AUBURN, IN

We are still at my niece Dianna's place.  I must say she has some of the noisiest chickens I have ever heard.  Just a lot of chatter.

Our poor Riggins, at about 109 lbs you would think he could walk through the valley of death and fear no evil. Well not true. Yesterday morning he ran and hid under the trailer when this beast came walking by.

Not too much went on yesterday. We went into town to pick up a few things, mainly a new walking collar for Riggs. We have no idea where his other one is. After all we are in an rv, how many places could there be, I think Riggs smuggled it out and buried it.  I know a lot of people think those collars are cruel, the ones that have the tines that put pressure on their necks. But I cannot walk Riggs without one , he has the neck and muscles of a bull. With a regular collar he pulls me around like a rag doll since I only outweigh him by a few pounds and he is pure muscle and I am not.

The printer we have in the house is fairly good size, while we were at Wally world Sam saw a smaller printer on sale so we bought it to have for the trailer. Many times you want to print out so it will come in handy.

Dianna had planned chili and cornbread for dinner, but great niece Shelby had a riding lesson. So Dianna got out her book of secret recipes and showed the one exchange student Halli (sp) how to make her award (3 awards) winning chili. She was so nervous, but as Dianna told her its really hard to mess up chili

You can see how intense she is listening.

Now is was time to get trailer ready to load Will, Shelby’s horse and go.  Its a lot of work getting the trailer ready. First rubber mats have to go down over the aluminum floor, then sawdust has to be laid and then the dividers put in, they have a 3 horse trailer.

Thank goodness for strong young ladies!

Then we were off to pick up Shelby’s friend Melissa and her horse Babe (Ruth). She is gorgeous, great big blue eyes.

The trainer had a new pattern she wanted the girls to try. They weren't going for height today, just form and to get horses used to a different pattern. Some of their competitions only the jumps and horse are judged, in others the form and posture of rider is just as important. Since Shelby and Lauren compete in both types they need the critical eye of an instructor to tell them when their backs aren't straight enough, or if their hands aren't right etc.

See the bars on the ground. Trainer kept moving the distance between them so Will could learn to adjust his stride to fit the pattern. Will is absolutely gorgeous and a much larger horse than the others there. Because of their height my great nieces need the larger horses. Wish I was a better photographer because watching Will and Babe when they would canter around the ring was just so gorgeous, they knew they were being watched and held their heads high and really strutted their stuff. But then I am a sucker for a beautiful horse.

Speaking of which, here is another of Dianna’s horses. He is absolutely beautiful and even running around in paddock the tail goes out and the head comes up, talk about poetry in motion.

This is view from our rig looking on the back of Dianna’s beautiful house.

It was going on 8 by the time we got back. Sam and I had a big lunch at Steak and Shake so I opted out of the famous chili as I had no appetite and really want to enjoy it, so think chili is on my lunch menu. Hope they still have some of that corn bread left. Is there anything better than hot cornbread slathered in lots of butter?

Today we are museum hopping and then Sam is going to make his meatballs and spaghetti and I’ll make the sauce for dinner tonight.

Well everyone, be safe be happy