Sunday 20 July 2014

Industrious young swallow

We share our facilities with swallows who come to raise a family each year.  We have got quite used to their incessant twittering and aerial acrobatics as they speed past our heads with microns to spare.  The youngsters have fledged and have been practising their flying skills round the yard.  We noticed that one of them was bouncing about on the ground in wet patches and picking up bits of hay in its beak and flying off with it.  Intrigued, we had a look in the barn at the rafters, where the nest is.  It seems that the young fellow has been practising his nest building skills.  
We think the little chap has a bit of work to do on the design concept.

House built by Mum and Dad

House built by Junior

Saturday 19 July 2014

Posy's first gymkhana

It seems that Posy is well on her way to becoming a proper grown up horse since she was taken to her first gymkhana.  This is the sort of thing that can send horses of delicate sensibilities into a spin, but Posy showed how her training has progressed by behaving impeccably.  She paired up with a young spotty pony for gentle manoeuvres (leaving the actual racing to rag taggle ponies and the children with ambitious dads).  She did all the tasks beautifully and proved very brave when moving balloons from one post to another.
Posy is slightly bemused by gymkhana goings on
Posy's main complaint was that there was a lot of waiting about in between games, so she was taken home before the end for fear she get too restive and upset the tinies.

Wednesday 16 July 2014

Happy Birthday to me!

Today I am eight years old!  My, how time flies.  I was fully expecting eight carrots this morning, but was disappointed.  There was a bag of carrots, but I was told that these were being saved for my Big Day on Saturday.  This sounds ominously like I shall have to puff my way through some dressage to earn them.

Last weekend I had to go to a riding club dressage contest 'to get back into the swing of things'.  It was nice to meet and greet a number of my fans.  At one point I thought that the yard owner had heard that my birthday was coming up soon and was going to present me with a cake.


I should have known that only the riders got cake and we poor horses had to content ourselves with whatever morsels of grass we could find round the edge of the car park.  Then we had to carry our cake-laden riders back home again.  Life as a horse is pretty tough.