This Time of Year

 Just some photos for you this week. I did have some adventures planned this weekend but the weather felt disagreeable and there's always another day.  After being spoiled with a cool and damp spring, summer suddenly arrived in the form of a very hot and humid few days. Everyone (ponies included) was melting. The humans were additionally sunburned and cranky.

Sophie also cranky. They spent Friday mowing across the street and she makes it A Big Deal every time. Mares, like why?  Luckily it is a big area and she gets tired of chasing them after a few initial laps. There is a natural ditch/hedge dividing it into two, so normally the boys stay on whatever side she's not occupying. 

Why not just leave her at home and save the drama, you ask? Because with true horse logic she HATES them but also is convinced she cannot survive with a city street between her and them. If we're measuring distances them across the street would technically be closer than their home grazing arrangements, but Sophie logic doesn't always logic:)

Sophie is normally the reason for the action shots of the boys tho ;)

"She sees us! Retreat!"

The vibe at home where they have their own space is much more chill. They're still pretty playful, but the roughhousing is getting less and less and they're acting more and more like grownup horses. Kind of sad in a way, but also not destroying everything they touch is nice.

This used to be part of my front lawn, but who wants to mow an extra half acre when you've got horses?

This time of year the vegetation is completely out of control.  I think in a perfect world we'd be mowing and weedeating twice a week but I don't have time for that.

My new coworker is so funny, she's like "I moved here last spring and thought everything looked so unkept and I was really judgey about people's yards and gardens. Now half my yard was been taken over by blackberries and I can't keep up and I think might just let it be wild"

Lucky for me welsh cobs are not fussy eaters and are not averse to trimming hedges and fence lines back, plus all those weeds and plants the books assure you horses don't touch.

Everyone had siesta afternoons this weekend. The boys were sweating just grazing in the field. I did get quite a few yard projects completed, but aside from the normal mowing and garden maintenance, it was mostly things that will be more exciting come winter (floodlights for the paddocks, a bunch of drainage pipe added, a few truckloads of gravel spread in the paddocks and some fencing replaced. When I put it like that it sounds busier than it felt!).