Gather round all your clowns

Today is raining again but yesterday was sunny and gorgeous. Sovey and I headed out in his silly bitless without criss-cross straps.  I don't know if you can see it in this photo.  The one leather strap goes down and attaches to the noseband.  The other is short and attaches to nothing.  We love it!!!!  Sovey has been perfect for two rides like this.

On Thursday, Pie was acting funny in the pasture, watching something to our south.  On our ride, I saw that our farm market neighbor had erected their yearly circus tent.  I didn't take Pie over to see, but Sovey wanted to investigate yesterday.  You can see the orange tent in the distance.  The Pennsylvania Turnpike is in between our farm and their farm.  Sovey was very well behaved even though trucks were whizzing by us. 

After the tent we encountered two loud, barking dogs. I circled them in red and they look little and far away, but they are large and loud. The neighbors put an underground fence to keep the dogs on their property, but they put the flags out on our land to add more grass to their "yard".  Thanks a lot. I love all dogs and they crack me up when they are determined to bark like crazy - it is like they enjoy hearing how loud they can get.  Horses don't always find it funny and I do think it takes some nerve to put their boundary flags out on our land.   Sovey was scared at first, but then he walked right up to all their noisiness and looked down at them in a very condescending manner, like, "You two aren't so big. I could squish you with my big hoof if I wanted to.  I won't, but really, could you please pipe down a little. You are hurting my big ears with all that noise."

I love this photo of Sovey's fuzzy ears, but it looks like an optical illusion because I don't cut a bridle path into either of the boys manes/foretops.  It looks like Sovey might have his ears back and the foretop is coming over the browband, but in reality, Sovey has his ears pointed to the barn and is looking and listening to Pie screaming.  Pie hasn't figured out that Foggy is there with him. Foggy is so good and quietly grazes while we ride.  

Here is the gorgeous spring view I had while I grazed Sovereign after our ride.  This photo is of Foggy-boy and our lovely Forsythia and Maizie's tire swing in the foreground.  Sigh.

And another picture of our wagon shed and our license plate collection.  I posted photos of this in May of 2009 and my mother had a fit.  She thinks it looks so trashy.  Aesthetics! I ADORE this view in a historical/country/dusty farmer sort of way.  We have license plates from 1916!  Imagine my delight when I discovered that my all time favorite Black Crowes song, Wiser Time, has a video that starts with a wall of license plates and the song is about that very essence of what I feel when I see our lovely wagon shed. And, bonus, the lyrics to that song are so true - on a good day (I know it ain't every day) we can part the sea.  Sovey and I had a good day!