How hypocritical !!

A great session with Remy today. Continuing on from previous post, letting him extend his neck more,he settled really well and felt light, soft and well balanced. We had some lovely trot transitions on the right rein, he finds it easier to keep his balance on this rein. He's not as consistent on the left rein, more difficult to keep soft and then tensing into the trot transition. It comes back to making sure that he's relaxed and accepting on the outside rein which makes it easy to soften the inside with a light lift of the rein. Making sure, also that he's really using the inside hind and keeping his inside shoulder up. When it's correct I can feel him lift underneath me and the trot transition is much softer and in better balance.

We managed to sell 5 of our young chooks today, 4 hens and a rooster, gone to a good home and not in the pot. A relief to Jim as we have far too many. He bred them for the freezer, but I've grown so fond of them I can't bear for him to kill them.
It's Jims birthday today, so we had a big juicy steak for tea with caramalised onions and a red wine sauce. It was delicious - how's that for hypocrisy!

Eggscellent

Well, it's the 1st Jan and another year unfolds. Our two original chooks have been moulting for the past couple of months and so stopped laying. Our new chooks are still a little young and hopefully will start laying in the spring. Of the two originals, Boo is now looking resplendent in her new finery and today produced the first egg of the year!! Good for her!

New chooks

We went for some new chooks today. Our happy little band has been depleted and they're a little lost in their huge pen so we felt it was time to give them some playmates.
We thought we'd get 3 point of lay hens (3-4 months old) to start laying in the spring -  but, best laid plans and all that, we came away with 4 young hens and a young cockerel heading for the abattoir that we just couldn't leave!
So we have Jill, black and white Light Sussex, Brin, a beautiful brindle colour, Golden Wyandotte, Buffy, Buff Orpington, Sindy, a lovely cinnamon coloured Buff Orpington x Indian Game Bird and finally Ginger, a beautiful 6 month old pure bred Buff Orpington cockerel.
Here they are settling into their new home

 and our chooks keeping their distance

 They're all in the hut together tonight and I hope they're all intact tomorrow!!

2 days in a row.....

........it's been sunny and warm. Took Remy up to the school again, it was quite windy this morning so just had a lungeing session, moving him around the school. We practiced the halting today. He's very willing to walk off, but not so keen on halting, but today was better and he was more focussed. We also worked over the trotting poles and weaved in and out of the jump wings which helped to keep his attention. A good session. Jim took some piccys.

We spent most of the afternoon putting the wire on our super duper chook pen. Hopefully we'll finish it tomorrow and we can let them in. I think they're going to love it.