Our Weekend...

Shelby and I kicked off the weekend a day early by spending a few hours at the beach. The coast had been calling me and we both had some time off so we threw a few things in the car and hit the road.  It's always so nice to be able to hang out with the kids. I'm looking forward to seeing my bug next weekend.

And hooray I got a new phone! I went with the Galaxy 5 and even though I've only had it a couple days and have lots to learn about it...  I am really liking it.

I went on trail with Luna Tuna Pie who was such a good girl.

This weekend
We also watched The last Ride , the Hank Williams story. It was good, sad but good.

I bought some blueish green nail polish. I never thought I'd be sporting that color around but am and really like it.

This weekend I blasted a bit of Merle, George and Waylon most of the weekend, I was craving a bit of yesterday's country music... They just don't write em like that anymore...

I harvested more zucchini, drank wine with friends and

enjoyed some quiet time and soaked in a couple amazing sunsets over the ranch.  I'm sure enjoying these warm and lazy summer days how about you?

Oh Happy Day...

After editing images and working on the computer today I needed to rest my eyeball's so I strapped on my fantastic tennies, put a beautiful little flower in Ms Punkin Pies forelock and we went for a walk.

Who knew a donkey was a perfect walking companion?  Me. I did...  but truthfully everyone around the ranch makes walking more fun.

After a good walk I came back to find a large print order I placed recently was delivered. Whoohooo Oh happy day... They are perfect!

I'm looking forward to sharing the prints with everyone but in the meantime here is a quick phone shot of one of them. Ohhhh I super love this batch of images, love my clients and all my friends in blog land. I'm grateful. Thanks for hanging out with me.

Happy Hump day Peeps!
Jen

Summer Solstice At The Lake...

The music man was working Saturday evening and my headache from hell was f i n a l l y  gone... so I was anxious to get out for a little fun. Lucky for us we had friends camping at a nearby lake so Shelby and I went over and rang in the summer season with them. Imagine a bunch of glam camping ladies, so much fun!

Happy Summertime Peeps!

Linking up today with 

Blooming...

"Bloom where you're planted. You can't fight your way to happiness. Wherever you are, know that you have been put there for a reason" ~Joel Olsteen

What a wonderful quote! I love how it reminds us that happiness is a choice and though everyday may not be great, life is.

Ridding myself of a nasty headache I've had for the last two days, staying positive and busting out more moves in the garden should do the trick. Here's to blooming wherever you are today.

Happy Thursday Peeps!
Jen

I'm linking up with T over at

Clearing My Camera Phone...

The last few days around the ranch have been productive ones. I've spent time harvesting some root veggies, weeding and feeding my summer plants. I have a ton of zucchini's happily growing and can hardly wait to taste them.

My buddy has a wonderful fruit orchard at her place and gave me a bag full of oranges that we picked together. I came home and immediately threw then into the juicer and had the best OJ I've ever had. I wasn't the only one who thoughts this either, within a day it was all gone.

The music man and me up in Julian Saturday afternoon for one of his show's.

We spent Sunday clearing brush and re arranging our outdoor furniture. I absolutely love the new location of our couch and chairs and may never go back inside the house again...

My phone camera is terrible and my phone itself is on it's last leg as it won't hold a charge but for a short time.  Do you know of a cellphone that has an awesome camera?

A Little Story About A Gigantic Stone....

If you have horses you know colic is a scary and bad word, if you don't have horses colic is a scary and bad word :). These animals don't do well with belly aches, in fact when they get them it can be fatal.  Saturday late afternoon I notice Luna was standing stretched out and while walking over to check on her, she laid down. Laying down in itself isn't a big deal but laying down in pain is.

Our girl was colicing. If you were to open a book on the symptoms of a colicky horse you would think they wrote it about her. She had every one of them.  Thankfully I was home and knew what to do for her. After many hours of walking, medicating and trying to hydrate her she was looking better. It was now after midnight and I was exhausted, with her acting more like her normal self I went to bed to catch some sleep.

6 am as I was walking down to check on her I noticed something in her loose stool. As I got close I couldn't believe my eyes, what heck was I looking at.. ?? ..!!

Holy freaking cow.... This thing is huge! Seriously, huge!

Miraculously Luna passed a gigantic stone... Imagine two baseballs glued together at the side, that's how big. This stone has been growing for years and years in her small intestine. Oh my gosh no wonder she had a belly ache...

Typically stones this big are found in an emergency colic surgery or in a postmortem exam. You don't often hear a horse being able to rid something this large on their own. Her will to live amazes me. She is challenging most days but this episode has me viewing her in a different light. After monitoring her for a couple more days and keeping things quiet I'm happy to report that she is healthy once again.

I've been asked how this could happen and the best guesses are that stones take many years to develop and occur from either type of feed, genetics or a foreign body.

Luna is not genetically predisposed as they're not common in her breed. Feed, maybe...  Alfalfa is the hay of choice in California and is high in phosphorus and ammonia. Although, my thought is it may have been the last option.  Being a mouthy horse who was underfed and living in not so good conditions for who knows how long, she may have eaten a piece of wood or string that got stuck and then began to calcify.

Our Vet and all my horsey friends are very impressed with Luna. I'm impressed and so grateful we made it through that.

I celebrated with an ice cold beer. Check out the label, fun huh and the beer was good too.

Balloons, Music and Wine, Now That's Fun...

Where did the time go? I can't believe it's Wednesday already! I have been crazy busy and my free moments have been spent with the animals this week. I only have a minute this morning but wanted to bounce in and say hi. Here a few images from the wine and balloon festival I shot over the weekend, If you're a country fan I think you'll like this post :)

This is Frankie Ballard.  You may know him from his songs "It's a helluva life" and "Somewhere between sunshine and whisky". What a great talent and super fun personality.

He opened up for ACM's new artist of the year JUSTIN MOORE.

Justin put on one heck of a show! I'm a fan and know all of his songs so it was super fun for me to be able to shoot him, especially since he played to my camera. What a total freaking blast!

This festival was started 31 years ago featuring a balloon glow and wine tasting.  They added large national music acts sometime a while back drawing bigger and bigger crowds every year.

The festival is three days long and each morning there is a sunrise balloon launch. I shot these images Saturday morning.

Balloons, music and wine tasting... What fun, it's no surprise this festival is a huge success.

I had a couple other shoots and the music man had a big show this last weekend as well so I have lots of images to process. I hope to be caught up within the next day or two and back in my blog groove by Friday.  Hoping you all are having a great week and I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone soon.

Blessings,
Jen