Image borrowed from Andreas Seidel
The Weather! It's been crazy - I think all of the icons above could have been used! Last week we were in shorts and sandals and the dogs were asking to stay in the house because it was so warm! Up in the upper 70's, even the low 80's! The horses got to go out and graze for awhile (made their day). Yesterday morning was chilly. And foggy. I guessed we might have a snow flurry, and sure enough we did - except it didn't stop. Just after I finished the morning chores, the snow really picked up!
The arrows point to some PO'd Robins
It snowed again last night, and much of today. We got about 3-4 inches in total. Luckily, it didn't really get that cold, just hovering around the freezing mark. I just checked the forcast, and it should be in the 70's by Wednesday again!
We went to the auction again, looking for some pony harness. The pony we've been borrowing now belongs to us! We've named her Stella, and from the introductory driving work we've done, she seems a natural. So we need to find some equipment. If you have driving harness, a cart, or a little farm cart, I'd love to hear from you. Stella is about 10.2 hands tall, and seems to be Welsh/Shetland, with the finer body type of the Welsh pony. If you have any good photos of farm type carts, that would be good too, as I can probably build a simple wagon, if I knew a few attachment points.
We did see some sad things at the auction. The two worst creatures were a donkey with front feet so long that he could barely walk. And one of the "handlers" kept whacking him with his pole to get him to move. (This is the same handler who whacks horses in the face, too.) The other sad creature was a 13 year old mare, blind as a bat. She put her head out and low so she wouldn't walk into things. Thankfully, nobody whacked her. She went for $125. Some horses, mules and donkeys were really nice though, some yearlings and two year-olds registered even! So it's worth going, but you just have to brace yourself.
