Cooking, Riding, & Fishing

We spent breakfast watching the blue jays eat snacks.  We put out cheese puffs, cheerios, and crumbs from the good bread on the deck.  The jays stuffed themselves with the bread and left the cheerios and cheese puffs until the last.  They have good taste.

Will made reservations for us to go horseback riding at the Rapp Corral.  Rosalie, Joseph, Charlotte and Joshua stayed home for "cooking school" with Grandma and Daddy.

When we arrived at the stables, Jane immediately made friends with all the dogs.  She really misses her pups at home.  Then we saddled up.  Jane rode "Burrito" a pinto that used to belong to a little girl on an Indian reservation.  Apparently, this horse really loves little girls and is nothing but mischief with boys.  Jane did so well she even garnered compliments on her riding from the guide.  I was so proud of her.

Grace rode Rockyboy right behind our leader, Jackie.  She did pretty good.  It was an hour long trail ride.  At horseback riding lessons, a good portion of their lesson is grooming and tacking the horse.  So, a whole hour is the longest she's ever been mounted on a horse.  She needed some water about halfway through the ride and sweet Uncle Will hopped off of his mount and gave her some - much to the horror of the guides.  We weren't supposed to dismount mid-ride.  But, it worked out.

Speaking of Uncle Will, he was aboard Magnum who was a major lunch mouth and kept stopping to eat the grass.  At one point, he went down on this front knees and looked like he was about to roll will off of him.  The guides were screaming, "PULL UP ON THE REINS, WILL! PULL!"  The crisis was averted, fortunately.  The guides told us later that he looks like a pregnant mare when he comes down from winter pasture each year because he eats so much.

I rode a sweet horse named Cielo, whose nickname is Slowpoke.  They told me to keep encouraging him to keep up with the leaders.  He would slow way down when we went downhill, and then I'd nudge him into a trot on the flat parts or going uphill and he would grudgingly oblige.  Unfortunately, Zach's horse, Cooper, would do whatever Cielo did.  So, poor Zach had a lot of unanticipated trotting.

Heather rode Wilson who used to belong to the Amish.  The guide said that he is the sweetest horse they own, probably because he's just so grateful for the treatment he now gets.  Not sure if Amish are hard on their horses or if they just work a lot more on a farm than they would at a trail ride outfit.

Overall, it was just a gorgeous day with beautiful vistas around every corner and the fall colors starting to emerge.

After our ride was over, we headed back into town.  I exchanged Rosalie souvenir fan which had already quit lighting up.  We then headed over to WalMart for supplies and, best of all, fishing licenses.  I have been waiting and waiting to go fishing and tonight is the night!

We ate an early dinner of spaghetti, took a little nap and headed out to Lemon Lake, a reservoir stocked with rainbow trout and salmon.  It muddy and wonderful!  Grandma Char Char squelched around in the mud with Charlotte and Rosalie.  Joseph helped me fish.  And fish we did. We kept pulling out fish after fish after fish!  I think we caught nine in all - and I caught four of those (with Joseph's help)!  There is a river running into the lake and right at the spot where the river ends is where the fish seem to congregate.  A little power bait and voila! Fish!  Heather finally caught her first fish - and it was the biggest one 14"!  We were so excited for her!