Tag: Blessed

On My Mind.

On By AveryIn Dogs, Faith, Food, Horses, Life, Music3 Comments

Now that I have had a chance to thaw out from the crazy Texas freeze, here are a few things on my mind. We are covering all the topics in my AHAmoments. Mostly, things I am grateful for all wrapped up in a weekend recap.

First. My Darcy dog that keeps my spot on the bed warm while I get ready for bed. Just look at that Llew-ball.

unnamed-1

Second. Do not forget to thank the people that make your dream work and be grateful for them. For me, being a horse person, my veterinarian and farrier are two of the many keys to what I do. My form of thank you is baked goods. Usually of the cookie variety.

I am blessed to have them on my team because they work with me and my situation. The vet came out on Friday to give all the horses their annual checkups. As I mentioned before, it turned out to be the worst weather as always. It was worse than expected and that is why I do not have any pictures of said visit. 3/5 horses he wanted to float. Given that water is involved in floating a horses teeth, the temperature did not get above freezing, Apache’s advanced age, and that he had some sensitive situations he was monitoring on other farms, we decided that Friday was not the best day for it. He said he would do whatever he needed to do to get the three horses’ teeth floated soon however it worked for me, even if I could not be there, which included not charging me an extra trip charge. I am just so appreciative that they both work with me and our needs. If I had it my way, I would be there every time they came out.

Third. Fire. Confession, I am a slight pyromaniac. I also just really love a good pit fire. Saturday, the wind finally quit blowing in a hurry and the conditions were perfect for fire sitting, even if it was in the 30’s and going down. All the animals were warm and fed. I had the feed trailer loaded and ready for the following morning. I had just pulled a lemon blueberry cake breakfast bread (go make that now and add more blueberries to the bread and more powdered sugar to the glaze) out of the oven. The sky was clear and the fire glorious.

Which brings me to my next point. Four. Music. Good and great music comes in all different forms. On Saturday evening with fire and cocktail, these two songs really spoke to me. I hope they speak to you too. Have an open mind and a listen.

Thanks to No Justice – Topic on YouTube for the vid.

Thanks to the man himself, Corey Smith, and his YouTube for the vid.

Fifth. You guessed it. This farm and my horses in which I see God’s unending blessings, beauty, and grace. They clear my mind and vision and carry my troubles away. Not to mention all the great paintings!

Sixth and final for the day. The great Texas weather. What? Yes, you heard that. Great. It may be crazy at times, and yes it was really, really cold. However, as quick as it gets bad, it gets good. Saturday, albeit a weee bit cold, was down right gorgeous. By Sunday, it was perfect riding weather.

Today I am grateful for the above great music to dance in love my way through work, dear readers.

If you had to pick five things you are grateful for today, what would they be?

 

Never Apologize

On By AveryIn Faith, Life2 Comments

Never apologize for who you are! Stay true to yourself for that is who you are meant to be. AHAmoment.

I struggle with that at times, as I think we all do. This is one of the main reasons I wanted to start this blog. To be true to myself and be free to express myself. To encourage you to do the same. For you to know that you are not alone in this. Everyone is as unique as their finger print. Fly your flag!

Do what you need to do for you. Forgive yourself your mistakes as you learn from them.

Walk your path and do it in love, both for yourself and others!

542186_10152391023445527_225908045_n
What the farm will likely look like this weekend!

Our Love & Our Souls

On By AveryIn Faith, Life, MusicLeave a comment
cropped-521848_10152523083700527_2034062370_n.jpg

Breaking news, it is warming up. We are out of blanket territory for a while. Now I can buckle down for Christmas.

Your AHAmoment today is brought to you by Sean McConnell. His song ‘Our Love and Our Souls’ is what IT is all about. He says it better than I ever could. Have a listen below. It is an amazing feeling when a song like this pops up on your shuffle and just speaks to your soul. You may not have been paying attention before, just looking out the window, lost in your thoughts or following that long white line. Then all of a sudden, you snap to and realize He is speaking right to you. If you are me, you listen to it on repeat, so grateful to listen and be receptive to the message.

“Sometimes it all comes down at once
Sometimes when it rains it pours
But I wouldn’t trade my troubles for any one of yours
Cause money’s just money
It comes and it goes
And things are just things baby
So breakable
Ain’t nothing lasts forever except our love and our souls
Cause I ain’t that hungry
And I have a home
I ain’t fighting for my life
And I’m not alone
So may I pray every morning
As I make up the bed
‘Lord, all I need today is my daily bread'”

Thanks, Doug Morrison, on YouTube for the vid.

Walk in love, dear readers.

Grocery shopping today after work for Christmas! Wish me luck! Cranberry sauce, Pomegranate cake, and pumpkin bread. Then wrapping all the presents for my loved ones.

Fear

On By AveryIn Faith, Life, Music2 Comments

Fear creates a hole in your heart. In your soul. AHA moment. What am I afraid of? I am afraid of the unknown. Of not being ‘successful.’ Of disappointing my parents. That I am doing the wrong thing. That on the outside, it looks like I do not have it all together. That I will spend my life alone. That I will wake up one day and have regrets. That there will be a time in my life where riding does not fit in.

This is extremely hard for me to admit. I have spent my life, I think mostly unknowingly, trying to convince everyone that I can do anything and everything on my own without help from anyone. Where does that come from? Not the Lord, I can tell you. I can not do it on my own and it is utterly apparent to me now. No one is immune to this. Fears are not conquered alone, no matter how hard you try.

What are you afraid of?

Thanks to Paul Overstreet – Topic on YouTube for the vid.

I am thankful for everything that He does with me, for me, and through me. I know that I am never alone because He is always there, helping me walk my path. I can conquer anything with Him.

Walk in love, dear readers.

Stewardship

On By AveryIn Horses2 Comments

I once wrote a scholarship essay about stewardship. Well, the prompt may not have been directly about stewardship, but stewardship applied and was the point of my essay. Stewardship of the land. I think I was awarded that scholarship. That is not the point of this post though.

The point is, we are stewards. Have you ever thought about it? Stewards of ourselves. Stewards of the land. Stewards of our animals. We are care takers. AHA moment. To me, it is my most important job to be a good steward of my animals and their land. It is not always easy and it is not always fun. It is the price we pay for the great things they give us.

Yesterday, after work, I drove out to the farm in blistering, strong winds to throw extra feed to the horses and cows and to blanket the old man, Apache. I do this every night it gets really cold. Luckily for me, I live in the southern half of Texas and we do not have ‘real’ winters. Did I want to drive out there in less than favorable conditions to be cold and dirty? Then to wake up at 5 AM to feed again and get back to town before traffic and work. Pick hay out of my hair all day at work. Not really. Especially because I could not ride (how selfish of me). I will turn around after work today and do the same thing. However, it did me more than good to see them and know that they were alright, would be comfortable through the night. They needed me. They depend on me, and to be honest, I depend on them.

I am so grateful for Apache. He has taught me so much in my life. Lessons I am not sure I would have learned from any other horse I have come in contact with. He is the one that really ‘got my goat’ when I was younger. He has the attitude and personality of a naughty pony, just in horse size. Anyway, now that he is 30+ years old, I am having a hard time watching him age. We do not know much about his life before he came to be with us. He has been a great horse. He has really started to show his age since we lost Mansebo and that is the hardest part for me. I do not want to think about when his time comes. He will let me know what that is, just like Mr. Man did. Until then, I am happy to do whatever it is he needs. I will blanket him when it gets cold and feed him to his heart’s content. Get the burrs out of his mane and tail. Do whatever I can to make him comfortable and will not always be easy.

What is the most important thing to you that you are a steward of and why? What sacrifices do you make?

Walk in love, dear readers, and stay warm.

Farm weekend with the horses and dog for me. Christmas festivities with the nephew and niece Sunday!

unnamed

Feed Your Flame

On By AveryIn Faith, Horses, Life4 Comments

Your AHA moment for today is brought to you by The Exquisite Equine. I have mentioned Emily’s blog on here once before. This where IT is at. What IT is all about. I could not have said it better myself. Can you see the metaphor and message for life itself?

Be yourself. Do not compare yourself to anyone else. Do not try to fit yourself into a box. You are uniquely and divinely made in His image. Speak to your intuition. Feed your flame.

Horses have shown me their flames to have me see mine. I see God in them and He teaches me through them. The horses feed my flame, show me my true self, and keep me honest. When everything appears to be blowing up in life, like it feels right now, they remind me what is important.

What feeds your flame???

“When you connect with yourself and nature, you can see that you’ve had everything all along. Everything: the answers, the peace, the harmony, the joy, the happiness, the love…it has all been inside of you all along. What other people say and do and think, well it just really doesn’t matter much. Trust your horse to be your wisest teacher, trust your gut to lead you in the right direction, and trust yourself that everything you need is already within you.” Thank you, Emily, for being you!

Connect with nature and yourself, for they are things that He has made. I trust the horse because they are God’s creatures. I have everything I need within me because He put it there. I am grateful for it.

I can not wait to get out to the farm after work today. I need all the time with them I can get. The cold weather is coming in and I have to put extra feed out and blanket old man Apache.

Walk in love.

8ad9f97728853618947de67ee59b865a

Getting into the Spirit.

On By AveryIn Faith, Life, MusicLeave a comment

I have finally finished the Christmas decorations at my parents house. It took me way longer than normal 3d4fe84470994b9f872f56b306727792817f5428f6b4afeec3b45e5877920d71because I have had a case of the bah humbugs. I will not go on about this because I want them gone and I have already versed y’all. I am going to focus on the good and positive right now. One step at a time. I will say the decorating helped along with the Christmas music. I confess, I also had some bubbly. Why not? It is the season to celebrate the waiting for Christ. If you are having a case of the bah humbugs, get to decorating while playing your favorite Christmas music. Baking also helps. Christmas cookies! Pumpkin bread! Oh, and look here for some cute photos of my critters getting into the spirit. I snapped a few photos of the finished look to help inspire you if you need it. I am also going to share my favorite Christmas songs/music if you need or want help in that department.

Let us not talk about how the table is not in the middle. Look at that Darcy dog being fire side bird dog. Such a Llew.

The reason for the season…

Vince Gill (hello, his voice) is a great go to for Christmas music. Chris Isaak (again, his voice. Yowza) and Aaron Neville (is this a theme? His voice. So soulful) are also very good. I first heard Mindy in store while shopping. I went up to the register and asked someone to go find out who was singing. Why I did not use my iPhone I do not know.

Eden’s Edge has a very good version of ‘O Holy Night’ that I can not find on YouTube.

I have many more that are high on my list, I just can not name them all at the moment.

Check out my Spotify playlist for more.

Happy listening. Remember the reason for the season.

What are your favorites?

 

A Soft Spot For Stars Blog Hop: Location, Location, Location.

On By AveryIn Horses3 Comments

This is my first blog hop, and it will not be my last! It has rained basically non stop since Friday, so I have no fun riding stories. I basically did chores and fed while getting wet. Then on Sunday, my parents and I got the family Christmas tree. I finished decorating it last night with the help of wine. The decorating is almost finished. Normally, I would be finished with Christmas deco within a couple days of Thanksgiving, but given the events of late, it just has not happened.

I digress, I am going to jump on the TB pedigree blog hop bandwagon eventually, but I can not remember who started that one? Cheetah‘s dam was an OTTB and has a fun pedigree. I did all the research while I was in grad school. It was great for procrastinating.

Today’s blog hop comes from A Soft Spot For Stars. I already like her because we both have dun mares. Anyway, I too am curious about fellow bloggers locations and what it is like where they are.

8e2fb13d66cac7d6dd11209131704afeNo secrets here, I am a Texas gal. I reside in the ‘southern half’ of the state, in a big city. My horses stay at our family farm an hour away. That makes things difficult for me and my fuel consumption. However, it is an easy hour drive and I can go out after work whenever I need or want. The time change makes it hard to ride when I go after work during the winter, but I can blanket the old guy and feed him before it gets dark on cold nights. I will be doing that the latter half of this week.

Demographic? Most people that live in and around the city board their horses if they do not have property outside of town. There are several equestrian friendly communities outside of town where you can live and keep or board horses. We are probably 50/50 mix of western to english riders of all kinds. There are many shows and clinics in the ‘general area.’ Most shows and clinics are just far enough away from where the horses are to not be ‘convenient’ (1.5-2+ hr haul). This is very frustrating for me as I am hungry for more knowledge and do not want to let my riding get stagnant. BUT there are many great trainers and I have a few that I plan to haul to for lessons in the near future. We have a few good tack stores in town (good or bad considering how you look at it!). There is a big tack store in the area. It is generally an hour from town or an hour from the farm, but I ride horses for people out that way sometimes.

Costs of horse keeping in my region of the great state:

  • Trim-$35 (Lito just gets a trim, as do the other geldings and Petunia)
  • Front shoes-$70 (I keep front shoes on Cheetah Beets)
  • Average cost of a month of full time training-$800
  • Average cost of monthly pasture board-$400
  • Average cost of monthly stall board-$600 (All kinds of board and prices range wildly. These averages might be on the high side, but there are places I have seen that have exorbitant prices. The ones that I have looked at and work for me are not all that much closer than the farm)
  • Hay, good horse quality Bermuda-$8.00 (I have not looked at the prices for this year yet)(We high quality pasture and have had good rains this year…I do not think we will need to buy too terribly much this year)
  • What I consider priceless? Feeding in my pj’s. That Texas sky. Sunrises and sunsets viewed from the back of my horse. When I am at the farm, I can do whatever, whenever.

Weather? In the summer it is hot and humid. The only ‘good thing’ about the humidity is that it keeps us from generally having too many 100+ temp days. The heat index is the killer…and the bugs. All of our cows have some percentage of Brahman in them to help with coping with bugs and humidity. I ride all year round. In the summer on the weekends, I wake up and feed in the dark so I can be tacked up and mounted by the time I can see with the first light. I generally ride 2 horses (groom, ride, cool out, hose down) and get some chores finished by 11 AM. I do not do much else until 7 PM when I will ride another horse. It also limits when I haul. I do not like to haul during the hot, middle of the day. During the work week, I hustle out there and get 1 horse ridden and get back home late. Sometimes I stay out there for the night and come back super early in the morning for work. Winter is pretty easy by majority standards. It will freeze a few times. Lows are generally in the 40’s. A cold night is in the 30’s. It will only do that for a few days. It is not uncommon to be riding in short sleeves in January.

Lito has what I think is an allergic reaction to mosquitoes or flies. Does anyone else have this problem???
Hot Darcy.
A ‘frosty’ morning ride on Cheetah, looking at the geldings.

Other notes? Hunting season. It cramps my style a little bit because some in the family like to hunt at the farm. That is all fine and good except that requires me to not ride. That bugs me. Other than that it is fine. Our property is on a river and there are some duck hunters that like to come and park themselves behind the barn. The barn is not right on the river, but it is close. Anyway, I can hear them and let me tell you, it is funny. They are not very good at their duck calls and I can hear them talking. That is not how you do it!

Frustrating things?

  • The drive. I wish they were closer. However, I like not having to pay board. I have contemplated it so I could have at least a horse closer. I also like them being able to live like horses. It is also simpler to have them at the farm with the others. I have also contemplated moving to a place somewhere in the middle.
  • I miss the barn community. It is a great thing. I have horse friends that I ride with, but most of them are not in our neck of the woods.

Join in on the blog hop if you have not already! I have had fun reading them!