First Show of the Season

Posted for a variety of prompts:

Easy Street Prompts ( “her secret”)

Meme Express (“tooth” or “teeth”)

One Single Impression (“twilight”)

Saturday Scribes (“lost,” “scar,” “sunset,” and “apparition”)

Simply Snickers (“right,” “rock” and “roll”)

Sunday Scribblings (“lost”)

Weekend Wordsmith (“ripped”)

Photo/s posted in response to these prompts:

Camera Critters (photo/s)

Show and Tell Saturdays (photo/s)

Straight Out of the Camera (SOOC Sunday)

Wordless Wednesday (any day – photo/s)

First Show of the Season

Photos c2009 by Nickers and Ink.

All rights reserved.

The Show Off –

A Horse of Dreams Is All He Seems

The year’s first show began our quest

To put our gelding to the test.

This apparition on patrol

Took every turn to rock and roll.

Apologizing we are not

For putting others on the spot.

They came to play, and so did we,

My daughter and her horse and me.

This thoroughbred of darkest bay

Adores the limelight on display.

A competition draws him out,

Eliminating judges’ doubt.

His secret lies within his chest

With heart that beats above the rest.

A well-placed fence is opportune,

And for his girl, he’ll jump the moon.

The season opener, of course,

He took in stride, this glory horse.

Though twilight beckoned, no retreat,

He leapt to win, the course complete.

He lost the right lead, but returned

And ripped the runaway unspurned.

His pilot, decked in tailored threads,

Flashed pearly teeth and turned all heads.

As sunset crept across the clouds,

And battle scars befell the crowds,

We packed our tack to homeward crawl

And hang his ribbons on his stall.

Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.

Click here to visit Linda Ann Nickerson’s poetry and humor blog, Nickers and Ink.

Throughout 2009, please join us at The Heart of a Ready Writer, a Bible reading and devotional blog, as we read through the entire Bible in chronological order.

Click here to subscribe to an RSS feed for this writer's helpful Helium content. If you wish, click here for a free subscription to this author's online AC content, so you won't miss a single post!

Honest Scrap Award

The Mane Point

Has Won the Honest Scrap Award

Meow! Bruce’s Paws has honored The Mane Point with the Honest Scrap Award. Thanks, Bruce!

In turn, The Mane Point chooses to honor the following blogs with this prize:

Dogs n Horses

Dressage Mom

Equus Caballus – The Horse Blog

Fugly Horse of the Day

Home on the Range

Horse Riding Lessons Blog

How Did This Happen

Midwest Horse Blog

Nuzzling Muzzles

Here are the rules, if you have been chosen:

1) Write a post (on your own blog), announcing that you have received the Honest Scrap award. Be sure to mention The Mane Point, the blog that conferred the Honest Scrap Award upon you. (Include the http link for The Mane Point as well.) Add the Honest Scrap Award graphic. (Right-click, and save it to your computer, or grab the image http.)

http://themanepoint.blogspot.com

2) Choose at least seven blogs that you admire. List these (with links) in your Honest Scrap Award blog entry.

3) Visit the blogs you have selected, and leave comments to let the bloggers know you have chosen to honor them with the Honest Scrap Award. Include a link to your blog post in each comment. (Click here for instructions on making simple active-links for blog comments.)

4) Visit the blog that offered you the Honest Scrap Award, and leave a comment with a link to your post.

5) List ten honest things about yourself. Try to have fun with this one, and include facts others may not already know about you.

6) Display the Honest Scrap Award proudly on your blog sidebar.

Here are my ten fun facts:

1. I have fallen off a horse just once in my life.

2. On my favorite camping trip ever, we tied our horses outside our tent for the night.

3. My favorite place on earth is out in the yearling pasture.

4. If I don’t get dirty, I haven’t been to the barn.

5. I won the Grand Champion ribbon in my very first horse show. (It’s been pretty anticlimactic ever since.)

6. When I jump, I let our trusty thoroughbred do most of the driving. (I usually grab his mane and try my best to stay out of his way.)

7. I have never lost money at the track. (Of course, I haven’t won all that much, either, and it’s been years since I tried.)

8. My favorite saddle is a deep-seated Passier Grand Gilbert.

9. My young paint horse can pick out my footsteps in the aisle from fifty paces away, and he can usually tell if I am packin' produce.

10. I share every apple with an equine friend or two.

Click here to visit Linda Ann Nickerson’s poetry and humor blog, Nickers and Ink. Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.

Throughout 2009, please join us at The Heart of a Ready Writer, a Bible reading and devotional blog, as we read through the entire Bible in chronological order.

Click here to subscribe to an RSS feed for this writer's helpful Helium content. If you wish, click here for a free subscription to this author's online AC content, so you won't miss a single post!

Great Grulla Girl

Camera Critters (photo/s),

Meme Express (“Friday Freedom” – Writer’s Choice)

Wordless Wednesday (any day – photo/s)

Great Grulla Girl

Photo c2009 by Nickers and Ink.

All rights reserved.

Prompt questions (appearing in bold type) appear courtesy of Friday Fill-ins. My answers are in italics.

1. Give me another foal, and I'll be happy (as if I needed another horse).

2. Whenever I need to change the channel from life’s stresses, I head for the yearling pasture. Sometimes, I grab a shedder blade or curry comb on the way out there. In this merry milieu, I find instant unconditional acceptance and a surplus of joys.

As this photo of a Quarab Grulla reveals, many of these youngsters really need some spring cleaning. With warmer days, perhaps some of them will become acquainted with wash racks and hoses. In the meantime, a daily mud bath must suffice.

3. I wish I had the strength to ride a whole lot more.

4. Hot oatmeal with brown sugar was the last thing I ate that was utterly delicious. (Hey, it’s winter around here, after all.)

5. To live in this world is to dream of the next one. (Will horses have wings in Heaven? Will we be freed from the possibility of an unscheduled dismount?)

6. Other than this one, the Meme Express is the last blog I commented on.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to horseback riding. Tomorrow my plans include horseback riding, and Sunday, I want to go horseback riding!

Click here to visit Linda Ann Nickerson’s poetry and humor blog, Nickers and Ink. Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.

Throughout 2009, please join us at The Heart of a Ready Writer, a Bible reading and devotional blog, as we read through the entire Bible in chronological order.

Click here to subscribe to an RSS feed for this writer's helpful Helium content. If you wish, click here for a free subscription to this author's online AC content, so you won't miss a single post!