Sunday, March 25, 2012

Cranes, First Rides and a Surprise

Several days ago, my husband came back in from his walk and told me to go outside.  Puzzled, I did and heard an odd noise, sort of like a bad version of coyote howls and yips combined with an odd "whoop, whoop." 

"What is that?"  I asked.

"Cranes--hundreds of them," he told me. 

It appears that the cranes are heading back to a region north of us known as "the Flathead."  Most of it is reservation and tribal lands, but there are also wetland preserves and Flathead lake there.  I suspect the cranes stopped by here before heading up to Nine Pipes or Flathead lake.  It looks like spring really is around the corner.

Rocket and Scarlet
Friday, we took the horses on our first ride of the season.  Nothing too long--just a chance to get us working with them again.  Now, at the risk of jinxing our good luck, let me say the horses were delighted to get going.  Most of the problems we experienced in October seemed more or less gone.  It's not that they didn't try anything, we just knew how to counter them quickly.  For example, Rocket will balk and start going backwards.  I double her around and have her continue to go backwards, but backward the way I want to go.  She took my cue and turned back around and I had no more problems.

Today, I had a pleasant surprise.  I hadn't checked the duck/goose houses for a few days and found 3 clutches of eggs-- 8 duck and 2 goose eggs in all.  I packed them all up and am getting ready to put them in an incubator.  In a month, I'll have ducklings and goslings for sale.

2 comments:

  1. Cool that they've processed that you are alpha and are cooperating! Any chance I can get to say hi to them over Miscon weekend for scritches and pets?

    I think some horses, especially mares, actually do like doing their jobs. Especially if the humans keep it fun for them. The only sour mares I encountered when riding training horses for Gregg were ones who'd been mishandled.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Joyce!

    Yeah, we're 30 minutes outside of town, but if we've got time, I'm sure you can see the silly horses.

    ReplyDelete

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