Spring, back to normal

I've been pretty successful at not getting too far behind on trimming my horses now.  It feels good.  Right now, Kachina is due, but if I get even a week behind, she's not really going too long since I'm keeping on a 6 week schedule right now.  I haven't taken any recent pictures of the horses.  Our spring has been interesting.  After coming so early and really getting jumpstarted with our high 70 degree weather in mid March, it has totally slowed down.  The weather went back to a much more seasonal temperature, with some cool days and even frosts at night thrown in.  All completely normal.  The trees that were on the verge of leafing out just hung there for the last several weeks.  For 3 weeks now, I keep coming home expecting to see the new daffodils I planted under our business's sign to be flowering, but they haven't yet!  For that whole 3 weeks, they've been up with buds on, but they are taking their time.  I think they might have at least one flower tomorrow finally.

I've been trying to have "balance" which means riding horse once in a while, but once again, that has been extremely difficult.  This has been an extremely busy semester at school with exam after exam and many on Mondays and Tuesdays (which means I'm studying on weekends).  All this means that I haven't done anything with Griffin in over a month (aside from trims).  I rode Cody 2 weeks ago on a wonderful ride and I rode Chico today.  My ride with Chico was really nice, but I did get bucked off!  It was pretty warm today (65) and he's fat and out of shape.  He got sick of cantering (really we hadn't been cantering that much, since I didn't want to work him too hard), and the rascal decided he'd had enough and bucked me off.  It wasn't terribly hard bucking, but I cannot ride a bucking horse, so I came right off, landing on my feet then falling onto my butt.  I had a tight hold on the reins, determined not to let him get loose from me and run home.  I was successful, but I got rope burn for it.  I was so glad I'd ridden with my halter and lead rope, because I was able to immediately get to working him HARD on the ground.  He was huffing and puffing.  I got back on and we went right back over the spot where he'd bucked cantering again.  He didn't try anything this time.  I continued on asking him to trot and or canter, then stop immediately to a whoa and one-rein stop, just to remind him that I can stop him whenever I want.  Then we cantered circles in the field before I dropped the reins on his neck and relaxed and we walked home.  He was pooped after that.  Really, aside from the buck, he was a good boy.  His canter circles were really quite nice.  That was only the third time he's bucked me off, EVER and he's never once gotten away from me and been able to run home.  I don't think he has an issue with bucking, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't see it as a solution to solving what he doesn't like about what we are doing.  So I'm not worried about it.  But I was sure MAD when he tried it today!

So, no recent horse pictures, but here are a bunch from around our farm and house.  Enjoy!

One of our newest calves was born to this brand-new momma.  She's a pretty good momma.

I think this calf is so cute...but I think all the newborn calves are cute.  I think I like her white blaze.

My tulips are up and the phlox is flowering.  I love spring.

Kitty sees something in the grass.  What could it be?

Our first toad of the year!  My little helper wanted to pick it up, but it kept jumping away.  At first she got frustrated, but then she started laughing and squealing when his jumping startled her.