The dazzling colours of fall

During my bus ride every day, I am struck by the absolute beauty of the fall foliage. The mix of the trembling aspen gold, the poplar yellow and the spruce dark green are all layered in the most artistic way.

It literally takes my breath away and makes me want to pause to take it all in. Even the leaves lining one of the few roads that hasn't been bulldozed and "Fixed" are stunning. Roads lined with gold.

I'm listening to Randy Bachman on Vinyl Tap on CBC radio and he's doing a show on movie music. So I'm bopping to Cindy Lauper and girls just want to have fun while I'm typing . If any of you have a chance to catch his show, it's 2 hours of excellent music and the most interesting stories to go with them.

Right now I'm working with the cutest little pony named Star. She is 10hh, black with you guessed it, at star. She's a registered Welsh and I'm training her to be a safe pony for Lesa's little girls. She is an absolute sweet heart. Maybe I should go into training pony's. It's not to far to fall either! Although I'm way to heavy to get on her, Tyler can get on. He just doesn't know it yet.

I'm also doing some work with Belle, one of my two year olds. She had a small hole in the center of her hoof and instead of cracking down, it cracked up into her cornet band. So I took her to the equine vet who took one look at it and wanted a good farrier to look at it. I ended up leaving her there as there is no such thing around here. I told him that she would probably need to be sedated as I haven't done too much work with her and she's been out running in the field. It turns out that they beveled some of the crack and decided a shoe with clips was the way to go to hold the foot together until it grew out. So Belle got a hot shoe on. Apparently she was really good. I was pleasantly surprised, that's for sure. I figured that as I have her at home, I should do some work with her so we've been working on gaiting on the lunge line and desensitizing her to lots of touching and strange things in the yard. She does have a gait to die for and is getting to the point where I just say "walk", "walk up" and "canter" this is just with the halter on, not even the bitting rig.

Here's a picture of Bell's foot before treatment

Fall work is starting to wind down, although we still have much to do. I want to finish the gate for Rascal's pen and get the goat barn cleaned out. It's been pretty nice weather for training horses too, although the last few days weren't that great.

Driving home tonight from picking up Tyler in Vegreville, I was struck by how fast the boys are growing up. Tyler has a girl friend, the operative word being friend. Wes's driving back and forth to St Paul everyday, really enjoying school (not so much English) and holding down a job. They act so grown up now. But at home they are still my boys, leaving clothes everywhere and constantly looking for food.

Gord's been working in Vancouver for the last two weeks. It was only supposed to be two weeks, but you know how those things go. He's doing one more 4 day rotation then will be home for a week, but he's going back. The work is just too steady not to. I guess the trucks aren't working so hard here at home. They figure the job will last until the end of November.