her to! I would ask my sister to ride to various places so that Lindy would follow him there!
If you look at this picture, my helmet is too big! We had to stuff it so it wouldn't flop around!
I also called Linday Slow Jo, because the Olympian track athlete Flow Jo was my role model at this time, and Lindy was anything but fast, so we called her Slow Jo!

Pele the Mustang

This is Pele. I had Pele during one year of my college days.
Pele is a mustang that friends had adopted, through wild horse rescue. She was a fun horse to go out on the trails. She could spot a deer a mile away!
This is a picture of my little cousin brushing Pele. My cousin lives in the city and doesn't get to be in the country that often. My sister is helping supervice and make sure that Pele is behaving herself. That is myself holding Pele.
I ended up giving Pele back to her owners, and last I heard she was a polo pony!

Ahab the Arab

Ahab is a beautiful chestnut Arabian cross gelding. He was my mom's horse first, then my sister's horse, and then he became my horse when I was in fourth grade. Ahab was a cool horse that had such a mellow attitude and was willing to do most things. I remember I went through a phase, I believe it was sometime during fifth grade where I would just take Ahab for walks around my parents ranch. I would lead him for hikes, not ride, I would walk on the ground and lead him everywhere! I think this might have been because I had too much energy to sit and I had to move around by walking or jogging!
When I grew out of Ahab we gave him to friends. Unfortunately, the friends had a horse that was really mean to Ahab. So we were given Ahab. He lived with us for another year or so, and then we met some people that had a young girl that was looking for a horse. We gave Ahab to this young girl. We stayed in touch with the girls trainer for a year, but then lost touch. I am not sure if Ahab is still around, but if he isn't, he is for sure enjoying the best green grass in heaven!
(yes, I know, Ahab and Hombre look like the same horse, but they are two different horses! Plus, they are not even related)

Hombre- The Man!

This entry is about The Man of my life for many years- middle school, high school and junior college. This Man would be Hombre. Hombre is a chestnut colored gelding. His breeding is 1/2 Quarter horse and 1/2 Arabian. Hombre was born on my parents' ranch and he is the son of my mom's mare. Her mare is 29 years old this year! Hombre is 22 years old. My mom still has her mare Hochoy (means good luck in Chinese), but Hombre now belongs to a woman in Windsor, CA. Hombre means Man. My mom named him that. Hombre was suppose to be her other horse. Well, he ended up only being 15 hands tall, and she was hoping for more like 15.3 hands. Hombre was also a pest. I gave Hombre a couple nicknames throughout the years- Oscar the Grouch, Dennis the Menace, and a couple other names that I don't need to mention! For the first five years of Hombre's life he pestered us when he was lose all around the ranch. He always wanted to know what was going on and why we were digging long holes (ditches) in the ground, or why the other horses and the cows got feed also, instead of just him!
Eventually, by age 6, Hombre started to be a working horse. I decided that I thought I would start teaching Hombre a few things. I found out that Hombre is actually a very talented horse under saddle, but when you are standing on the ground next to him, he is a real pest!
I started to take riding lessons on Hombre, and then I started to show him. Many people were impressed with him. I had people asking me what his breeding was- I just said he is a Quarter horse/Arabian, most people thought he was a thoroughbred! He was quite a beautiful mover and most Quarter horses are not that gracious of movers.
We ended up doing really well in shows. I took Hombre to eventing shows- Dressage, Show Jumping and Cross-Country jumping at Training level. We won a couple of these events! Hombre loved to show off in the arena when he knew that he was being watched! He would always be unpredictable in the warm up- knocking down rails when jumping, kicking out or giving a little buck from time to time. But when we entered the show arena, he was serious! That is a good thing.
For Dressage, we did a couple musical freestyles, and we even presented a musical freestyle at CDS championships (California Dressage Society) and won!
It is funny how a crazy little horse like Hombre became such a great performer.
Unfortunately during college days I wasn't able to ride much. I was running track working at Costco and going to classes. There wasn't any free time for riding, just sleeping. I sold Hombre to a lovely lady in Sonoma County. I stayed in contact with her for a year or two and then lost contact. I just hope that Hombre is still enjoying the days and getting his trail rides in. I do miss him dearly, but I am glad that I got to enjoy the prime years of his life! Thank you Hombre for all the memories, and I sure you have given your new owner many memories also!

Annie- Life was too short, and she will always be loved

This is Annie. I bought Annie at age 6 months old. She was cute but goofy looking. Foals go through many awkward stages. I was Annie's 5th owner, and she was only 6 months old when I bought her. Kind of sad. At 4 months of age she was suppose to go to horse slaughter with her mom. The mom went, but Annie was saved! I did a bunch of ground work with Annie. Teaching her the basics: getting groomed with brushes all over her body, picking out her hooves, using clippers around her legs and her ears and her muzzle, she was great with loading in the horse trailer.

Unfortunately, Annie had too short of a life. When she was almost 3 years old, I took Annie to a trainer that I had used before. On the first day of training Annie fell down while being tied up. After a long story of information, we found Annie had 4 fractures in her pelvis due to the fall. After many tears, Annie was put down. Now Annie is up in Heaven grazing on billions of acres of green grass.

The Horses of My Life- So Far!

For me only being 29 years old, I have had quite a few horses over the years. Here is a list of the horses that I have had:
Fancy Pants, Lindy aka Slow Jo, Stoney, Ahab, Pars, Hombre, Pele, Annie, and now my present horse Roxy. Of all these horses, I leased two of them, Stoney and Pele. Yes, I know I was very fortunate as a kid and I still am. Now, that I am a teacher I realized that my parents gave my sister and I all their extra money, since they were both teachers. I feel now that I owe my parents a lot! So I try to go to their ranch one day on the weekends and work for them. The usually, scooping poop or cutting down those ugly Grey Pines, we call Digger Pines.
One day, I will post pictures of most of these horses and I will also give a brief bio of each!

First Entry

This is my first time EVER putting an entry on a blog. Very interesting! I am not sure what all I am going to write about during these blog entries.

I am going to write about horse back riding.
I have been riding horses since I can remember. Probably before I could walk. I have had a few different horses over my life. I can remember one of my first horses, she was the crankiest mare ever! Her name was Lindy. I called her Slow Jo after my favorite track runner, Flow Jo!

More will come later!

Thanks for reading.