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So the filly, still Armanda as that was what she was called at the breeding farm (her sire’s name was Armando) was mine, now what?


Well first step was find somewhere for her to live. There was no room at the inn where Ellie, my retired rescue Arabian mare was living so I started friends. contacting


My friend Sandy had a lovely place and was looking for some help a few days a week in exchange for board. Of course I jumped on that!


So Kat and I picked up my new pony and she hopped right on the trailer despite her buddies running around the pasture screaming for her. One call as we left and totally quiet the whole short ride to her new place. We didn’t ask her to back out of the trailer since it was her first time, Kat turned her around and unloaded her (she did crowd Kat a bit when she went to turn around).

Everyone liked her--even Gavin, who had not shown any interest or care for my other two horses I’d owned while he had known me. She was polite, great with all the other horses and neat in her paddock. She had an interesting personality, brave and happy, but also studious and careful. She liked to check things out head on—no running away from scary things for this horse! I liked her boldness, I secretly hoped it transferred to the saddle too!

We weren't sure, however about the tractor spreading gravel, which you will see in this cute videoJ

She also knew nothing, was afraid of a lot and needed a lot of handling. So that's what she got.

One of the things I wanted was a horse who I could put on pretty much any trailer. She seemed equally as happy to hop on a slant load as a straight load. Here is her first time on a straight load trailer. She was pretty concerned about it, if you can’t tell!

She lived at Sandy's from April 2013 through August of 2013, at which point I needed to put her somewhere that had an arena. So I put her in full care boarding at Cascade Stables. I had decided we needed to start working on our handling and fitness as I wanted to show her sport horse in hand.

While Halo was still very much a baby, her brain was wonderful. She came along very quickly and I felt very blessed to own her.

We had lots of new experiences at Sandy's place. Including what a true winter storm was. As part of our agreement I’d watch Sandy’s place when she went out of town. Of course one of those times she was gone, we had cold snap/snow storm. We were using heated buckets and they were still freezing! Halo’s paddock was too far from the barn to run a heated bucket, so we just used any uneaten hay to insulate around her bucket in the corner, but it still liked to freeze hard. So I’d break up the ice and use a strainer to remove the chunks and put them in a bucket that I could then dump over the fence. We learned that ice is yummy to eat:

The next step was to decide what I was going to call her and what I was going to register her as. As stated before, she came to me with the name Armanda which I didn’t particularly like. What I’ve not mentioned about getting the filly is that my dad passed away in January. It was sudden, and unexpected. He and I were very close when I was younger, but had grown apart in recent years because he had become an alcoholic and at the time of his death, it had been several months since we’d spoken despite my reaching out on holidays. About a month after he passed my Uncle informed me that my dad had a pension through Boeing, and were notified that my younger brother and I would be getting approx. $400 each a month for the next several years (which would otherwise have been paid to him).

About a year prior to his death I’d given my longtime horse to a friend because my horse and I just weren’t a good match under saddle. So I’d been a year without a riding horse, and suddenly had some extra money at my disposal. Because of my Dad’s responsibility in his early years at Boeing, it was only fitting that as it had gone with my first horse (he bought him for me--an Arabian also)—my Dad would be the one to make it possible to have this special horse. Thus, she earned the registered name LL Carrye Oon (Armando el Aryes* x Torrifficoo) (the prefix LL is for my last two initials, and the initials of our family breeding farm Lazy Loper Stables). Carry On My Wayward Son by Kansas was one of our favorite road trip songs when I was a kid—it was also a song we played at his memorial. It was my way of honoring my dad, even if it wasn’t much. I went back and forth on the barn name—I really felt strongly about the name Halo (also in part because I’d just been baptized recently) but Kansas seemed to also fit (it was pretty, hardy, and unique). I sometimes still wonder why I chose Halo—but it fits, even when it doesn’t (if you know what I mean).

I sure love this little thing!