Slight Detour: Monday, Monday

A couple of long-time horsewomen: my sister Laurie and my neighbor Roxane, who owns the beautiful stable where I keep my horses.

Below: a longtime horseman and Laurie.

Monty Collison, who joined our 4-H club nearly more than 50 years when he was about 9 years old. The first time I ever met him was at my classroom door where a 4-H meeting was to be held.

As I opened the door for the meeting, he told me his name and that he wanted to learn about horses.

The rest is a history of amazing achievements as an equestrian, judge, coach, clinician and horse trainer.

Monty came yesterday to give individual lessons. His day started at Roxane's with Laurie and CB.

Monty will be taking CB for a month of training in the next few weeks.

That means 100 percent---he will have added his training touch to all three of my horses, and I am thrilled.

It was a big day for CB yesterday. Both Laurie and Monty loped him for the first time under saddle.

Moving into a lope isn't the easiest part of riding when the horse doesn't quite know how to transition into and maintain the gait with a load on.

It didn't take long, however, for CB to figure it out, so it was a productive hour for him and his riders in the arena.

Of course, Mom loved watching it all, taking photos and scooping up horse apples.

Quite a contrast this morning from yesterday when the sun was shining for the better part of the day.

I'm glad that, if we had to have precipitation, it's snow.

As long as the white stuff never gets deep enough to need plowing, I'll be happy.

After all this time with an open winter and the opportunity to do yard work, I don't want to have to rake any more rocks off the lawn.

With the new snow, came some deer. Two kept walking toward me in the side pasture on my last trip outdoors this morning. As they edged closer, something told them that it might be a good idea to go the other direction.

Off they went, eventually jumping over the fence near the big shed. I think they picked a bad area because I heard some clanging on the metal gate.

Hope nobody was hurt.

When I came back to the house, Bill said two deer had walked up to the window where he was working at the desk.

Must be that new snow gives them a sense of getting out and about because we haven't seen the deer for several days.

Schweitzer was a busy place last night with fireworks and night activities associated with the annual Winter Carnival.

It's not often that we see such bright lights up at the mountain. I hope the resort has received enough snow to keep the skiers and snowboarders happy for the next few weeks.