Happy Halloween!!!!!

Trick or Treat!!

Happy Hacking

The sun was shining again today so wolfie and I ventured out for another hack.  It was a good bit colder today and Wolfie was very sharp.  It also seemed to be a day for people to be hiding behind their hedges in their gardens, snapping branches and sparodically using their chain saws.  Wolfie was literally jumping out of his skin.  We rode one of the same paths we went along yesterday and it looked completely different, more leaves on the ground from the trees and they were much crunchier to walk on.  Every time a leaf blew and landed on him he leapt in the air.  We just walked, spooked, leapt about a bit around a circuit and returned home along a path which Wolfie is always very spooky on, regardless of the weather.  I don't know what it is about this path, there's really not anything to see on it which would make it seem 'scarier' than any of the other tracks we ride on, but as soon as he steps onto it, I can feel him tense.  He's bolted with me a few times on it and we've almost ended up in the river a couple of times.  Today was no exception, except he managed not to take off, just leapt off all four feet in every direction.  We were riding along that track last summer when he bolted.  It's a twisty path and you can't see what is around the corners.  I was trying to stop him when we careered around a corner and straight in front of us on the path was a Nun out for a stroll.  The Schoenstatt is just near the Glen which is a retreat and Nuns live there.  I don't know who got the bigger fright, the Nun or Wolfie as she was dressed in full habit.  She managed to jump into one side of the hedge and Wolfie leapt into the opposite side as he galloped passed at full pelt with me shouting 'I'm so sorry'.  I don't know what the penance would be for trampling a Nun but I think it would certainly be greater than the 7 years bad luck for breaking a mirror.  We stopped today on the way home so he could pick some rosehips and hacked back along the road and he was very good.

All-cheering Plenty, with her flowing horn, Led yellow Autumn, wreath'd with nodding corn. Robert Burns Brigs of Ayr.

I like Autumn.  I love riding when it is cool and crisp, seeing the changing colours of the leaves and hearing the sound of dry, crisp leaves underfoot.  We haven't had many days like these so far, I didn't manage to ride Wolfie during the week until Friday due to the torrential rain.  Yesterday, the sun was shining, so despite being totally loaded with the cold and probably should have spent the day indoors, I took Wolfie out for a hack.  He was delighted to be out, we had a lovely time and it's rides like this that make you forget the awful, tiring, hard days when you are cold, soaked to the skin and wading around in mud.  It completely restores your spirit and strength.  Everybody seemed to be in a good mood yesterday, the car drivers all slowed down and were smiling and waving, people out for walks wanted to stop and pat Wolfie, amazing what a little sunshine brings. 

It's really hard to hold the video camera and ride.  I'm always worried I'm going to drop the camera.  I had to stop as there were too many people around that we might have crashed into.  Obviously I never tire of looking at Wolfie's ears, but it would be nice to have some photographs or videos of us riding.  I have tried to video a couple of our schooling sessions but I don't have a tripod and tieing the camera to the fence with baling twine doesn't work (I filmed the ducks in a puddle in the field for a full 40 minutes the last time I tried!).  I will need to speak nicely to someone to come out with us one day and take some pictures.

The next clip is Wolfie crossing the bridge that he has always had difficulty with, mainly due to a few frights at it.  No hesitation today, but you can see at the end of the video, that a crazy cyclist actually followed at his heels across the bridge, neither Wolfie or I realised he was there,  once at the other side, he bellowed 'excuse me' and cycled around us, Wolfie, bless him, just stopped dead and kind of looked at him.  Would it really have cost him to wait, one minute for Wolfie to get off the bridge before he crossed, it's a narrow bridge and there really is no room for error on it.  

Happy Days

Wolfie trying on his new cosy winter stable rug

Wolfie is back to having his feed buckets placed inside an old tyre in an effort to stop him kicking the bucket over and trampling his feed into his bed.  It's not too bad if he is on a hard bare surface and he can just eat it off the ground, but it gets lost in the bedding in the stable.  He coups it over, paws it about and then looks at me as if to say 'I don't have any dinner'.  Plus the balancer he is on is expensive and I don't want him wasting it.  He can still get the rubber bucket out of the tyre without too much  effort, I wonder if one of the buckets designed to fit inside a tyre would be better.  I could feed him in a bucket that fits to the door, but he doesn't like them and I prefer him to eat from the floor at every opportunity considering he has to eat from small holed nets.