Edgar is doing really great! He looks good and is now being leased by the neighbor girl Suzi.. She became a bit attached to him in his rehab-state so her parents are going to help cover some of his feed costs so that we can keep him for her to use this coming year as her 4H project!
I hauled him down to the fairgrounds this past weekend for a training day, it was a great experience for them both. Suzi is the one in pink. She is still learning to ride, I've taken her out to Shannon (my trainer friend) for a lesson and I haul Edgar down to another arena on Friday nights so she can get more ride time in on him. She is improving, as is he.. He will be a great walk/trot project for her this year. We are excited (well I know I am anyways).. it is fun watching them together, gives me warm fuzzies inside! :)
We've discovered that Oakley is incredibly frightened by the smell of duck!! I think I told the story about my brother sitting on Oakley earlier this summer and Derek held a duck up to Oakley's nose.. and Oakley FREAKED OUT! And I mean panicked.. He jumped, skipped, humped up, bucked, reared and bolted at the smell... Well Derek went out to the barn the other day and had his hunting gear on and Oakley again panicked and wouldnt let Derek anywhere near him.. Last night, in his regular work clothes, Oakley still is very spooked by Derek and doesnt want him touching him. So I think we have created a problem and Oakley has a very negative association with Derek and suprisingly, it is going to take a bit of effort for Derek to get Oakley calmed down around him! :( Very odd...
Willie has been up/down lately when I've ridden him. He HATES to be ridden in his paddock, he's a complete shit.. He will buck and rear, do anything to not have me ride him in his environment.. But then I hauled him out to Shannons and in her arena, he is as good as can be expected... Suzi was with me when he was being really good out at Shannons and when we got back home, she said "I think something is wrong with Willie".. I was concerned and said "is he acting weird in his stall, what do you see?" She said "He was being good!" LOL
This is Cooper (in orange) with his litter-mate Mace! Derek and Jim (the breeder) were able to take the boys out together a couple weeks ago, on the hunt for some pheasant down south of Eatonville. Unfortunately they did not get anything, but the 2-legged and 4-legged boys all had a great time together. Derek has been taking Cooper out for upland birds in our area, but nothing shot yet. They went out again this morning, so maybe they will bring home some dinner!!
Derek & Eric were able to get out together last week and shot quite a few! There are 11 ducks and 1 snow goose on that truck.. Cooper retrieved all but 3 of those birds. He still shows reluctancy, but hopefully with more birds over the winter, he will finally get over that BS! He LOVES to get out though...
Derek's work has been a bit slow the past few weeks, so he's been taking one day off each week and getting out to hunt.. Its not really by choice, but we figure he had a few vacation days saved up so might as well use them to go hunting since he was asked to take the days off anyways.
My birthday came and went, fairly uneventful.. :) Got myself a 2nd speeding ticket this year, the other day! I was really mad at myself.. because I've been really good about sticking close to the limits, but that day, I saw a beautiful sunrise through the trees and wanted to get past the trees to see it come up, so I was consciously speeding.. the one damn day I purposely speed is the day the police are waiting for idiots like me... so now I drive with my cruise control on.
We have not progressed any on the adoption issue. We are a bit in a lull about the whole thing, trying to re-evaluate if this foster-to-adopt route is the way we really want to go.. Not really is our conclusion. But to avoid paying a really high price to adopt, it might be our only option. So for now, we are just moving along with life until we feel the pull one direction or another to do something about it. We are just waiting for that family member or friend of the family type person to magically come along and provide a door for us to walk through on the adoption issue. ;)
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