My beautiful mare

            I love watching her. She looks so happy and healthy. We've moved her from the backyard to the meadow now. The pictures below are in the meadow; the one above is in the backyard. The meadow is where she'll be until winter, and then I'll bring her back up where it's flatter. If she started sliding at the top of the meadow, she might just slide into the Benjamin River! Well, it's maybe not that steep, but I don't want her to have any problems on the ice down there where I can't see her.

            So we're doing rotational grazing with the meadow. We don't have access to the whole thing, which is quite large, but we do have access to a couple of acres of it. Since I want to take good care of this precious grass, Talana gets to be in this spot for 2 weeks, and then she'll get moved to a new spot so the grass can recover. Wherever it looks like it's needed, I'll also re-seed. Eyeballing the amount of space we have, I think it's just enough. Perhaps if things go well this year, the land owners will allow us to use more space next year. We are allowed to ride around/hang out in the rest of the meadow; I just have to scoop up anything she leaves behind.
            The land owners seem to like her. They always smile when they see us working out there, anyway! And they like to give her treats, so I showed them how the fence works and told them that they can give her one carrot a day broken into chunks so she thinks she's getting lots of carrots. Everyone seems to like that arrangement. I am glad that they like to check on her. It makes me feel good that she has so many people keeping an eye on her even when I'm not here.

            (One more picture from the backyard.) I can confirm that Talana has dapples! They aren't always visible, but when the sun hits her side I can see them. They are on her rib cage and the top of her hindquarters. I think her mane and tail are growing in shinier, too. We also gave her another bath, and this time I washed her tail. It was still really dusty. Now it looks and feels better. I don't think she's been this clean for this long... maybe ever! I feel very satisfied with how I'm able to keep her. Next on the list is to get a farrier out to work over her feet. I suspect after that she'll feel even better.