this and that, blah blah

Another crazy day. I spent the first 6.5 hours of my day delivering the 1-week-old Mallards to their new owner, who lives several hours away (yeesh, the things I do!) It is soooo nice to get those little stinkers out of here, I was having to clean their brooder every day. I think several hundred chicks are less work than 10 ducklings!

It was 100 degrees when I got back home, ugh. I made the rounds to check the critters, crashed on the couch for a half hour (driving wipes me out), then busted out some caffeine and put in a couple hours drawing. A.C. and crew came over this evening to pick up three 8-week old Rosecomb pullets (1 BBRed with bad comb, 1 too-dark Brassy Back, and 1 green-legged Blue Brassy Back). I do believe these are going to turn into some extremely spoiled pets! :-)

E.H. came over after that and we had a FANTASTIC riding lesson. I suppose this must be about the same as when parents think their kids are brilliant, but I think my horse is brilliant. She had been fine with me riding her but she didn't understand what I wanted as far as forward movement. So today E rode and I worked Shylah from the ground. I'm pretty sure the light bulb came on, by the end she was responding quite well to E's cues and I didn't have to do much encouragement from the ground. Shylah was super lazy today though. She did so well walking around we decided to go ahead and try a trot. I had E go ahead and cue her to trot, and when Shylah looked at me like "uh, do WHAT?" I cued her from the ground and she immediately took off at a trot. No bucking, no acting stupid. She was completely awesome, and E says she has a really smooth trot. So I think we'll keep working with walk/trot and direction changes for a while, then canter, and somewhere in there some yielding, backing, etc. What fun! We'll do it again tomorrow! (unless it's too hot) :-)

Tomorrow I will be ordering frames for a couple of the Standard drawings. I really like framing, it seems to be a good way to "finish" the artwork, and if done right it makes the artwork look even better! I have some interesting ideas for the two I'm framing tomorrow. What a tease, I can't even show them to you! ;-)

I'm really tired.