video of Molly and Kacee

Blueberry picking in Dorset

Molly and I decided to drive to Wildwood Farm in Dorset yesterday.  Several friends have picked blueberries there and remarked how good they were.  We picked 7 1/2 lbs, they are delicious!  We gave some to Martha, Nick across the road and Sue.  The bushes were just loaded and very easy to pick from.

the new jumps for Kacee

Kacee sniffing the funny new blue thing in her pasture

What's in here?You want me to pick my feet up???Cantering up the hill...More cantering....Wow, I'm tired!!!!

We got some neat new plastic jump standards for the meadow.  Kacee is definitely a western pleasure horse so really doesn't like to pick her feet up and jump much.  We started with small x's and trot poles and she really seems to like it.  The horse flies have been terrible here.  Looking forward to a little cooler weather.  We also got our hay finally.  We've been waiting...Zeke never calls, just shows up and dumps it off for us to mow away.  We figured he would be there on our vacation but he didn't show up until last week.  I got a text from Molly at work saying John wasn't home, I was working and she was mowing hay away alone!  Only 250 bales though.  A lot easier with only one horse!

the new lawnmower

We had an old Cub Cadet riding mower (it was originally Lynn's, so I think it was about 25 years old)  The body was solid, but the mower base was getting very rusty, John spent many hours fixing little problems.  I asked him if I could mow a few paths in the meadow to set up some jumps and x's for Kacee.  He kind of hemmed and hawed and said well " I guess, just don't hit too many rocks...and well I'll mow my gun range first"  He proceeded to mow his target range, managing to hit quite a few rocks....then turned the mower over to me.  I mowed 2 paths, very gently I might add and suddenly the mower didn't sound right.  I looked down and the belt was shredded and hanging outside where it shouldn't be.  So....when he asked if I was finished I told him we needed a new mower!  He kind of shrugged (better than what the response could have been!)  Needless to say, we have a new mower.  He loves it and the lawn looks awesome.  Things have come a long way in 25 years!  The best part too is that he did find a mower base at one of the cub cadet dealers for the old mower for $50.  Now he can use that mower to mow Robin's and I can keep the paths mowed in the meadow for riding and jumping!

more pictures...kayaking at Sunset and Chittenden Dam

Molly and I did our yearly excursion to Chittenden dam.  It was cloudy, muggy and fortunately didn't rain until we got off the lake!

A few more pictures from camp

Sue and Robin joined us for dinner and boating, kayaking one day.

Wallace's camp 2010

We had an awesome week at Wallace's!   I had my weekend covered so ended up having 13 days off!  The weather was great, we fished, swam, kayaked and visited with friends.  Very relaxing and much needed!  We used David's boat so John didn't have to deal with trying to launch his boat from the access near the boy scout camp.  The first day we were there we were all swimming and these very loud air raid like sirens went off from the boy scout camp.  Turns out one of the beaver dams let loose on a pond above sunrise and that lake rose a foot in 15 minutes.  The road was washed out above our camp.  It didn't affect us though.  We drove into town that evening to get Barbeque from Tylord's for dinner and got the scoop from the firemen blocking the road.

We fished everyday, caught lot's of perch, bluegill and bass.  John did some trolling and caught a nice trout.  Austin did amazingly well, despite the fact that he is 13!  I did get some arthritis medicine for him for the week as every time someone would go down to the dock you had to go up and down a flight of stairs.  We didn't think he would be here last year but he did it!  The acupuncture still is making a big difference in how he feels.
Molly and I went to Burlington on one of the days that was cloudy and enjoyed pizza at American Flatbread (They make a gluten free crust for me that's great)  We brought home pizza for dinner too.

We all were able to read a couple of books, James Patterson is one of my favorite authors.  It was a great week with great weather too.  Martha came out for lunch one day and we had a nice visit.