Easter update

The very first ones. Happy spring everybody! Hope you have had a nice Easter!

My husband and daughter left me to take care of the animals and took off for Gran Canary to get some extra sun, so I spent Easter on my own.
I waved them goodbye, and smiled smugly to myself.
Don’t remember when I was on my own last time, and I actually enjoy that.
So I had a marvellous, egoistic Easter, with horses, cats and food after my own mind.
I read books, and watched what I wanted on TV.
Had some girl friends over for dinner too.
And the weather was lovely - spring weather with quite a lot of sun.
I decided to enjoy the sun even if I wasn't at Canary Islands.


I trudged through the snow to our outside sitting place, and shovelled it bare from snow.





Then I thought that I would get something to sit on.
Uhhmmm.

The chairs are inside this door.
After more shovelling, and some head scratching while trying to shrink the chair two sizes smaller to get it out of the door, I finally managed to get it through.
(I dropped a table. )
The cats were enjoying themselves.







Fame was basking in the sun.




On Thursday, I hacked out with Fame.
We had quite an eventful trip.



We discovered a deer that probably had drowned.



The water level in the creek was higher, due to all the melting snow.
A crow was taking a bath at the shore. He really did a good job with it, dipping the body over and over, and shaking the feathers afterwards. Get rid of all the winter dust. Drown those bugs.


We took one of the gravel roads, and a bit up the road I heard a large vehicle approaching from behind.
They have been cutting down the forest in the area during the winter, and I knew that there were lumber trucks working to bring it out.
The road was rather small unfortunately, so there was very little room left for me and Fame if it really was one of those trucks.
I knew there was a road leading down to a house further on, so I just had to put her in a (fresh) canter to reach it in time.
And yes, it was a lumber truck.
We barely made it. Phiew.


Further on I was walking Fame on loose reins and my mind was elsewhere (that's when it happens you know!).
Suddenly some snow falls from a high mountain side in front of us and Fame is the next second galloping down the slope that we just had been riding up.
Luckily I had tightened the girth this time, lol!
I got hold of the reins and managed to stop her without any more fuzz.
We had some more canter intervals up, and she felt fine.
She can be eager in the canter, but this time she was just softly rolling on in a round, deep outline, and listened to my aids. I wondered if the canter training from the week before still was in the back of her head, or if she was a bit out of form due to the hair shedding season.
On the way back I jumped off her, and walked by her side.
I like doing that.
I feel closer to her when I walk by her head and am not just sitting in the saddle, and I also feel that I can do with the extra exercise.
After a while we heard some noise.
Fame stopped and listened, and I heard it too.
It sounded like…. a lumber truck loading lumber.
On our way home. Sigh.
We couldn't see anything yet, and in any case we just had to walk on to get home.
A few curves further down, we saw the truck. He had parked as far to the side as possible, and luckily it seemed as if he had just finished loading.


The truck still had the engine running, and the driver was securing the load by throwing ropes over the load.
Fame was on red alert.
Trucks are one thing, but ropes and climbing men on trucks, that’s something completely different.
She snorted and grew to twice her normal size, muscles bulging, ready to explode.
I told her she was one silly horse, and kept moving.
We passed the truck, greeted the driver who smiled and said that large trucks are dangerous, nodding at Fame who was tip-toeing behind, eyes bulging.
Fame danced a bit after we had passed, but that was that.
And then I just had to get up in the saddle and get going before we got the same truck coming up from behind again.
We managed to get off the road before the truck came.
On the way home we had that long, nice stretch of road in the sun.
It looks inviting, doesn't it?



And so thought Fame.
Suddenly she was not well behaved at all, but decided to get rid of that truck tension and work the body a bit.
Yieehaa.
I got the racehorse-wannabe back.
I had to get firm with her to get her to calm down, stupid thing.
At least I could conclude that she was not feeling out of form due to the hair shedding.
On the way back, Fame decided to trot through the water when we crossed the creek, in spite of my protests. She had lot of fun, and I got all wet.
(Frankly, I had a bit of fun too.)