Jumping practice

I put some jumps up in the field today, since Mom had offered to take some pictures. :) She got this really nice one.

Foxhunting starts up in a month! If she continues in good form, it should be a wonderful season

It's blurry thanks to my less than stellar Cannon (can't handle action, but great for macro) but here's another of her powering over a 3' oxer.

Grey hairs be gone

I haven't done much with Daatje lately. It's been hot during the week and I'm very, very preoccupied with getting ready to buy our first home, so by the time I get home from work I'm exhausted!

So, I thought I'd share the strange and unusual stuff that I use to dye my hair. Box dyes from the drugstore are so very damaging and my fine hair can't take it. Years ago, I discovered how to color my hair using the powdered leaves of the Henna and Indigo plants. It's messy, smells funny, but the result is super shiny hair that can grow strong.....and not be grey!

I've had these nasty grey hairs since I was 17, so you can imagine how they've multiplied in the past 17 years!

First, I mix up the Henna powder with lemon juice. The acid in the lemon juice helps to release the red dye from the Henna.


I let the mixture sit covered for 12 hours. Once the Henna has steeped in the lemon, I mix the Indigo powder with water and combine with the Henna. Once everything is well combined, I put this goopy, green slop that smells like grass on my head.



Then, I put cotton balls around my hairline and wrap the whole thing up in plastic wrap and cover with a cap. I keep this on overnight, so about 8 hours. In the morning, the mess is rinsed out and I have awesome hair!

Tons of work, yes. But so worth the effort to be able to have healthy, colored hair! Here's where I buy my supplies: http://www.hennaforhair.com/

Bradley Palmer - flying solo

Last weekend I took Daatje back to Bradley Palmer by ourselves to work on moving forward when asked, when she's alone. It's a battle, but worth it when I'm winning. We did a lot more trot and canter work than we used to be able to do when out alone, so I guess you could call that progress. We even jumped a few fences.......and she ran off with me after one of them. You'd think I'd think that was bad, but honestly, I loved it! She's finally giving me something different to work on other than the endless kicking on. We were out for 2 hours or so and covered about 8 miles.



Moon hill as seen between her ears.



Faded wisps

And when we got back to the trailer, we saw these two awesome horses being hitched to a fore cart. Beautiful, just beautiful. I love the big drafty horses all done up in harness.

All in all, it was a good day.