Strange Siting!

Below is a picture of a dandelion...blooming...in November!! I have NEVER seen this before and neither had my father. Had to take a picture because it is so unbelievable! My nephew, Griffin, was holding it for me. I enlisted his help for some picture taking today. Yesterday I played around a bit with the timer on my camera. It actually went not too bad and I even caught myself asking Linus to do some sidepassing to get close enough for me to hit the button of the fence-post-riding-camera.

I like the picture below because it shows us riding between the cattle chute and seeder. It's a pretty narrow place and both things are new to Linus. As you can see in the picture, he is very relaxed. We had a great weekend for riding.

Finally some pictures with the both of us in them!! It's almost always just me taking pics of Linus. 

Below is Griffin. He is 9 and was very thrilled to be holding the reins all by himself! He has been around Linus right from the start so is actually very brave and not at all afraid to raise his voice if needed. But, Linus is so awesome with kids that is was not at all a problem. Griffin was trying out the english saddle for the first time. He found a big difference but was quickly comfortable and confident.

Below is a few of our shots with the timer on Saturday.

Linus took my glove out of my pocket while I was trying to quickly get us ready for a pose!! It was too funny not to post it...Here I am scolding him to give it back to me!!

We had a fun weekend together and managed to get a couple of points rides in. I was using the bit again for a while as a sort of security blanket for myself while I got used to the new saddle. But, turns out Linus much prefers not having one! Naturally, after I purchased a new bridle. I'm sure it will still come in handy though and is always a good thing to have.
Tonight we rode for a bit in the side-pull, he seems to like this one best. I have wrapped the noseband in fleece because the coated rope is far too stiff and there is no need to p--- him off for no reason.
We were free-grazing the horses on the lawn today (just halters, no leads) and they were really enjoying it! Linus seems to have a beef with my Dad though and kept making a point of walking as close as possible by him...just trying to make him move out of his way. Dad would stand there then Linus would pass him, lift his tail and then pass a sweet one for Dad...leaving him gagging. I'm not sure what the story behind this is but it was repeated several times. Our horses are pretty funny like that. They each know who belongs to who.
Also on Saturday, we did a bit of playing around in the pasture. We sort of somehow did the join-up thing and I actually had Linus doing the trot, halt and back up right along with me...no halter and no training aids! It was really cool!
We had a very fun weekend. I'll admit that it was a lot more like play than work...but hey that's ok!!

Donna & Linus

Ontario, Canada

DD Team