We have spent almost every weekend since we moved here working on projects and we decided that we need to start taking at least one day a week to just have some fun. This past Sunday was full of good things. We drove around doing some sight seeing, went to Michael's where I purchased my first Project Life goodies, ate lunch at Manatee Fish Camp, helped unload some donated hay for SHHS, drove to Sun City and got groceries and ate at Qdoba which prompted me to find recipes to duplicate what we ate there. I think we crammed about five weekends worth of fun into one day, and it felt great even if I was exhausted afterwards!
Miss Bella does this all day long. Finds an object and then does the nose, neck feet process.
Bella plays so hard, it is not surprising that when she crashes, it looks like this:
It's rare that I can grab a shot of all seven of them!
We are all still enjoying the cooler weather. Savannah likes to come and hang out with me when I am on the golf cart.
Chevy will wait until she is gone, then he likes to come and hang out for a bit.
Gypsy and Hanovi like to hang out with me any time they can.
And the ponies are getting to the point where they want to be near me too!
They are all so awesome!
When Gypsy came here, her legs and feet were in her "no zone". I have been working on touching her legs and feet since she arrived. In the past month I decided to get a bit more serious, with a goal of perhaps being able to get her feet trimmed with the next farrier visit. She has moved along so well that today as I was scooping, each time I just got close she would do this;
I am so proud of her progress! She worked so hard to get here!
The ponies used to only come running at feeding time. Today, they had to be called three times before they came to eat. But playtime was a different story:
Being around the horses reminds me of raising children, the days are long and the years are so fast. Or at least the months are. I can't believe we have had the horses here for eight months now. It seems like they just got here in some ways, and it seems we have always had horses in some ways. Each of the horses has their own issues, and each is moving forward at their own pace. I see progress in all of them. Some of it can seem very minor to me, because it is moving along pretty slowly, but it is still there.
Bella has been working on her halter training and being more respectful so I have been spending as much friendly time with her, moving her feet around by using the carrot stick and then playing with her in fun ways. Sophie decided that looked like fun a few days in, so she usually joins us.
We spend lots of time having fun with these tubs that Robin gave us, and as long as I switch it up quite often and throw in treats randomly, Bella loves it. I stack them all different ways and move her around them and then let her knock the towers over and move the tubs around by rolling them or scooting them.
Sophie sometimes gets nervous about all of the movement but she will come back if she gets spooked. Mia would move far, far away at first and then she stuck around a bit closer and watched. On Saturday she made a big leap for her. While I was waiting for Bella to finish drinking water, I was setting up the tubs and heard someone behind me and realized it was Mia. As soon as she looked at me, I retreated and she went to the tubs to play with them until Bella came over. For the past few days, she joins right in and plays alongside of Bella.
She even tells Bella what to do at times, which Bella is not used to.
It is really neat to watch them work together to solve the puzzles, and it is incredible to have Mia stay near me for so long, while there is lots of movement and interaction.
I have been taking steps with Sophie, moving towards haltering her also. She is people friendly as a whole, so lots of approach and retreat and friendly game with her right now.
And last but not least, Savannah is working so hard to not be bracy and dominant around humans. She is seeking me out more and more, like today when I was putting out hay. I sat and just hung out with her trying to be as soft and quiet as possible and she little by little moved closer and closer to me and went softer and softer the longer she stayed.
I am so proud of all of them!
You would think I fell off the face of the earth, if you were trying to see what we were up to by following this blog! I am not sure why, but I just can't seem to find a way to consistently fit blogging into our lives now that we have a house and seven horses. I know how much I enjoy reading blogs though, so I'm going to still try and blog even if it is randomly.
We were so thrilled to usher in the New Year by going to a party at Rich and Donna's house. We had not seem them in so long, and I have missed Donna so much, that it was an extra special treat. I did not take pictures if you can believe it, but Donna has some on her blog here: Florida Picklers
