Autumn Memories: Riding to the Pub

 I'm looking out of the window at the first, big, blasting blizzard of the winter. The wind's been howling, the trees bending and the snow falling. It doesn't take more than a few minutes for the weather to get serious around here.
  Time, I think, for some memories of a sunny autumn. On this particular day my friend Annie and I rode Ellie May and her daughter, Riis,  to the pub. We didn't actually hitch them outside, which would have made for a great photo but here they are in a friend's paddock.

Saddles off and enjoying a bite of their own lunch. Cognoscenti may notice the English saddle on the right - my obliging friend keeps it specially for me, as a I remain a stubborn purist.  I pulled her leg about the Confederate flag saddle-cloth, "So you're a racist redneck then?"
 "No I am not! (I can verify that), just a proud southerner!"  She hails from Alabama and we had an interesting conversation about self-determination.

It was a fabulous day, the hills still holding some autumn colours, apples still clinging to the trees to the great delight of the horses, the high meadows shimmering in the sun.  A day to sit outside in the beer garden, a day when you couldn't imagine winter just around the corner.

 Of course it wasn't really a pub in the English sense but it would do.