I've just been acquired by a barn cat. He's a gray tabby with lanky white legs, and belongs to a farmer up the road, but decided the competition for food and attention from four other cats was too much. He hung around and mewed constantly until I fed him. Now he likes to help me feed my three horses, get underfoot while I clean out their stables, and bring me half-chewed rabbits at two week intervals.

He'll be expecting me to write a book about him, next. I called him Precious Ramotswe from Alexander McCall Smith's 'No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency' series, until I was told he is a male called Junior. So now he is Precious, Jr.

I'm currently working on the sequel to my tongue-in-cheek memoir "The Horse Bumbler." Owning and riding horses makes for a lot of challenges, disappointments, exhilaration of success, coping with failure and getting up out of the dust!

Cruz Bay (in the photo with me) is a horse I bred. He is a nine year old 16.2 hh bay gelding, three-quarters Thoroughbred and incredibly friendly. He's athletic and talented, but makes me work for every one of those blue ribbons!

I evented him, but switched to dressage because he kept bruising himself over jumps at shows. We're riding at First Level right now, hoping (and hoping!) to move up to Second Level soon.

I'll keep you posted on our progress.

Meanwhile you can read 30% of my memoir for free before buying it if you like. Just go to
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...

Happy reading!