Tally-Ho!

    For those of you who read this blog, I really try to update more than once a week, but working M-F makes that pretty difficult, so I hope the once a week posts will suffice=) Arni and I have been staying pretty busy, he is super swamped with his thesis, but than the Lord it will be finished by the end of the year! I stay busy as well, which is funny considering I am not in school anymore. I don't know how I find so many things to occupy my time, lending me to what seems very little time to do the stuff I actually want to do, and the never ending to-do list. I don't know why I wanted to be a grown up so back back when I was 16... laundry, dinners, cleaning, working, animals, good grief! Anyway work hard play hard right? So by some sort of luck I only worked half a day Friday, so I called up my friend Soley and we went for a hike. We drove to Nederland and hiked the Fourth of July Trail in Indian Peaks. We decided on this trail because quite frankly we are tired of hiking the same ol trails in Boulder and we also wanted to see some of the aspens color changing. What an amazing trail we picked! Beautiful waterfalls, lush meadows, crisp golden aspens in technicolor, and a mirror lake at the top where we stopped for a snack and to let Dahlia swim.

   On Saturday I drove my happy butt down to Larkspur (~ 1.5 hr away) to go to a Cross Country Hunter Pace . Click on the highlighted words for an explanation. I also invited a new friend Chantel, whom I met once through Laura. Chantel is not a fellow horse girl, but I knew I wanted to get to know her better and I figured she would be down for a new experience, and I was right! We met at this gorgeous horse farm and the weather was just perfect, warm with a slight fall breeze and sunny. We walked the course as I explained some of the rules of cross country to her and decided to settle on the water jump to hang out. This was because a) there was a great shade tree to spread our blanket under and b) anyone who knows cross country knows the water jump is the best place to watch horses freak out and dump their riders...heh heh. Anyway we chatted and watched the riders come and go, ooed and ahhed over the really pretty horses and laughed at the costumes, because apparently this hunter pace also had a 'best costume' category. The best was the avatar themed horse and rider. The best part of this Pace was the "Running of the Hounds". The Arapahoe Hunt Club had a demonstration and also invited the participants to join in the hunt. This was a terrific experience to watch and also the theme of this blog title! Tally-Ho is a term used in fox hunting to get the hounds excited, they also blew what I think was a french horn, and boy did those hounds sound off!

   Later Saturday evening we went to our good friends Nina and Paul's house. Paul cooked us a very tasty dinner and we putted around Nina's garden and then watched a movie. Nina has one serious green thumb and I always tease her that she's totally a Boulder 'Earth Momma'. She always jokes back that she could never be an earth momma because she shaves and doesn't have dread locks, touche. Visiting Nina's garden is like going to the candy store, except for vegetables heh. I'm always getting to try a radish or carrot pulled right from the earth, and ask her a million questions about what's this and that and how come this grows like so.. because unlike her, my thumbs only job are to be opposable. This trip yielded a GIANT cabbage pulled right up for yours truly!  I can't wait to cook it up perhaps for some corned beef and cabbage or maybe a big bowl of coleslaw! Thanks Nina!!

Note the cabbage is bigger than her head.