Cats and dogs......

Well, two of the kittens have gone to their new homes so that just leaves Velcro.

He can't decide whether to play with Poppy or be frightened of her!

 It's OK until Poppy gets excited and barks........

then he's off to hide behind Lali who will attack poor Poppy (and any  cat foolish enough to venture into the house)

Gandalf's new job......

Poor old Gandalf, as if having to do his first 'proper' dressage test today wasn't enough, which is here by the way,  Ali decided she'd like to do some jumping too....

I have no idea if he's ever jumped before (although when we're out in the woods he'll happily jump a puddle rather than get his poor ickle feet wet ) and at first he didn't seem too keen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpK7h957emo

Then she got a bit more speed up and he decided it was pointless making an effort when there's all that space to avoid it.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJQw9u3vCvQ

After a few more goes, he made a bit more of an effort:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtprhBaXBxM

And eventually got the idea!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rR5EIPmoDA

All very good for his weight loss programme

Still, won't sign him up for an international showjumping career just yet......

One less kitty.....

The kittens are 8 weeks old today and one of them has already gone to his new home:

the little grey and white boy. He's gone to live with a friend of my neighbour, they are calling him Réglisse (liquorice in French). Éowyn didn't want them to take him, she kept saying "it's my mum's cat!" I am taking his grey & white sister to her new home on Thursday, she's been christened Betty, she's going to an English family up near Ribérac. So then it will just be Velcro left......

More new stuff

Today there was a big outdoor meal in the village across the road from here, so I thought I'd take Skyfaxa out and about away from Kinna and see what she did.

She neighed a couple of times.....

Then got down to the serious business of eating.....

in spite of all the people around her, some of whom were shooting arrows! Good girl.......

Happy Birthday Skyfaxa!

Today is the girl's first birthday, I helped Ali and Éowyn make her a cake. Well, I helped Ali, Éowyn's contribution mostly involved throwing bits of carrot and apple as far as possible over the kitchen table and trying to eat the honey from the jar....... We put apples and carrots in the blender, then added honey and oats. We made it into a cake shape and finished it off with a carrot candle.

She loved it!

So did Kinna who was actually allowed to have some by the birthday girl......

And even the chooks got to finish up the crumbs. None for the goats though who have eaten my neighbour's rose bushes and raspberry plants so are waddling everywhere at the moment, and certainly none for Gandalf who is so fat he's risking laminitis and is having to be kept in the box during the day whilst Maverick goes out in the big field and is only turned out in the small nearly grassless paddock at night. Monsieur, il n'est pas content!

We've got a puppy......

...at least temporarily!!

Got a call from the Mairie next door (I am their unofficial interpreter) saying that someone English had found a puppy. Turns out it's a friend of mine, he heard the poor little thing crying at about 6am this morning, shortly after he'd noticed a van pulling up by his house then leaving straight away. So he took her in, then went up to the vet's this morning, but no microchip. The vet said she's only 2 months old and should still be with her mother. So the Maire has asked me to keep her for a week in case she's lost and the owners get in touch. Sounds to me like the van was there dumping her, but you never know...........My friend who found her is off to the UK for 3 weeks but says if noone's claimed her by the time they get back, then he'll keep her. So hopefully the girls won't get too attached.......although they don't live far away so Ali will still be able to go over and walk her.

How could anyone not want this?




She was terrified at first but has eaten a huge bowl of food and is curled up asleep by my feet.......

Well it started ok......

Went for a hack yesterday, nice sunny morning, birds singing, flowers nodding in the breeze etc. Great, we thought. Went down a track we haven't used for about 6 months, first problem, the farmer had closed off the path with one of those awful barbed wire gate thingies, there's no way you can open them on horseback cos they are always stretched tight so you have to get off, open it then jump out of the way before it twangs back at you, lead the horse through, get him far enough away so you can haul it back into place without it twanging into him, you get the idea......

There were 3 of them across the path in all!!!

Then the field was somewhat overgrown:

Not great when you're trying to keep your extremely fat horse away from lots of grass!!

Still,we soldiered on and eventually got into the woods.


Lovely in there, it was, no flies, not warm enough yet, no hunters, perfect.

Then on the way back we had to go and check on my friend's horses as she's away for the weekend, this would have been fine except that her neighbour's dog was wearing one of those Elizabethan collars and as far as Maverick's concerned, they EAT horses........

Jane got off and lead him past and he was starting to calm down until the neighbour came out with a whip and started trying to round the dogs up with it!!! That finished Mav off, he was snorting and jumping around, we had to leave at that point!

Gotta love the French........

Dressage test.....

Never tried to do one of these before, but I have agreed to do Walk and Trot Dressage Test F as part of a team Interdressage competition with some of the girls fromthe forum. It looks horrendously complicated on paper so I decided to get on Gandalf and go through it. He was very patient with me stopping to read my piece of paper.......

Once I'd been through it a few times though it made much more sense and I could follow the patterns the test makes. Just got to practise a few more times than get someone to film us......

Two horses? No problem......

Tried something new yesterday, hadn't been able to ride since Adam's visit (school holidays ) and finally got a morning without the kids when it wasn't raining, so off I went up to Jane's all ready to go, but she couldn't ride after all. Sod it,I thought, I'll go anyway and take Maverick on the lead rein cos they both need the exercise.

It worked really well, we were out for about an hour, Mav had a couple of spooky moments but I had him on a long line so I just let out more rope then reeled it back in again. The biggest problem was stopping him stuffing his face every time we went past some grass......

And on the roads (there's not a lot of traffic round here) Mav just tucked himself behind Gandalf when a car came past, such a good boy......

Then in the afternoon, the farrier came to trim the girls' hooves, I was a bit worried Kinna wouldn't want to play after all the vet trauma this week (they tried to take a blood sample from her, even sedated she was having none of it!) but the farrier made a point of being nice to her before he even started and she was good as gold.

Kittens again.....

They are getting more and more cute as time goes on. I have just about let Ali persuade me to let her keep the ginger one, Velcro.

The grey & white girl has been found a home, she is now called Betty.

So that just leaves this little guy needing a home......anyone know someone who'd like a kitty?

Moving the horses around......

Went to feed the baby girls tonight, Skyfaxa was trying to bully Kinna, so I used Adam's technique to move her away. I obviously had to put a bit of energy into it as she didn't want to leave the food so off she went cantering about. Kinna immediatly joined her so I ran round with them (in a much smaller circle obviously, not being at all fit......) They calmed down and walked as I slowed down. When Sky went back to steal Kinna's food again I needed to use far less energy to move her away, this stuff really works!!

Got some nice pics of them too.