Gibby's Work

Okay, so I am trying to get Gibby to lunge.  This is a really hard thing without a round pen.  Today, I actually had my niece on him, my daughter walking next to his head and me holding a lunge line.  He did that but he was pretty wigged out by the whole thing. 

I tried a couple of different bits on him, but the shanked bit just freaked him out.  I think someone did a number on him with a bit like that.  He got very frightened and wanted to charge around.  I just went ahead and put the copper snaffle back on his bridle.  I could almost hear him thinking, "Wow, someone listened to me."  He tried hard today.  It was a good day.

The kids had some activities today.  We dropped our son off at school to catch the bus to a special XC practice, drove to town to drop off our daughter for her fundraiser, and then we went to run.  I ran a 5 k in 30 minutes.  It might have even been less, but my only watch was a regular analog watch and I forgot to look at the seconds.  This was my goal time when I started running a few months ago, and I reached it faster than I expected.  I hope to get even faster by December, when I want to run a race with a friend. 

The sweet potato slips I put in the random piles of compost (around the ti, near the greenhouse) are really flourishing, which is nice to see.  Thing 1 and Thing 2 (temporarily named lambs) are doing well, too.  One of them is a bit more tentative than the other, but, in general, they are well.  I think Audrey is relieved she had twins this time - much easier to keep track of than triplets.  I think one of her daughter's from the earlier birth is missing her.  She always liked to sleep right next to Audrey and now I have Audrey in the lamb pen.  It's been so sunny - the seeds I planted in the greenhouse are already sprouting.  It's good to be getting back on track with the garden and the greenhouse.  I hope that this coming year will have a better mix of sun and rain - instead of the basically unrelentingly poor weather we've had up her for the last 12 months.  Almost nothing grew for so long. 

What's weird, weather-wise, is that the two flowering cherry trees down in Mountain View are starting to put out flowers - which is not supposed to happen until March.  I think the trees felt like I do - summer felt like a slightly warmer winter and this finally feels like summer.  I hope that doesn't hurt the trees, because the relative cold is coming soon.