..it's in the air, it's everywhere...

Spring.

Tom & Henry are quite excited about the warmer, longer days.  More grass, more freedom, less udder cream.  They express their joy in one particular way - rampage!

 

Now you'll notice with a few of these shots, I am quite close, at one point I was diving for the fence to safety, and have broken the land speed record for fastest 100 metre sprint in wellies - through thick mud!

 

anyway, I risked life an limb to get these, so you don't have to.

 

enjoy.

 

 

 

 

...no shoes were lost during the filming of this sequence.

 

I make no apologies for the number of photos, Trakehners at liberty, that can't be beaten in my view.

...a little of what you fancy....

...does you good...

As the weather changes, from solid ground to wet and soft, from calm balmy hot days to windy and ferocious, from stifling to chilly, the horses are also adjusting.

To assist with this transition, lots of galloping about apparently is required.  In this sequence, the cats: Lemmy and Coco were diving under the hedge to safety leaving me and my wheelbarrow to our own devices!  Thanks x

Tom and Henry are quite clearly having a brilliant time. they have lots of grass and are well and happy.  we hope you and yours are having just as much fun xx

TCJpart49 Thundery Skies

MUD:

We sometimes complain about bad weather, the rain for example.  But these skies are often a wonderful kaleidoscope of watercolours.  And the light gives a moody effect to photos of horses.  And of course, if you can imagine lovely bays underneath, photos of the horses are actually quite beautiful.

The skies above our village are swirling and churning with weather, clouds of vapour rolling and changing colours from dove white to dark gunmetal.  Thundering in a palette too interesting to leave unnoticed.  The consequence of extreme weathers in particular lots of rain as we have had recently is mud, and of course horses like few things better than rolling about in it.

I use a rubber tipped hairbrush to remove the worst, and a secession of gradually softening bristles of a variety of brushes to get them sparkling again...or, more likely, to make a clean spot to be filled with a more recent application of the wet stuff - I expect it's good for the skin.

I almost had a bit of a tail-trimming disaster too. Stupidly I began a job in the raging wind I was unable to satisfactorily complete in one go since they wandered off in mid-chop...yes, both of them!!  Their tails looked hacked and uneven, and pure-bred Trakehners can only have perfectly Vidal'd tails in my book.  Getting them perfect took a second attempt, and their tails are a little shorter than I usually trim them, but at least they look like dressage stars now, not rocking horses!!

Now, no photo diary of Tom & Henry would be complete without lots of shots of their amazing bums!!  Tom's  bum is all dapples at the moment as you can see, and Henry's, well of course you must recognise it... so rounded and perfect...even covered in mud!!

They love this weather, they both roll a lot.  They pick a perfect spot and take it in turns to smother themselves in earth.

In the opposite camp, the cats stay indoors when it's raining, they have us light the fire, put their snugly blanket out and they curl up with Fergal, their sharky!!

And left here is Fergal, Mum bought him back from her holiday in South Africa.   They love it!