Archery! I have a bow!

 My form isn't too bad, just need to get the elbow higher.

Also I have protective gear still on the way.  

My awesome hubby gave me my Christmas present early this year.  It's an awesome new recurve bow.  :D  Now I can learn archery like I've always wanted to and I even added it back to my 30 Before 30 list.  I had taken it off because I didn't think I'd be able to get a bow, but because I have the best husband ever I now have one.  :)

I can't believe this is a 62 inch bow (58 inches strung).  It feels like the perfect size, but I am tall so that's probably why.  It's 30 pounds to pull, which I can do, but I need to build some strength for sure!  Shooting it half a dozen times had my arms and shoulders wore out lol.

 Chrome had to check it out!  See more pictures of him with it here (LINK).

Chrome loved the fur silencers.  They look like fuzzy caterpillars so I'm calling my bow caterpillar since dad said I had to name it hehe.  The fletching on the arrows are red and gold which are my husband's SCA colors.  My colors are navy and silver, so I'll have to get some new arrows eventually.  He's letting me borrow his to practice with though.  :)

 A close up of the riser.  It's so pretty!!

Not only do I have the fur silencers I also have these leather pieces (the black textured part under the string) that prevent the string from slapping the wood.  It barely makes a sound when I shoot it.  I'll have to get a video for you guys.

Just because they are cute!

I'm so excited I finally get to learn archery!!  I practiced shooting it into a round bale of hay, but we will eventually set up targets.  :)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

 First picture of my kitchen I've shared since we had the counter top put in!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!  We had our very first gluten free Thanksgiving and it was fantastic!!!
My mom, dad, hubby and I split the cooking between us.  Mom and Dad made the fruit salad, apple crunch, green bean casserole (forgot to take the lid off in the picture below) and giblet gravy.  Hubby made the dressing, using a recipe his mom uses and it was amazing (I have always hate dressing).  He also made the pumpkin pies (crustless).  I heated up the turkey and cooked the sweet potatoes and rice.

The pecan pie was store bought and not gluten free (I didn't eat the crust) because we didn't want to make one, but we all love it lol.  The turkey, sweet potatoes and rice were obviously gluten free.  The dressing we used a boxed gluten free cornbread mix that was actually really good!  I was surprised.  The apple crunch was either boxed gluten free or mom used gluten free flour mix.  I'm not sure.  The pumpkin pie didn't have a crust so it was good.

The interesting thing was the green bean casserole.  I LOVE green bean casserole and almost never eat it except for Thanksgiving so I look forward to it every year.  The problem is that the French fried onions have flour and so does canned condensed mushroom soup.  So we made it homemade!  That was a first for all of us.  It was actually pretty easy (cutting up the onion is probably the worst part).  I'll have to get the recipe from mom and share it sometime.  When we were cooking the mushroom soup it was so cool watching the ingredients mix together and turn into the soup.  It looked just like the canned stuff but tasted so much better.

I hope everyone is having a great Thanksgiving!!  I'm thankful for having our house almost done, celebrating our first year living in it, for my family, for the joint effort on our gluten free Thanksgiving, the support and participation from my family with the gluten free lifestyle, my improved health (from eating gluten free) and for my sweet animals even though Jackal got in the garbage yesterday for the first time in years and years (he did it as a puppy too).  I was disappointed in him, but I'm thankful there was nothing in there that could make him sick (he was after the canned dog food that my parent's Yorkie eats).  I'm thankful that even though it's a little cold it isn't raining and the sun is shining!  I'm thankful that everyone is healthy (last year my family had the flu for Thanksgiving).  I'm thankful for my blogging friends and the amazing blogging community we belong to.  Love you guys!

Anyway that's all I can think of right now.  I'm sinking into a food coma.  Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Dog vs. Goat

As you probably know already Jackal goes everywhere with me outside, even in the pasture.  Up until now he and the goats have pretty much ignored each other.... until today hehehe.  This is hilarious.


Yes, I was saying "get the kitty" because Jackal doesn't know what goat means LOL.

30 Before 30 - #18 Complete!

This is cross posted from Chrome's blog (LINK).  Some of the things I chose for my 30 before 30 list are hard to say exactly when they are complete, like number eighteen which is to train a horse from weaning to the basics under saddle.  I think I can consider this one complete since my criteria was basically walk, trot, canter under saddle.  We don't have the basics in dressage done yet, but look at what we do have!  Remember this is all very "basic" not finished.  We are getting there!

Riding bareback on the road.

Riding on the road by unfamiliar horses!

 

Even a herd of Alpaca!!

Riding with other horses.

Cantering.


Cantering Chrome bareback in a halter!


Jumping in a halter and reins!


Also, he's not afraid of anything!!

 

 

 

  

 

Trotting in an open field by a huge dozer.


I think we have the basics covered!!  :D  I just have to say, raising him from five months old to five and a half years has been the experience of a lifetime!  I've loved every minute of it (well except when he would get hurt or sick obviously... and getting him gelded wasn't a lot of fun, but it was educational) and I actually sometimes think it would be fun to do again, but I don't know if I'm up to starting another baby under saddle.  The older I get the less appealing that seems lol.  I do love the raising babies and groundwork part of it though!!!  Who knows?  Maybe someday, but for right now I'm loving having my all grown up baby horse that I did everything myself with and I'm excited about our future together!

National Novel Writing Month!

Wow did anyone else completely and totally forget about Nano (www.nanowrimo.org) this year??  Lucky for me L. over at Viva Carlos mentioned it in her post so I was able to get started instead of remembering halfway through the month like I did during my second year of Nano lol.  Thanks L!

So after some brain storming while cooking chicken chili for supper I came up with a very vague idea and started writing.  I've done 1,340 words so far which is shy of what the daily total should be, but I'm just not feeling inspired to write so I'll catch up tomorrow.  Here is my one sentence synopsis...

"Scientist create a biosphere habitat full of mythical creatures... what could go wrong?"

Hehe, so let's see how well I do flying by the seat of my pants and writing with zero ideas, outlines, characters or plot.  :D  Good luck to everyone who is participating this year!