A Little Slice of Heaven

Monday, January 18th, 2016 @ 7:31 PM Anna Blankenheim Equestrian, Religion aqhaproud, between the ears, quarter horse

I had a serious to do list today. I was going to work in the yard, clean up around the house, and catch up on some tv shows I have taped. Instead, I abandoned it all and headed over to the barn to ride. I spent most of my weekend over there in between rain storms and I can’t stress how therapeutic it’s been!

I read the quote below the other day… I’ve searched high and low for the author, but can’t find him/her.

“Religion is a person sitting in a church thinking about kayaking. Spirituality is sitting in a kayak thinking about God.”

As I sat there on Sue’s back and just looked out at the lake, I felt a calm come over me. Call it God, call it relaxation, call it just enjoying the moment. It was great. I could even feel Sue relax under me. There was something so spiritual about being out there, one with my horse, in the great outdoors.

The housework will always be there, but moments like this are far and few between!

Running Like The Wind

Thursday, January 14th, 2016 @ 6:17 PMThursday, January 14th, 2016 @ 4:17 PM Anna Blankenheim Equestrian aqhaproud, quarter horse, sue

Winter is a tough time for cowgirls, especially cowgirls with day jobs. It’s dark for what feels like most of the day. It’s cold. And don’t even get me started on the rain…

Knowing that I hadn’t done much ride over the period of a couple weeks (only once, actually), I decided that a wise move would be to turn Sue out for a bit in one of the pastures to run his jollies out.

And run he did.

It was amazing to watch. I love nothing more than to just stand there and listen to his thundering hooves and watch him romp. He ran around for about 20 minutes until he was covered in sweat. It was such a beautiful thing to watch and just made my heart sing.

Working Cows

Saturday, June 20th, 2015 @ 9:18 PM Anna Blankenheim Equestrian aqhaproud, cow, cowhorse, cutting horse, horse, quarter horse, sue

Today I had the very unique opportunity to take Sue out to a nearby ranch to learn to work cows. I’m not gonna lie… I was pretty much terrified. I had no idea how Sue would react (the one other time he was around cows was BuckFest 2014, but I think it was a combination of a lot of different things) and I had no idea what I was doing.

This horse loves cows. Apparently so do I because every picture that shows me head on shows me with a great big grin on my face. Honestly, it was so much fun!!!

We started the day by reviewing the basics – backing, turning, stopping. Then, they brought in the buffalo. Yeah, you read that right, the BUFFALO. Apparently they’re less aggressive than cows are and are a bit easier to learn on. Each of us in the class had the chance to chase the buffalo around the round pen twice. Once I pointed Sue in the direction of the buffalo, he was off! I swear, it’s like this horse found his purpose in life today!

After everyone worked the buffalo, we headed into the covered arena to start working on the cows. Sue and I got to practice cutting a cow from the herd – which sounds easy, but there’s definitely an art. You want to walk your horse in (the goal is to not disturb the herd) and chose the cow you want to separate from the rest. Once you get it out, you want to keep it out:

All of the hard work that my trainer, Sue, and I have been putting in really paid off! In fact, we were actually complimented for our stops and turns today! Here are a few more pictures of us chasing cows around. Also, I learned that a good cow dog is a huge help as well!