Gibson Ranch Visit ~~ October 25, 2014

When I was little, we used to ride our bikes the just under 5 miles from our home in North Highlands out to Gibson Ranch in Rio Linda. 

When my daughter was nine, we boarded her horse at Gibson.  

And now, it's still an amazing place to get outside, walk, see animals, ride horses, and of course, take photos.  So it was the first place I headed after buying a new-to-me lens from Ebay.  

First thing I noticed was a man with quite a flock of geese and ducks around him.  I parked a ways away to have a nice walk and he was feeding them for some time.

Gorgeous egret fishing in the lake.

Usually egrets aren't the only things trying to catch the fish in the stocked pond.  

But today, there weren't any human fisherman on the two fishing piers.

Awww, cute recently shorn sheep.

Ducks and geese have such amazing colors and textures in the feathers.  Such beautiful creatures. 

As I made my way around the pond, the gentleman who had been feeding the birds walked back down from the parking lot above the it.  He asked me about my camera and started sharing his life stories.  He offered to go back to his car to get his bird seed so that I could get some closeups of the birds.  
How could I say no?

Most of the flock had already dispersed, but they came sailing right back when they saw that bag of feed.

Orange eyeliner on fleek.

Water on a goose's belly

Did I mention it was almost Halloween?!  Loved this guy. 

He followed me around for quite awhile.

Feathers are incredible.  That is all. 

Found another kitty friend.  :-)

The peacock followed me for a bit too.  
And when he got out in the full sun?  
I just could not get over how beautiful he was. 

I left the barn area which has a higher "population" of creatures and humans and headed out to see the horses. 

This is the paddock we boarded Penny in.  
I love this paddock; best on the ranch in my opinion.  
And our Penny looked a lot like these two.

My dream horse!  Beautiful boy.  Tricolor tobiano paint. 

This blue roan was giving me coy looks from under his shady tree.  Love his coloring, intelligent eyes, and perky pointed ears.

This guy is like velvety chocolate. 

And on the opposite end of the color spectrum, this creamy, tall palomino was ready for a whiskery closeup. 

I walked back past the lake to my car, completing a circle of just under 2 miles.  Great walk!

What a wonderful day.  This fat squirrel saw me on my way.

Or maybe he was just making damn sure I didn't steal his acorn!

xoxo