Bolshy youngsters, small ponies and goats.......

As you've probably gathered from the last post, we went to get Kinna back a couple of weeks ago. She's clearly decided that her summer off means that she's retired, at least when it comes to having to do stuff in a sand school (hacking out is apparently still an acceptable occupation, even if she's not always allowed to get her head down to the green stuff whenever she wants). So this week is week two of lessons for Kinny Whinny. Mademoiselle has decided that walking and trotting in the school is OK after all (unlike last week, she tried stopping dead when asked to move at first) although being asked to trot still requires an angry swish of the tail just to register a protest at having to do this kind of thing.

But when asked to canter, we are still trying the old "bounce to a halt and see if that gets rid of my rider/changes her mind about continuing with this dangerous rodeo ride" technique that you may remember from earlier in the year when first expected to run across grass rather than stop and eat it. When the answer is no, pull a face, swish tail and proceed with bad grace.......

Some work needed there, then.

In other news, Ali decided she wanted to ride the smallest pony up there for the second lesson. Brynbella Lady May, as she is known to the Haras, is a little Welshie who has a terrible reputation for rushing fences and bogging off with kids and dumping them to get back to her herd. I reckon she does this because they pull on her mouth too much. So Ali rode her with little or no contact on the reins and slowed her down with squeeze/release on alternate reins rather than a tug of war, and I suggested to Carole that we put the other ponies one in each corner of the carriere rather than all together. Certainly got her attention......

And in other other news, we took the goats up to the club as Carole has said they can come and live with the sheep and goat already in residence. They were deeply unimpressed at having to get into the car....

...but once they arrived in a huge new paddock with  little houses and everything, they soon got over it!

Escapee goats......

So I was just sitting down to my first cup of tea this morning after the usual hectic running around to get one daughter to school and the other to the childminder when there's a knock on the door. It's one of the commune's cantonniers, asking me if my goats have escaped..........I went to look and there they both were, outside the Mairie next door, peering in through the glass doors!

Eva, the brown one, is impossible to catch but luckily Sugar is fairly tame and immediately came over at the sight of a food bucket. I was able to get a lead on her and led her home with Eva trotting along behind......They escaped from my neighbour's paddock where they've been quite happily living all winter so now I'll have to go and check all the fences. In the meantime I've put them in the paddock here so now it contains 4 horses and 2 goats plus various assorted poultry. Needless to say, Maverick is NOT impressed with these funny little creatures!