Farm Projects and the Boys Play in the Pond

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend. We continued on with our glorious weather and Jason and I spent all of the last three days outside, not that there is anything unusual about that! I have an awesome sunburn on my shoulders that I achieved on Friday and was relegated to wearing a long sleeved shirt in sleeveless shirt weather for the rest of the weekend.

The Big Boys were thrilled as we opened the gates to the area around the pond on Thursday afternoon. The gates have been closed for several months but the grass was almost a foot tall in some areas around the pond and it needs to be grazed down. The Boys are more than happy to step up to the plate and handle this job. Even more than that they LOVE being able to splash around and play in the pond. I've already had the pleasure of watching several water wars, and had my camera with me when Elfin was in the pond splashing around and got a short video of it.

Jason and I spent some time on one of the endless farm projects that are always waiting to be done. I don't think it is possible to live on a farm and not have a "to do" list a mile long. We put the chain saw and one of the tractors to work cleaning up old downed trees. Jason needs a clear path in the pastures for mowing. He's already spent several hours cutting up and moving downed trees in the last couple of weeks. Jason is a row cropper at heart and grew up looking at cleared land planted in crops, and it would give him great pleasure to bulldoze the trees so he never had to spend another hour cutting up and moving old trees!

I've had some great rides with my girls lately. Not every ride is amazing but most of them are pretty great and I'm happy with our progress. I am almost scared to type it out for fear of jinxing myself but lately I've had fun riding Bonnie. There was a definite point when I never thought I would say that. Jason summed it up well today when he said he thought she was finally growing up mentally and no longer had the desire to set firecrackers off under ladies' skirts anymore.

Sebastian and Winston both had baths this weekend. One more gray horse scrubbed white, at least for a few minutes anyway! Winston despises being in the barn, probably more than any other horse here, so he was not. happy. about his bath. But we got through it, complete with mane and tail scrubbing and conditioning. I think he pooped five times while I was working on him. His record is nine. Did I mention he hates the barn?

Jason dumping the results of his chain saw efforts to make another burn pile; the pile was MUCH larger than this by the time he was finished!

I think he's had about enough of the chainsaw for awhile

One of the dogwood trees in bloom

Leaves are starting to appear everywhere, we've had a very late spring this year

I had to take this picture simply for the "green" factor

Me in my usual position these days - working on someone with the shedding blade (which happens to be Elfin in this picture)

I took this picture just because of all the leaves everywhere; Teddy is grazing in the background

Video of Elfin splashing around in the pond, then enjoying a roll. As I said on our Facebook page I think his stress level is way too high.

Elfin playing in the water

Chili and Silky grazing
Alex and Asterik Chance and Thomas grazing by the pond
Tony and Trigger; I liked their reflections in the water
Leo, Levendi and Homer
Chance splashing around in the water
Dustin and Apollo were excited when I opened the gates to the pond
Missy Lily; we jokingly call her the keratin factory. Anything that requires keratin she has in abundance, from her hair to her hooves, even her chestnuts grow like crazy.
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