My visit to a ranch

You have made known to me the path of life;

You will fill me with joy in Your presence,

with eternal pleasures at Your right hand.

Psalm 16:11

    This weekend I was fortunate to spend it with my daughter at our church women's retreat. I didn't know until we got there that it was a ranch. Now I am a city girl,  a real girlly girl, no sports, no big pets just a cat and a box turtle. Besides having a wonderful time in fellowship with the Lord they had  fun activities for us to enjoy. First up was archery. OK I did archery in high school, back in the early 70's. I took that class because you only had to change your shoes and didn't have to wear those awful PE outfits. Remember I am not into sports. A group of us headed up the road to play bows and arrows.  After getting our instructions and rules we got to shot our first set of arrows. Here is where my first set of 8 arrows went.

    I was so excited I got a bulls eye on my first set. I think I finally found my sport. After archery we looked around the ranch to see the many animals there. The place was full of peacocks. It is mating season so you could here those males all day and into night. Here is one that was really showing off.

    They had a couple of cows with a baby calf, lots of goats, several chickens and a rooster. This little goat only had one ear. It was the cutest little thing.

    My daughter talked me into the horse back riding later in the afternoon. Talk about stepping out of my comfort zone. I was never  one of those little girls who dreamed of owning a horse. We got to the stables and he put me on the biggest horse (17 hands tall, so he said), Sir Remington. After watching the Royal Wedding the day before I thought the name was fitting. He was a horse who didn't like any other horse to get behind him so that meant I had to bring up the rear. Those first few moments on our ride was terrifying but slowly it became sorta fun (no I still don't want to go out and get a horse). This is me bringing up the rear following my daughter ( yes I got comfortable enough to take a picture while riding).

    I did manage in the free time to work on my cross stitching and this is all that I managed to get done. This is Country Cottage, "Bless Our Home".



   At our retreat the main focus was not on working and doing for the Lord, but talking and mostly sitting in quiet listening to the Lord.  Just listening is sometimes hard for busy women who think they need to do it all. Now that I am back in the real world doing all the usual stuff I am trying to stop and just listen.

Always keep love in your stitches,

Teresa