One night of color.

My good friend Jason, the Geologist, texted me at 7 ish last night and said there was a good chance at seeing the Northern Lights.
I was sitting on the couch with Charlie and reading. Feeling rather sad as it was Veteran's Day and the 11th. 
The 11th hit me hard as it marks 8 weeks that I am missing someone ... and he was a Veteran. In fact I cancelled my gym workout. It was a workout that was honoring Veterans. 

That was just a bit too much for me. I'd decided I'd have a personal pity party and ignore FB and Social Media.

I was not going to get up, but then I walked to the back door and looked out. I could see the Aurora Borealis with my naked eye. It was stunning.

So I set up my camera to photo night skies and took the tripod out to the driveway.
This is what I saw...
👇👇👇

 There were airplanes flying in the left corner, lights from my neighbor across the ridge, and light from our house in the window.

I decided to drive up to the ridge where I watch sunrises and park. Maybe I'd get a better view.

Wow. I was in for a show.

I texted Olive and Cybil so they could check it out. Olive has a beautiful deck on the back of her house. She woke up her little boy and took him out to watch the show.

I sent cell shots to Jason, my son, and got texts from our friends in Missouri. They could see the light show also!

I used my Olympus camera which has Starry Sky Auto Focus on a tripod. I won't bore you with the other settings. But the Aurora was so bright, it blew out the exposure a couple of times!

The temperature was 35 F with a light frigid breeze. I wore insulated boots, coveralls, and a glove. I had to use my right hand to answer texts [I should have just ignored the messages!]. 
I set up the camera to do a star trail exposure and let it run for 19 minutes. It took 456 photos and stacked them in camera.

The colors merged and changed which I thought was crazy wild.

I tried another at 22 minutes. [At least it gave me a chance to stick my hands into my pockets while I sat out of the wind next to the car.]

The colors and the streaks of light were wild. Red and Green and Yellow.

The lights were even in the East. I took this shot looking over another farm not too far away. Their yard lights where quite bright but the sky was brighter.

After about 2 hours, I called it and went home to warm up. Clouds were moving in and I felt ecstatic.

I was somehow convinced that some ol' Veteran I loved had arranged this show for me. 

I went to bed as the clouds moved in.

Charlie woke me at 4:30. He had to get some business done. I followed him out and looked north.

Then I ran back in and grabbed my camera which was still set up from last night. The moonlight even caused a moon shadow on the house and lit up the gravel driveway.

The moon was bright, but I could plainly see the Aurora again.

Off I went to try and get a shot of it from the pasture.

I did several shots, and decided not to drive up to the ridge again.

It even showed faintly to the south.

I took one last shot from the back step and decided to go in and have coffee while the sky started to brighten in the east.

I consider this to be one more 'Once in a Lifetime Event' for me. How lucky am I to live in a relatively dark sky area?

I know it was a natural phenomenon, but I prefer to think that hubby put the show on for just me to cheer me up. It worked.

I'm feeling full of light this morning. Don't let anyone tell you that seeing the Aurora Borealis like this is not uplifting and amazing.

One night of color and a morning with pinks and reds just for me.

Sunshine and Changes

The end of July is here, that means I start to think only of riding. It seems that I spend the spring and part of summer tending to everything else but riding.

I had hired Molly to help me with things around the farm and sadly that only lasted two weeks. She stopped coming over and then after the lost dog incident she took off to who knows where.

[The dog was found alive 5 days later in a creek bottom about 1/2 mile from their house!]

With Rich's PT schedule which is 3 times a week, I have to rethink my whole weekly plans. 

Thankfully with the nicer weather and the yard and gardens all doing quite nicely, I turned to my other summer project. I dove into saddle and tack cleaning.

Most of our tack is kept in the horse trailer as the tack room Rich was 'gonna' build in the shed never happened. I have 3 saddles that I do use. So I keep all my gear for Siera and Sunshine in good shape.

The saddle shown below was a custom built saddle for me. It even has my 

name stamped on it. 
It is a nice mule saddle. The only drawback is, it is heavy.

My Mule Saddle is always ridden with a britchen as the places I ride are steep. This saddle would slide forward on those steep downhills. I use a crupper on the lighter saddles but am thinking of using a britchen on the other western Simco saddle too.

While I was cleaning and inspecting the gear, I tried to think of how old these items where. The britchens are well over 30 years old. The Simco saddle I purchased in 1991 at Midwest Horse Fair in Madison WI.

Anyway the Mule Saddle looks like this when being used:

Old photo from 2009 with me on Siera at Wildcat parking area

What britchens look like on our mule Mica who is fully retired now:

So I got off track with all the saddle stuff.

In the evening I caught up Sunshine and planned on taking her out and about on the ridge to visit some neighbors.

So, the little mule herd decided to run, buck, fart, and carry on when I came out to catch my red mule.

The turds! I caught up Sunshine and tied her to the shade tree just as I always do. As soon as I walked off to get a brush and other grooming tools, she brayed and started to paw and shake her head.

She calmed down when I groomed her and saddled her but was all wiggly and sketchy. 

Hmmm. I decided to do a bit of 'ground' work with her to check her attitude since this was so unusual. Her sister didn't help by running the fence line in another area and screaming.

Finally! After a few commands on a long line, she was ready to listen. I got on and sat. I explained to her that behaving stupidly was not in my best interests. 

We rode to the ridge to get the mail. Once we reached the mailbox, she was all mule business and eager to ride. 

I kept it short and simple. We stopped to watch deer.

She went back to her calm and chilled little self. 

When I got home I put her in what we call The Jenny Craig paddock. I put Siera in there too. Both Siera and Sunshine are super easy keepers and probably a bit on the fat side. If they are handy and not out back where it is harder to get them, it is easier for me to grab one for a ride. Be it a short one or a longer one.

I plan on evening rides and exercising them. 

At least, that is my goal.

[Separated from their buddies, even just by a mere hot wire, they both are now self exercising by walking back and forth. Rich said they are self lunging. In a few days, they will get over it.]

As I was putting gear away after our short ride, I saw my neighbor walking with a young couple that had a baby and a young one around the edge of the woods.

I guess the house at the top of the hill must be for sale. 

Huh.

Eventually I will have to break in yet another set of neighbors?

Changes. 

At least I still have my beautiful girls, Charlie, and of course, hubby.

Our days of riding together are gone, but I still have the memories of all of our fun adventures: