Time flies when you're having fun or even if you're not, and it looks like it's been a while since I've been here. Work, which had been worrisomely slow, suddenly picked up in January and left me with little time for riding or blogging. But winter is letting up and we have gotten a few really nice days in the last few weeks. Not right now--it's been cold and rainy, and we can see snow on the nearby hills, which only happens about once a year. But we have been able to get out on the trail several times in nice weather, which has been a treat. Cowboy's saddle fit problems may be solved but it will be some time before we know for sure.

A new feature on Rift Zone trail at Pt Reyes is the great blue heron that has taken up residence near the trail. He's been there the last couple of rides, posing motionless until you approach, then taking off like an enormous prehistoric bird. The first time we were pretty apprehensive about how the horses would react to this but they were completely nonplussed. Probably helped that the bird was flying away from us rather than toward us. I suspect we would have had a different outcome if it seemed the heron was attacking!

Here are Dexter and Laura on Sky Trail close to the Mt Wittenburg summit a couple weeks ago on a gorgeous spring-like day. We happened upon a group of women enjoying the sunshine close to here and struck up a conversation. Turns out two of them live down the street from us and we often see one of them out walking her dog. Small world!

One thing I got done during one nice weekend was videotaping Cowboy for our Parelli Level 3 Liberty audition. And unlike the last time, it got edited and uploaded to YouTube in just a few weeks rather than the 6 months it took to get the last one posted. Unfortunately, the quality was a bit poor to start with because of the sunny and shady spots in the arena, and when it was compressed to upload to YouTube the quality degraded further so it is a bit difficult to follow. But it's called "Joan Cowboy Parelli Audition" if you want to take a peek. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRvnikcIZlQ

Looks like the cold and rain are here to stay for a bit so there probably won't be a lot of riding going on. Good opportunity to catch up on the mountains of paperwork in my office that have gotten away from me.