Girls & Horses!

What most girls dream of - having a horse! Our girls grew up with a lot of animals, but I think their best buds were their horses. They would spend HOURS outside with them; grooming them, feeding and riding. When the girls first started riding, they were not allowed to ride out of the yard, then it moved to the pastures around the farm yard, and after both horse and girl trustworthy, they could ride to the neighbors, etc. We always knew where they were going because if we didn't see them back in the yard when they were supposed to be, we got nervous that something may have happened, and we'd have to get in the car and go look for them. No cell phones back then!

Picture above is Leah helping Stephani. The horse is Curly Jo that Leah got when she was about 11 or 12 years old. So that makes Steph around 6 or 7. The kids probably remember their exact ages! Wish I would have written more information on pictures, as my memory is so bad now! Curly Jo was bought from one of our local vets that raised horses. He had a lot of appalousas, and that is what Leah wanted - her own Appy!

Leah's first horse was a pony that she got for Christmas one year. She couldn't have been older than 7 years old. The pony came from a neighbor to the south of us that had alot of ponies, and he gave it to us for Leah that year. We put a big red bow around her neck and this little pony walked right in through Grandma and Grandpa Nilson's front door. That was a great Christmas! The pony looked like a little buffalo because she had been outside so had a good winter coat of hair. Her hair on her neck and chin was long, and she looked pretty funny, but Leah was one happy little girl! She kept "Tinker Bell" in one of the old sheds behind Grandma's house and Leah always did her chores; winter and summer. After Tinker Bell was big enough to ride, Leah would ride her to the barn hay-mow door, get off the pony and Tinker would just stand there waiting, and Leah would run up into the hay-mow and roll out a bail of hay. Then down she would run and then Tinker Bell would have to carry her own hay to her pen. Leah did this all the time, and we would laugh and feel sorry for the pony! The memory is such a cute sight. I don't think we have any pictures of it, which is a shame. We just didn't take pictures then like we do now.

Later years Stephani rode Tinker Bell. Stephani had her share of falling off Tinker Bell. It took her awhile for her little legs to get long enough so she'd learn to stay on using her leg muscles. Tinker Bell really was a good pony. You would have to use your big voice and horse whip pretty good to make her trot!

This picture of Stephani is also one part of a Super 8 mm movie we have. Tinker Bell stands still, and Stephani is about 15 feet away and runs as fast as she can, thinking she is going to jump right on, but in fact she always came to a complete stop before she tried to jump on. Well, she'd kick her legs a lot before she'd get the momentum to get high enough to get her leg over the pony's back and getting on. Then she'd sit there and whip Tinker Bell, and hardly get the pony to move. The movie clip is really cute, and we need to get it and all of our movies transferred someday to a DVD.

Through out the years we've had quite a few horses at the farm, but there are always those few special ones that live on in all our memories. Tinker Bell, Curley Jo, Joker, Shu-B, Little Texas Jack are a few of them. These pictures were taken when Jessica was still too little to ride, but she had her time later.