Last night the weather and light were perfect, and I had an even more perfect subject, my newphew Jonah.

Wish us luck!

Did I mention that I’ve never been a parent before?

In my free time I pulled out my friend Davina’s Get Your Life Back Kit out. It is over 30 pages of introspection and goals. She has such a great message to give everyone about not letting a photography career take over your relationships and your dreams. I loved it and think you should check it out here. I followed all of her steps today and am having a really great day!

Corrigan on the way to the Bodine Dairy in the back of Brant’s truck!

Granddad’s old note

The Bodine Brother’s milk bottle lids

Grandmom

Josh and Brant

It takes A LOT for me to get overwhelmed, especially when I was previously excited and in dream mode. Our land is VERY hilly, and we are going to have to bulldoze through a 4 feet tall sandstone walls to even make an entrance to get on it. The sanguine personality in me can still see the finished dream farm, but I do have to admit that I was trying hard not to stay in the overwhelmed mode.

My husband, Josh,  has a lot of clearing to do.

So now that I’m home and away from the overwhelmed feeling (which mainly Josh will be feeling since he will be the one clearing the land while I stay home and work:), I am seeing the dream again.

Ok,  close your eyes and imagine a hilly forrest in the middle of nowhere with a few horses neighing in the background. Let’s build a big red barn house with a front porch and a swing. Galvanized metal lights, a rooster weather vane, a thick white fence around our yard with the dogs running around like crazy. Now think a little bit farther out… a zip line going across the rushing creek in the spring, a hammock village lost in the woods, a picnic table at the end of the horse trails, the fire pit built into a huge deck, and the sound of the wind rushing through the trees like the noise of a waterfall. This is where I will live. Can you see it?

A week ago Saturday was the annual Cowboy Symposium in Lubbock. Cowboys and Cowgirls come from all over the state and neighboring states and bring their horses, chuckwagons and products to show off.

I was in my cowgirl element and even wore a black felt cowboy hat!

I was going to ride in the parade with my step-dad, but wasn’t able to this year, and so my sis-in-law and her family came with me to watch the Parade of Horses and then look around the old cowboy scenes. It was so fun!

Jonah picked a flower for his mom, Marla.

He is part Choctaw Indian and he kept tugging on my shirt all morning saying, “I want to see more Indians auntie!”

Larry stables his horse out where I keep Rev and he is just the nicest horse guy!

So we got a late start and didn’t really know how we would let them loose at Grandma’s in the dark. When we got there and let them all backout of the trailer they were in horse heaven! No more small stalls without pasture, it was all wet, lush grass with a TON of space to run around and stretch their legs. I told mom to make sure she woke me up early so I could not miss a beautiful part of the morning taking a few pictures of them. It had poured all night long and the horses were soaked, but I think they loved it.

We rode and rode all weekend, those horses must have been pooped! They did eat everything they could ever want though. When we left the horses all loaded great. We just had to walk them in and it was such a blessing not to have to go through the Black Stallion drama very much again. We made it home and when I put Rev back in his tiny 8×10 stall I was real sad for him, so we called Clayton at Coyote Run and had him put Ruth (Rev’s new girlfriend) and Rev in a larger outdoor area. I’m sure he is much happier about that.

The Train

Tim riding his “green” mare who has bucked him off 2, almost 3 times now.

Carter on the front porch of the horse trailer and mom.

Sister, Magen