There’s a slideshow on the Times site and I’ve nabbed some photos to post here.  The photographer, Andrew Sullivan, was really great, as was Beth Maker, the reporter.

Now do you see why I love that grey horse almost more than life itself?  Have you ever seen a horse with a sweeter expression. Love.

Here I am trying to be all pose-y.

Well, it’s hard being photographed next to HIM.  He always looks good..

I’m still trying to sort our how to arrange photos in this new format.  Is it weird to have typing in between the photos like this?

Here’s a shot of our home:

Please go on the site if you want to see the slideshow.  There are a few blog mentions, so everybody on their best behavior tonight.  Tea bags are for brewing tea!

So I adore her.

They wanted to photograph us outside with the animals, so we let Mark and Snoopy come down onto the front lawn. When the Times people left, it was still gorgeous out, and I thought I’d check my emails while enjoying the company of the horses. They were very interested in the computer and what I was typing, certain that it was about them.

I showed Snoopy some photos that I had taken of him recently:

He clicked on his favorites. That lip works quite well on the keys:

Then I got a kiss.

Mark was worried about the way he looked. He thinks I should have left his mane alone. It’s impossible for me to look at this horse without smiling:

Later, he had a word with me. He doesn’t like the direction the blog is taking. He feels it’s too “doggy.”

Here’s Dev and Snoopy. Snoopy just adores Devin:

What’s not to love?

Today it’s raining, so I must work indoors, without my assistants.

All photos (except the photos of her) were taken by Devin Leary.

People, I can’t tell you how many times I have done this. A timer. Why don’t I set a timer?

So I had oatmeal for breakfast, then trailered Mark to my friend Jen’s again. Jenny and I are trying to get our very unfit horses into shape. We think we might take them to a few hunter paces this year. So, off we went. It was chilly and sunny and windy today, which I love. I just love the fall. We rode through fields, up and down hills. We admired a wonderful old tree with a very inviting swing hanging from one of its branches.

Can you see it?

It was just one of those days when you think, if my life ended right now, I would die a happy woman. And then my life almost ended and I realized that I wouldn’t die a happy woman, I would die a very angry woman with a horseshoe embedded in her brain.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. First I want to explain that my daughter went to a 4/H camp for a couple of summers. The kids all brought their little ponies to camp. Dev brought Snoopy. On the first day of 4/H camp, the kids are shown a film called Every Ride, Every Time. It’s a safety film about the importance of wearing helmets when riding horses. There are all sorts of testimonials from bereaved parents and spouses of people who were killed because they were riding without helmets. The film was very effective because after watching, Dev and her friends didn’t want to be in the same county with a horse without helmets on. So, I always ride with a helmet. Except for the other day, of course, when I took it off so Dev could take my picture.

I didn’t want to be photographed wearing the dorky helmet. I put it on after the photo. Thank goodness a gigantic tree limb didn’t come crashing down behind us as it did today, causing Mark and Levi to spook and Mark to spin so rapidly that I was caught unprepared (I was slouched back in the saddle, gossiping to Jen, the rein dangling from my fingertips) and I was unseated and fell under my horse and then was kicked HARD in the head with his big metal horseshoe-clad hoof. He didn’t mean to kick me, my head was just in the way of his flailing hooves.

Well, I was wearing a helmet. I stood up and said, “I was kicked in the head!” Jen had caught Mark and she asked if I was okay. I just stood there for a moment, waiting for gray matter to come seeping out of my ears, for my frontal lobe to suddenly burst out of my forehead, but I realized that I was fine. My head didn’t hurt at all. There was dirt up my nose and in my eyes – I had done a faceplant – my neck and shoulder were sore, but my head was fine, thanks to this amazing helmet:

When I arrived home, Denis was lying out in the sun, enjoying his last days of vacation (they start shooting again on Monday). I told him about getting kicked in the head.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said.

“Do you feel disoriented?”

“Yes,”

“Confused?”

“Yes, terribly!”

“Did you remember to pick up that stuff I asked you to get while you were in the Depot?”

“No.”

“So you’re your normal self?”

“Yes, yes I am.”

But I have learned my lesson. Every ride, every time.

He’s two days old today.

He belongs to my friend Jen Carolan who breeds sport horses.

He’s a very friendly little fellow:

I’m afraid you’re going to be seeing a lot of him around here, I could watch this little guy all day:

I had forgotten that there’s a Memorial Day parade in my town and when I got to the main road, it was closed, so I had to take a detour. I took a road that I used to drive all the time, but haven’t since my kids finished elementary school. I was so glad that I had been rerouted because it’s the more scenic drive. I took some photos from my window.

Ever since I got my new rig, I’ve enjoyed transporting my horses almost as much as riding them. I haven’t had a chance to figure out the radio settings, but it has satellite radio, and it has been preset to a station called “Classic Vinyl.” Now, “Classic Vinyl” is not a station I would choose when driving my car, but somehow, it’s the perfect music for driving a Ford diesel F-350 pick-up with a gooseneck trailer attached. About every ten minutes or so, they play something by the Rolling Stones. In between, today, they played the Kinks, Janice Joplin, Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Eagles. I thought I heard “Tequila Sunrise” a hundred million times too many during the seventies, but bouncing along in your pick-up, on a winding country road, it’s sort of a perfect song. Fortunately, there were only cows on the roadside, so I didn’t disturb any humans with my caterwauling.

At Steep Rock, as I said there were many hikers and a few other riders. My friend Marina O’Malley went jogging past me and I said hello to her. She had to do a double take, as I was up on the horse with the helmet and everything. Then she said, “Hi Ann!” There were people jogging behind her, people behind me, people everywhere. Marina then pulled her earphones from one of her ears and (I thought) said, “It’s beautiful up there,” and I said, (thinking she meant up the hill ahead), “I know!”

Then, I realized that in fact she had said, “You look beautiful up there!”

AND I HAD SAID, “I KNOW!”

I jerked Mark to a halt and started screaming after her, “NO! NO! Marina, I thought you said ….” but she had stuck her earphones back in her ears and was running away, I’m sure, thinking that I’m just as vain as everybody has always said, so I actually turned to the woman walking her German Shephard behind me, and shouted, “I thought she said it looks beautiful up there …ahead, you know. ”

The woman scowled at me and then quickly looked away and I rode off, but Marina, if you happen to read this, I THOUGHT YOU SAID IT LOOKS BEAUTIFUL UP AHEAD!” I’m dying, still, over this. Marina, by the way, looks beautiful wherever she is.

Now I’m supposed to be making dinner but tomorrow I will tell you of another incident in which I misinterpreted what a person said and humiliated myself. Honestly, I could write volumes on this topic. I do it all the time. I just have some kind of social ADD where I get nervous/excited when talking to a person and I finish their sentences for them with my thoughts, and then I reply. Only afterwards do I realize what the person actually said. It’s a curse, I tell you.

I’ll leave you with these photos I took of some of the blooms around our house. I love flowers and plants but don’t know the names of any of them. So here are these guys:

And these creeping wonders:

Wisteria?

And these wonderfully mysterious irises. I know what an iris looks like, because they are one of my favorite flowers, but I always thought we couldn’t have them here because of all the deer. I’ve never planted them, but now, suddenly, we have irises blooming near a gate. We’ve lived here for 12 years and I’ve never seen them before.

This place is so haunted that way. Always with beauty.