Sometimes, I like mares.

So, my neighbors are absolutely awesome people and they just so happen to have an ArabianXQuarter Horse mare that I like to drool over occasionally. They live right across our farm where the horses are coming and they ride her around there often, but I've never really gotten a chance to go out and really get to know Wendy, the mare, but tonight my folks and I went up to the farm to pick some apples so I decided to walk across the street with my camera and say hello to her. :) Her owners keep telling me to go take advantage of having a horse around and get my "horse fix" in so I finally decided to take them up on the offer from across the fence since I've been dying to see my own ponies all day in the beautiful, cool weather.

Hello, beautiful.

"here, take a photo of my good side."

She's a total sweetheart with a really cool story. Her mother was a fleabitten Arabian who I had the pleasure of briefly meeting a few times before she passed away, and her sire was a Quarter Horse, I believe. She hasn't had any professional training to my knowledge and whatever she learned, she learned from her dam. When she was old enough, they began ponying her with her mother when they went on rides and voila, she became a wonderful riding horse! She's gone on quite a few very "scary" trails and she's very reliable for kids but definitely has that feisty Arab personality when she knows she can flaunt it!

And she's, very obviously, extremely photogenic. I don't think I got more than one or two shots where her ears aren't up and her eyes aren't looking straight at me!

 Nothing cuter than a droopy lip.

" Look into a horses eye and you instantly know if you can trust them."

She was very interested in the camera but didn't give it a single odd glance or spook, even though it's pretty bulky. Mom came over for a few minutes as well to help me get some different shots (AKA get Windy's attention so she wasn't looking at the camera in all of them, ahah!)

I really enjoyed getting to walk over there and take some photos of her for her owners. I posted them all on Facebook and I just love surprising people, haha! It's always nice to try and make someone's day a little better, especially doing something that I love so much but I don't often get to do. I can't wait until my boys are home and I can use them as models!

Love grey eyelashes.

And love those whiskers.

As y'all know, I'm definitely more of a gelding person but I have really fallen in love with this mare! She's such a good horse and I'm excited to have her as a neighbor, haha! I'm sure our boys will fall in love just as quickly, of course.

Ignore the barbs. :) They are getting rid of that fencing!

I love bokeh backgrounds.

                             Where in this wide world can man find nobility without pride,
                                                           Friendship without envy,
                                                          Or beauty without vanity?

 

 

                                             Here, where grace is served with muscle
                                                And strength by gentleness confined.

 

 

                                He serves without servility; he has fought without enmity.
                                      There is nothing so powerful, nothing less violent.
                                        There is nothing so quick, nothing more patient.
                                               ~Ronald Duncan, "The Horse," 1954