I'm thankful for hubby, my small extended family and wonderful friends (both RL and on the internet). I am also beyond thankful that some serious rain arrived in California yesterday. Thank you, rain, thank you!

Nice pix everyone! I'm afraid I haven't any digital photos of trains - not sure if I have any prints either. This is the closest I can get - train tracks bordering my aunt's backyard in WI. When we were kids, my cousins and sisters would climb up the stony embankment to put pennies on the tracks and collected the smooshed ones after the train had passed. Last time I visited as an adult, I did it too 😃 I still have them...

There are two horses here. The one nearest is my sweet, cranky, opinionated, chestnut mare, school horse Lady. On the other side is my instructor's gelding. I thought all was lost when my old instructor had to shut down her business due to the draconian shutdowns in my county during the pandemic. But those two horses saved my sanity, and kept my life normal while so many were in isolation. I am forever grateful that I was allowed to continue riding though out the craziness. I was a beginning English rider. Lady made me into the western rider I am today. She suffered through all my errors, and bonded with me as a partner. In the midst of the crazy I said I wanted to enter a virtual endurance race. My instructor who I consider my mentor, is a cantankerous old horseman. He looked at me like I had grown a third eye, then shook his head and grinned, and said I could use her for the 3 months I had to get it done. He suffers through my attitude and we also have a bond. That bond was formed as rode and got through some personal rough times. Words weren't needed. We focused on riding. Getting a green rider through a hundred trail miles during a pandemic, a fire, light and darkness, heat waves and downpours is quite a task, but the four of us did it. Came in way ahead of many who own their own horses. In fact I do believe she was the only by the hour school horse entered. I not only gained the skills I have today but I gained a new family, became even more mentally tough, physically fitter and found a new path to follow. I am forever grateful for that and Lady is symbolic of that time and experience. I've moved on to more advanced horses but I still ask to take her on a long trail ride now and then. When I do, it's like we never parted.

Seating used more for decoration on estates along the Geneva Shore Path (Wisconsin)