Bitter Sweet...

The infamous road we hand walk the horses down

Polo pony pastures boarder both sides of the road

This is Jack or Jacleen or what I named our little friend rather :)

Max and I went for a joy ride with a friend in Wellington. So cool to see so many amazing barns!!! Elmo was the tour guide :)

Well as season has comed to an end you can definitely feel the days are much quiter and the work load is much less as was promised. On the flip side it's a bit lonely. My house mates have moved back home. Kim has gone back to Georgia and Chris (my surrogate mother who made sure I ate properly) has gone back to her family's farm in Canada. It's nice that the days are easier and that things are less hectic but I feel that the family I had created here is now gone and has left me a little melancholy. I find that it has been a series of constant adjustments. Adjusting to people leaving (four people total since I have been here) and having to train their replacements or simply just adjusting to not having as many people as you once had. It seems that in the past two weeks as things have slowed down we are all bit by bit settling into our new routine. But it doesn't feel the same for me without the friends that I could trust and rely on. Enough of my sob story :)

I have been riding quite a bit and it has been fun and I am learing a lot. Lars and Melissa are always pushing me to push myself and the horse. There is no slacking in that arena! So it has been good for me to dig deeper and deeper to improve myself and the horses that I'm riding. I find it's a bit tricky because it's not like I am in the arena all day long doing nothing but riding. There is a lot more to my day and there are some days where I am just plain worn out and don't have the energy and mental focus that riding sometimes requires but even so I have to step up which is why I'm here. I am definitely seeing and learing the discipline and hard work it takes to ride upper level dressage and make upper level dressage horses. So that makes me happy and the long days/no life worth it.

Florida oh Florida. Florida is a neat place. It is almost magical in a way. There is a sort of tranquility about it. Must be because it is so tropical. There are bugs, birds and lizards here that I have never seen before! The other day when I was hand walking a horse I saw this beautiful yellow butterfly and then in the next instant the horse and I were being accousted my two huge deer flies! There is also a duck couple that have babies (was four now only two) that hang out on the property. They are very pretty and have stricking colors and marking of orange and yellow around their faces. The alligators have seemingly relocated for the time being which is good. I suspect that maybe they have gone elsewhere where there isn't so much activity since most of the barns have cleared out for the season.

The weather is starting to change. It is getting hotter and more humid and the bugs are starting to come out! Vioen HATES and I mean HATES the flies. She flips her head in her stall everytime one lands on her mozzle and looks like she's having some sort of an attack. I feel bad for her :( But thanks to my dad and Shelley they are sending me one of those fly masks that have the flap that goes down over the front of the face. Don't worry, as I was enjoying the warmth and sunshine this winter, I will be equally miserable this summer. I hear that there are zillions of bugs and mosquitoes and that in the heart of summer it pours rain every afternoon and the land just fills with water. And of course, there's hurricane season. Not looking forward to that!

Vioen is doing well. She is starting to develop more muscle over her neck and haunches. I still haven't been able to get into as much of a routine as I would like with her but Lars told me two days ago that I need to start getting serious with her. LOL! Ok, well I guess that's the bosses orders! But she's happy and coming along and just needs a little more consistency to develop her strength and fitness and then she'll be ready for more serious work.

That's all for now! Hope that you all are well!!!